The article states that John Kennedy was more conservative than many current Republicans. What were the differences between Republicans and Democrats between 1950 & ‘70? I know that a higher percentage of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. What were the other differences between the parties? When and why did the Democrats become more liberal? I used google, to find that information, but that didn’t help.
Phil,
UAW and UMW pretty much ran the Democrat party in the 1950s and 60s.
Teamsters (not in AFL-CIO) often went Republican. Building Trades occasionally went Republican. NEA controlled many Rockefeller Republicans. In Illinois NEA controlled most Republicans. Republican Sec of Education Lynn Martin and Republican Congressman and Presidential candidate John Anderson, both of Rockford were controlled by NEA. From Gov Stratton to Gov Ryan, Teachers unions controlled Republican Governors.
Don’t blame the current teachers pension crisis on Madigan. The blame falls directly on Ogilvie-Thompson-Edgar-Ryan who bought teachers union support.
Gov Dan Walker was actually considered anti-union.
A few years ago there was a book written that posed the theory that the Democrat party “snapped” when President Kennedy was killed. From then on a faction in the party came to believe that America was “wrong”. Also seeing civil rights protesters being beaten on the Evening News along with the muddle of the early Vietnam War helped to confirm their ideas about America being “wrong”.
This faction grew in size but was not the dominate faction in the 1968 Democrat Convention. Even though they lost they were able to push through the “McGovern Rules” so that by the time of the 1972 convention they were a dominating power within the Party.
By then the parties slowly changed from being basically regional “political clubs” in which there “was not a dime’s worth of difference between them” to today’s more national in scope and coherent parties. That is why there are very few “liberal Republicans” and “conservative Democrats” in the political sense of say from 1910-1950.