Thanks for posting. We’ll need this to educate the uninformed these next few days/weeks with the Kayne and others raising the awareness.
Here is Dinesh D’Souza on ‘The Big Switch’.
Dinesh D’Souza Debunks the Myth of the “Switch” between Republicans and Democrat Party
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol7OMGBDMao
7 interesting minutes and a must if you want to know how ‘The Big Switch’ occurred.
Okay, now you are getting irritating. Yes, it makes perfect sense if you bother looking at it. The Democrats were the party of Jim Crow for decades leading up to the 1960s, and Republicans were always trying to expand the black voting franchise because blacks had reliably been voting Republican since 1865.
Democrats were minimizing their influence by employing Jim Crow tactics, "Grandfather Clauses", Poll Taxes, and any other method of which they could think to minimize black influence. Republicans didn't like it (and at this time, "Republicans" were basically big city Corporate fat-cat Liberals, like the Democrats are now.) and so Republicans pushed for the 24th amendment,(Stupidest law ever passed.) because they realized it would give them about another 10 million votes or so if they could eliminate the tax requirement for voting.
The Republicans successfully pushed through the 24th amendment, and this more or less spelled the end for attempts to interfere with black votes, especially in the South.
Into this situation steps Lyndon Johnson who was a very Racist Southern Democrat, but who was also a very canny politician and no one's fool when it came to this election business. He implemented a plan to bribe this new cohort of black voters by giving them money from the Federal Government. He called this program "The Great Society", (because let's face it, who ever honestly describes a bribe as a bribe?) and he used it to successfully recruit black voters to the Democrat party.
This is from Memory, but I believe that within 8 years, he had switched blacks from voting mostly for Republicans to voting heavily for Democrats. This is the point at which Democrats were described as being "for the poor", while Republicans were being described as being "for the rich."
Lyndon Johnson created perhaps one of the most successful political stunts in American History, and the Republicans have been screwed over as a result of it ever since.
Over time, these Wealthy Urban Liberals slowly gravitated over to the Democrat Party, and Republican ranks became filled mostly with working class whites.
So the parties did, after a fashion, mostly switch in the 1960s, but some of the original constituencies remained in both.
Go to a National Education Association conference, an NAACP gathering, a meeting of the American Historical Association, or to a college campus and ask people you meet to identify the one who said, “American boys and girls shall sit, side by side, at any school – public or private – with no regard paid to the color of their skin. Segregation, discrimination, and prejudice have no place in America.” It’s a safe bet that no one will give the correct answer that it was Richard Nixon.
I think the listing is good, but we need to flesh out the events of the 70s-90s, because the left will counter that Southern Democrats became Republicans during that time and the Republicans became the party of racism. That is a lie. Republicans were always for equality of treatment, never for a quota system, which is not equality, and in keeping with MLK’s positions. A good number of Southern Democrats did end up switching to the GOP, but the reasons were national defense and economic, not racial. If they came to the GOP, it was on the GOP’s terms, and no Democrats came because the GOP adopted Democrat systemic racism. Ever.
A small number of former racists, like Strom Thurmond, switched, but never again pushed the agenda they had as Democrats. The majority of racists stayed with the Democrats (Robert Byrd, Fulbright, LBJ, George Wallace).
Republicans are terrible at framing a debate and explaining history. Instead, they apologize for the history of Democrats.
Explain to me how there was a switch, but then Kennedy still is the greatest democrat?
The only real switch was when Republicans voted for Kennedy. Democrats staid democrats.
Bookmark
Excellent. What might also be telling is the history of pro-abortion legislation - who supported it and when. Did those supporters also “switch sides”?
Thank you for posting that list, nice to have it all in one place.
Why Did the Democratic and Republican Parties Switch Platforms?
During the 1860s, Republicans, who dominated northern states, orchestrated an ambitious expansion of federal power, helping to fund the transcontinental railroad, the state university system and the settlement of the West by homesteaders, and instating a national currency and protective tariff. Democrats, who dominated the South, opposed these measures. After the Civil War, Republicans passed laws that granted protections for African Americans and advanced social justice; again, Democrats largely opposed these expansions of power.
Sound like an alternate universe? Fast forward to 1936. Democratic president Franklin Roosevelt won reelection that year on the strength of the New Deal, a set of Depression-remedying reforms including regulation of financial institutions, founding of welfare and pension programs, infrastructure development and more. Roosevelt won in a landslide against Republican Alf Landon, who opposed these exercises of federal power.
So, sometime between the 1860s and 1936, the (Democratic) party of small government became the party of big government, and the (Republican) party of big government became rhetorically committed to curbing federal power. How did this switch happen?
Eric Rauchway, professor of American history at the University of California, Davis, pins the transition to the turn of the 20th century, when a highly influential Democrat named William Jennings Bryan blurred party lines by emphasizing the government's role in ensuring social justice through expansions of federal power — traditionally, a Republican stance. [How Have Tax Rates Changed Over Time?] Republicans didn't immediately adopt the opposite position of favoring limited government. "Instead, for a couple of decades, both parties are promising an augmented federal government devoted in various ways to the cause of social justice," Rauchway wrote in a 2010 blog post for the Chronicles of Higher Education. Only gradually did Republican rhetoric drift to the counterarguments. The party's small-government platform cemented in the 1930s with its heated opposition to the New Deal.
But why did Bryan and other turn-of-the-century Democrats start advocating for big government? According to Rauchway, they, like Republicans, were trying to win the West. The admission of new western states to the union in the post-Civil War era created a new voting bloc, and both parties were vying for its attention.
Democrats seized upon a way of ingratiating themselves to western voters: Republican federal expansions in the 1860s and 1870s had turned out favorable to big businesses based in the northeast, such as banks, railroads and manufacturers, while small-time farmers like those who had gone west received very little. Both parties tried to exploit the discontent this generated, by promising the little guy some of the federal largesse that had hitherto gone to the business sector. From this point on, Democrats stuck with this stance — favoring federally funded social programs and benefits — while Republicans were gradually driven to the counterposition of hands-off government.
From a business perspective, Rauchway pointed out, the loyalties of the parties did not really switch. "Although the rhetoric and to a degree the policies of the parties do switch places," he wrote, "their core supporters don't — which is to say, the Republicans remain, throughout, the party of bigger businesses; it's just that in the earlier era bigger businesses want bigger government and in the later era they don't."
In other words, earlier on, businesses needed things that only a bigger government could provide, such as infrastructure development, a currency and tariffs. Once these things were in place, a small, hands-off government became better for business.