Someone here may have a better response than that one, which is kind of based on Calculus (a function must be continuous and differentiable everywhere, that stuff).
The Myth that the parties swapped sides was started by Democrats trying to cover up their racist history. Of the 20 Southern Democrat Senators that voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and The Voting Rights Act of 1965, only one switched parties, Sen. Strom Thurmond.
Sen. Strom Thurmond did move to the Republican Party in 1964 but that was because he was angry at the Democrat leadership, not because the Republican Party suddenly embraced his racism. All of the other Democrats stayed in the House or Senate until they retired or were defeated by other Democrats in elections.
The no vote in the Senate consisted of 78% Democrats. Look it up for yourself. That is what I did. You can Google it. Google The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and The Voting Rights Act of 1965, find the list of the "Yea and Nay" votes and then look at the dates the Southern Democrats served in Congress. I looked at the Congressional record of all of the racist Democrats and found that they all had a long record within their party and never did anything but attempt to hide their racist leopard spots behind lies.
In every vote in both legislative chambers, a larger percentage of Republicans voted Yea for Civil Rights, than Democrats.
Democrats lie and say the Parties switched with the so called "Southern Strategy." Let's remember the late Robert C. Byrd was a lifelong Democrat, who was a recruiter for the Klan while in his 20s and 30s, he rose to the title of "Kleagle and Exalted Cyclops" of his local KKK chapter before becoming the Democrat Party's leader in the Senate. Senator Byrd used the "N" word in a TV interview in 2001 at the same time he said that racial problems were behind us and the only problem was that we keep talking about it too much.
"And as I reflect on the full sweep of his 92 years, it seems to me that his life bent towards justice, Like the Constitution he tucked in his pocket, like our nation itself, Robert Byrd possessed that quintessential American quality, and that is a capacity to change, a capacity to learn, a capacity to listen, a capacity to be made more perfect." - Barack Obama Eulogizing KKK leader Democrat Robert ByrdBill Clinton's mentor was the heinously racist Sen. William Fulbright. President Bill Clinton eulogizing his former mentor and friend, called Senator Fulbright a lifelong student and teacher and credited him with making the world a better place. Fulbright was a Democrat Congressman, a Senator, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and had the distinction along with the majority of his Democrat colleagues in the Senate for filibustering against the landmark Civil Right Act of 1964 and voted against it. He opposed the 1965 Voting Rights Act and in 1968 he voted against the Fair Housing Act. Bill Clinton was an intern and then a clerk in the office of Senator Fulbright from 1964 to 1967 while Senator Fulbright was voting against Black Freedom.
And Al Gore's father, Sen. Al Gore Sr. was the same sort of ugly racist that was for segregation, filibustered and voted against The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and The Voting Rights Act of 1965.
So much for your ideology shift between parties! It never happened. Democrat apologists and revisionists lie!
You have to ask yourself why is the Democratic Party not labeled a hate group? Democrats were the slaveholders before the Civil War; they founded the KKK during Reconstruction to retain their power and they imposed poll taxes and literacy tests to prevent blacks from voting. Remember all the Confederate Statues being pulled down were put there by Democrats to honor Democrats. That is Democrats still trying to hide their own racist past. Not one single Confederate was a Republican. Not one Republican was a slave owner.
To this day Democrats continue to oppose school choice vouchers that would allow minority children to escape the failing inner city public schools. The first thing the Obama administration did when taking office was to repeal the vouchers for Washington, DC poor and minority school children, who had been using public school money vouchers to pay for private school tuition. Gun Control is used by Democrats in the big cities to put Black men into prison, who only want to defend themselves in crime filled streets. To me, this history and these positions of the Democratic Party are the very essence of a hate group.
Watch this video from Carol Swain, Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University titled Why Did the Democratic South Become Republican?:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiprVX4os2Y
Read this article from the National Review by Mona Charen. The political parties never "switched", that's a lie:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/386257/myth-republican-racism-mona-charen
Dinesh D'Souza Debunks the Myth of the "Switch" between Republicans and Democrat Party
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol7OMGBDMao&feature=youtu.be
The Democrats split over the Vietnam War and LBJ's guns and butter policy so he could fund both the War and his Great Society nonsense. The liberal McGovern/Kennedy wing of the party seized control between 1968 and 1972. That's when conservative Southerners started to vote Republican.
The subject of the "party switch" story has come up at dinner several times in recent weeks (since daughter home from college). Both have been looking for how to understand it. You have explained it so well! Thanks again!
That’s a great post, bookmarked.