Home » The Democrats were the Party of the Ku Klux Klan and Slavery
The Democrats were the Party of the Ku Klux Klan and Slavery
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Researched by Thomas DeMichelePublished - February 9, 2017 Last Updated - March 31, 2021
The Democratic Party’s Dark Roots of Slavery and the KKK
How to Confirm that While the Democrats Used to Be the Party of the Solid South Conservatives, that is No Longer True Today
The KKK and slavery both have their roots in the Democratic party. However, the southern bloc conservatives (“the solid south”) have increasingly favored the Republican party over time. Thus, today the faction who once supported the KKK and slavery now mostly supports the Republican Party. Given this, the old “the Democrats were the party of the KKK and slavery” talking point, while true, is often used in misleading ways.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
TIP: What I mean specifically is a little complex, but in summary, the solid south region of the US used to be controlled by the Democratic party. However, today it is controlled by the Republican party. You can see this in the voting map below by comparing say 1860 to 1968 to 2008. Representatives of that region, and the voter base of that region, and the solid south socially conservative voting bloc (which together with their ideological platform I am calling a “faction”) ended up, on average, favoring the Republican party over time (as one can see on a voting map over time in the graphic below). This switch was partly made as the parties changed (specifically as the Democrats became more socially progressive), and the switch also changed the parties (notable changes being less social conservatism in the Democratic party and more pro south/pro rural planks in the Republican party). The result is that a lot has changed over time and even switched between parties. Importantly for this page, a major switch was the switching of the conservative solid south’s allegiance, to the degree they took their platform and traditions with them is its own topic… but at the very least, it is hard to fully equate the Democratic party of today (now dominated by citied liberals, neoliberals, and social liberal progressives) with the Democratic party of yesterday (which had the weight of the southern bloc behind it and less citied and progressive liberals depending on the era). All this to say, while the Democratic Party did disband and became the confederacy in the 1860s, and it was for sure “the party of the KKK and slavery,” a lot has changed over time. And, while the story is a detailed history lesson of immigrants, progressives becoming so powerful the Republican conservatives began to lose power, and shifting alliances and factions, the proof that it did happen is in the voting map.
Why It Doesn’t Make Sense to Equate Modern Democrats With the Old Southern Democrats
The Democrats, formally the anti-Federalists, had an aversion to aristocracy from the late 1700s to the progressive era.
That truism led to the southern conservatives of the solid south like John C. Calhoun and “small government” liberals like Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Martin Van Buren allying in the same party for most of U.S. history.
Today the solid south, and figures like Jeff Sessions, are in an alliance in the big tent of the Republican Party (they are not generally supporting progressive liberal Democrats these days). This was as much a response to the growing progressiveness of the Democratic Party (think FDR and Kennedy) as anything.
One simple way to confirm this is to look at the factions of Lincoln’s time. There were four. They were:
The Northern liberal Whig/Republicans,
The Nativist Know-Nothing [sometimes] allies of the Whig/Republicans,
The Southern Democrats and their Northern allies (who supported slavery), and
The Free Soil [sometimes] allies of the Democrats who took a “libertarian” like position.
Today’s Democrats are more like socially liberal Whig/Republicans (the northern party for government favored in the cities), libertarians are like Free Soilers (they wanted “small government” to solve social issues), Trumpians are like Nativist Know-Nothings (they cared little about slavery but wanted the immigrants out), and Southern Democrats (the pro-slavery Confederate South) are like the modern Southern conservative Republicans.
The current parties are thus:
Social Liberals and Neoliberals (favored in the North and cities) vs. Social Conservatives and Neoliberal Conservatives AKA Neocons (the big tent Republican).
Sure, Gore, Bill Clinton, and even Byrd stayed with the party after 1964, as did many southern politicians, but this doesn’t mean much. The switch (marked by Thurmond but hardly limited to him) happened slowly over time following Civil Rights 1964 and Voting Rights 1965, not immediately.
Specifically, the switch (of the solid south joining the Republicans) happened from the 1960s to the 1990s and beyond as new members came in under a different party and the voter base shifted slowly over time.
Today we can see that the solid south votes Republican and puts Republicans in Congress. If we aren’t clear we can ask ourselves, “which party today is popular in the south and supports the waving of the confederate rebel flag today?” If we can’t figure it out, we can look at the images below.
In the 1860 election, the North and Coasts were in one party, the Solid South in another, the border state represented a middle ground between the pro-slavery and progressive anti-slavery stance. This should give you an idea of why we say “the parties switched”, and what it means that Lincoln was a moderate conservative AND socially liberal Republican (but not a Know Nothing).
Clearly, the country has never been fully polarized, even at its most polarized.
A map showing realigning elections and Presidents who represent major changes in the U.S. parties.
The Other Part of the Story, the Roosevelts and Progressives
It used to be that both parties had a liberal and progressive wing. Today, after Teddy leaving the Republican party to run as a progressive in 1912, things have changed. Today the Republicans don’t have a prominent progressive wing.
Essentially, the progressives overtook the Democratic Party, and Conservatives overtook the Republican Party, from the Civil War to the modern era as each party’s position on “big government” changed.
Another way to phrase this is that the conservative coalition and new deal coalition used to denote reaching across the aisle to form an inter-party coalition, now these terms are essentially emblematic of the modern Republican and Democratic parties respectively.
In sum, we can say that originally, “both parties had progressive and conservative factions, and now they don’t,” but the details are a little more complex than that.
Furthermore, we should note, that while the KKK is emblematic of extreme social conservatism, they hardly represent the majority sentiment of either party in any era.[8]
TIP: A Key to understanding this story is “the Southern strategy,” the video below will help explain “the 20th century reversal” which saw the south go from Democrat to Republican. Knowing this part of the story will help the rest of the story make sense as we trace the different factions of Democrats from anti-Federalists founders, to the many different types of Democrats of the early 1800’s, to the factions of the late 1800’s, to the factions of the early 1900’s and World War eras, to the factions of the 1960’s to 1990’s, to the factions of today. Both the Democratic and Republican parties have changed considerably in those times, and at no point have all the factions of either party been on the same page.
THE BASICS: The Civil War era slavery supporting Confederates were mainly Solid SouthSocially ConservativeSouthern Democrats. The KKK was a Confederate faction that arose during Reconstruction and grew out of the Anti-Federalist movement and Democratic party. Today, that same socially conservative small government ideology is found in the Republican Party, and the Solid South votes Republican. “The Solid South Switch” happened slowly over time, but was notably spurred on by Progressive Liberal Democrats and their Southern Progressive allies when they got LBJ to pass Civil Rights 1964 and Voting Rights 1965. The KKK never stopped existing in this time, but it did “change parties.” These facts should not be confused to mean “the entire South is comprised of radical Confederates who are secretly part of the KKK” (or some nonsense like that). Each faction, party, and region is composed of many different Americans. The point of this page is twofold. First to confirm history and then to provide a rebuttal the next time a figure like Ted Cruz tries to re-write history. The point is not to demonize the South or Republicans by equating them with a radical movement or to explain away the Democratic Party’s roots; it is to explain history as it occurred and describe the modern factions as they are.
“What unites the two, aside from their hostility to the liberal academic establishment, is their mutual loathing of big government.” Libertarians in the Attic, or a Tale of Two Narratives; Explaining the gist of why Goldwater Republicans, Neo-Confederates, Neocons, and Libertarians would rather be in tent A than tent B today… Also explains why Jeffersonian liberals and Confederates were in the same party a back when. i.e. An aversion to “Big Government” for any reason, be it deregulating business, deregulating social programs (think they are calling it “deconstruction“), or simply sticking to classical liberal principles of small government despite the social costs.
Ku Klux Klan – A Secret History. If you know the history of the Klan, then you know “the parties switched.” You also know the roots of fascism, and how liberty is corrupting in extremes. You understand nativism and xenophobia as a reaction to economic inequality and immigration. Oh, and the Civil War and the black experience. In these ways, the KKK is at the heart of the American story.
TIP: Defending the KKK’s ideology is somewhere near the bottom of my to-do list. That said, if one can’t understand the Confederate argument, then one can’t understand American history. If one understands the Confederate South, then one understands the KKK. In that way, this page isn’t seeking to disrespect figures like Calhoun or the Confederate South. Instead, it seeks to clarify history, and that means understanding why the modern social conservative South is Republican, being cognizant of the arguments of figures like Calhoun, having the discernment to realize that not all KKK factions are the same, and having insight into works like V. O. Key’s classic Southern Politics in State and Nation.
NOTE: Conservative southerners aren’t chopped liver, and there are tons of progressives in the south. In both cases, conservative or progressive, we are discussing AMERICANS who live in the rural south. The citied North and Rural South have been at odds since day one, and there has historically been a certain lack of understanding throughout our history. It is actually rather offensive to modern conservative southerners, who are generally Republican (they are non-establishment populist Republican south; obviously), to try to slander the Democratic Party by conflating Democrats with slavery, Jim Crow, black codes, and KKK. In other words, the right uses the KKK to slander modern liberals, but they are actually slandering a major voting factions of their own party by doing this. Strange right? Well that is the case none-the-less. Check out our page where we offer an extensive lesson of this sort to D’souza’s followers.
A Summary of the Solid South Switch
To summarize the above claims before we get to the details:
In 1860 the Democratic Party Platforms were about Small Government and States’ Rights, and the more aristocratic Republican Platform about Federal Power and Collective Rights, but by 2016, the opposite is true (see platforms from the 1840’s to 2016).
This is because the “conservative south” and “old Republican Progressives” can be said to have “switched parties” in reaction to events that occurred from the Gilded Age to the Bush and Clinton years. These changes that are well symbolized by the 1968 election, but not explained by that alone.
To understand what changed, we must become familiar with people like W. J. Bryan, Teddy, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, Henry A. Wallace, Strom Thurmond, FDR, MLK, and Hoover. We must look at the Red Scare, the Dixiecrat States’ Rights Parties, Civil Rights, Voting Rights, Nixon’s Southern Strategies, the New Deal Coalition and Conservative Coalition, etc. See Democrats and Republicans Switched Platforms.
The full story aside, in the early days:
Populist social liberals (like Jefferson) used to ally with the populist socially conservative solid south (an extreme faction of which is the KKK).
The social liberal elite like Gouverneur Morris and Alexander Hamilton were in the Federalist party with classical conservative Tory-like figures and factions.
The Anti-Federalist populist liberals didn’t unite because they agreed on an issue like race, they united because they were both opposed to “Federal Power.” The parties are best thought of as “big tents” with many factions who agree on some key issues.
That pairing of factions is either hopeful or a blight on history, depending on your perspective.
Putting aside the many oddities of the other party and much else in history, we can say that despite the past, platforms have obviously changed.
Today the Republicans have the platform-in-action (and to some degree on-paper) that most resembles the Platform of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (that is verifiable fact), and the Democrats are taking a more “Federalist” position on most issues.
The Republican platform is based on small government, being strict on immigration and crime, anti-gun control, pro-Protestant, white “traditional values,” against “liberal Hollywood,” against the “international banks,” and against globalism, etc. The Democratic Party platform takes the opposite stance.
That said, not everything changed. The northern Republican Know-Nothing types and conservative anti-Communist Hoover and McKinley factions never swapped sides. Likewise, the Democrats retained some of their “Redeemed and Reformed” or otherwise more progressive Southern conservative Gore, Clinton, and Byrd types.
TIP: As you can see in the quote below, while the KKK is not “like either major party,” they have more an extreme form of the modern Republican platform than the modern Democratic party platform.
“Enemies from within are destroying the United States of America. An unholy coalition of anti-White, anti-Christian liberals, socialists, feminists, homosexuals, jews [sic] and militant blacks have managed to seize control of our government and mass media. This gang of criminals and degenerates has declared war on the hard working, tax paying, White citizens. White Americans have become second class citizens in the country our ancestors built from nothing. The liberal dictatorship seeks to disarm us and leave us at the mercy of savage rapist and murders.” – The Platform of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan 1999; this is reminiscent of Solid South platforms in any era but far less polite. It is obviously not the “the same” as what one would find in the Progressive 2016 Democratic Party Platform. In historic terms, the DNC platform is more like a Bull Moose platform of 1912 than George Wallace’s American Independent platform of 1968 or Trump’s Republican platform of 2016.
What did it Mean that the KKK Were Confederates and Democrats?
The idea that the Democratic Party is the party in which the KKK has its roots is confusing to a modern audience.
However, after the Revolution:
The northern conservative party of Federalists, like Hamilton, wanted to have a more aristocratic government that favored strong central power.
The southern liberal party of Anti-Federalists, like Jefferson, wanted a more Democratic party that supported the Articles of Confederation and States’ Rights.
Factions had to choose sides in the early days, and the populist southern nativists teamed up with liberals like Jefferson.
TIP: To fully understand the story we need to start long before the KKK formed during Reconstruction. That is because the KKK was a militant group with a radical Confederate ideology that grew out of the States’ Rights faction of the founding Anti-Federalists. They are connected, so we have to start the story 100 years before the KKK formed to give us a foundation.
Limited Government, States’ Rights, and Anti-Federalism
Had the populist liberals, who agreed with limited government but did not agree fully on social issues, not aligned, there would have been a Federalist dominance in early America. The dominant factions would have been northern know-nothing-like nativists, social progressive Roosevelt-like or Hamilton-like elites, and quasi-loyalist Aristocrats like Adams.
The founders were not pro-slavery. However, slavery was part of the culture and economy of many nations; the South was one such region.
Abolishing slavery meant crippling the South’s votes and industry. This was the main argument for slavery by the Solid South historically. It didn’t stop the abolitionists like Hamilton from pushing for the abolition of slavery as he pushed for a central bank or federal control (to the dismay of the populists in all respects). However, it did result in many key compromises from the 1770’s to mid-1800’s.
Good Feelings; and Not so Good Feelings
Moving on from those early days of Federalists and Anti-Federalists, following the Napoleonic War of 1812, there was an era of Good Feelings in which all sides came together as Democratic-Republicans.
The conflict between the elite modernist Adams and the populist, nativist Jackson was a political battle that split the parties creating Democrats and Whigs.
In this era, John C. Calhoun helped to shape the Confederate Spirit that would stand up to the northern elites from that point on, but in doing so, he also helped to shape the social conservatism that would give the KKK power as a militant response to the North’s Reconstruction policies following the war.
From the 1830’s to late 1850’s the political situation fragments quickly.
The Rise of “America First” Nativism: Anti-Masons, Know-Nothings, and the KKK
During the 1830’s to 1850’s, as tension builds, third parties spring up like the northern nativist Know-Nothings (AKA the American Party). This faction pushed back against immigration in places like NYC and was more likely to be allied with the Whigs than the Democrats.
The conflict between Catholic immigrants and Know-Nothings is the subject of the movie Gangs of New York.
These Know-Nothings were like a Northern version of the KKK but were notably more concerned with immigration than slavery. The soon-to-be KKK and the earlier Know-Nothings shared an aversion to Catholics, Jews, non-whites, and non-Protestants in general, but much else was different.
The Know-Nothings were accused of being in bed with Northern abolitionists, and their “American party” really never caught on in the south due to them being perceived (and correctly so) as more elitist and northern.
Thus, although each region breaks into different groups, one should note that “the slavery south” is not the only faction with socially conservative position, and certainly, they aren’t the only authoritative group. Remember, they are opposing northern elitists who are perpetuating their brand of economic and political inequality.
Just as we find different types of conservative or economically conservative factions in early America, we find more than one nativist progressive conservative faction as well. And in this case, although the States’ Rights south had long been politically active, the KKK wasn’t yet, and thus we should note that the Know-Nothings come first.
TIP: The American Party was, at some points, the main opposition to what would become the KKK. Former Whigs in the South used the radical Know-Nothing brand to try to combat the equally radical confederates. Even between nativist groups from the 1800’s who want “America First,” there was a clear division as strong as any other split. Namely, it is the breach that remains between different nativist right-wing groups. The Solid South never liked big government even if it was going to be used to keep out the immigrants, while the Know-Nothings were comfortable with government and a Whig-like Federalist-like elite. Today these groups are both parts of the Tea Party (the less radical spiritual successors of these groups at least), but this issue may be expected to fragment parties again.
Bleeding Kansas and Justifications for the Civil War
By the time of Bleeding Kansas, as the radical ideological decedents of John C. Calhoun tear the nation apart over states’ rights and slavery, all the north/south factions, progressive and socially conservative, elite or populist, are forced to choose sides.
In those days you were either Union Republican North, or you are Confederate ex-Democratic Party South. It was at this time that the Whigs disbanded, their members becoming Confederate or Union.
In this radicalized America where 600,000 died, the Confederate ideology could become the KKK.
On the one hand, that ideology is what today we call right-wing fascism.
On the other hand, the Confederates were “liberals in the rural south fighting against the central government for their sovereignty.”
Alternately, it was a battle between slave labor and civil rights.
To a figure like Calhoun (who died in 1850, but whose arguments were used by “the Radical Generation” who succeeded him), it was the argument that, “the slave system of the South was superior to the ‘wage slavery’ of the North. By slavery intertwining the economic interests of master and slave, it eliminates the unavoidable conflict that exists between labor and capital under the wage system. The amount of money a master invested in his slaves made it economically unfeasible to mistreat them or ignore their working and living conditions.”
The southern socially conservative whites saw themselves as anti-elite regarding of federal power vs. liberty. Further, they did not want the federal government telling them what to do. This made them left-wing in terms of authority. Understanding this creates a centered picture of the progressively socially conservative South and their place in the otherwise liberal-leaning Democratic Party.
Here it should be noted that the Civil War wasn’t just about slavery. It was an important issue, but not the only issue. The Democrats also wanted to expand into the south and didn’t want a big central government telling them what to do. They wanted to own people but wanted their own liberty. It is ironic, but it is also U.S. history.
Today we tend to see the Civil War as being about the morality of slavery, but for the South, it wasn’t a moral issue. It was about big government, liberty states rights and not being enslaved by the northern elite.
Military Reconstruction and the Birth of the KKK
After the Civil War, during Reconstruction, the northern elite Radical Republican Progressives used the military to force the south to reform. At the time the Deep South used things like “apprenticeship laws” to extend slavery past the end of the War. The KKK took a stand in defense of the old Southern way of life in a society divided by murder, military occupation, and mayhem.
To be clear, “Military Reconstruction” is a term that describes the occupation of the South, and the KKK formed as a response to it.
From that point on the South becomes “Redeemed” by “Southern Bourbons” AKA Northern Oligarchs who help the South replace slave labor with wage labor.
The above might be viewed less critically if it wasn’t for a notable speed bump:
Before Reconstruction could end naturally, in 1877, the Republican establishment traded the reformation of a few southern states for the Presidency when Tilden beat the Republican Hayes.
At that point, the Gilded Age began. Gilded Age Republicans Redeemed the South and liked to be seen as putting aside the issue of race to focus on modernization and becoming a superpower.
The Gilded age gave way to the Progressive era. And in those eras, most of the country again minimized issues of race to focus on other minority rights such as women’s rights. Then, after that came the World Wars.
TIP: Reconstruction ultimately ended in a “corrupt bargain” or Compromise of 1877, which was struck by Republicans over the 1877 election. This began a century of racist policy, black codes, and Jim Crow laws. The racism that had been largely ignored regained the spotlight. It was in this century that the radical Southern Conservative Democratic faction the KKK would go through its three iterations and help to enforce the black codes much to the dismay of its increasingly progressive wing represented by figures like William Jennings Bryan.
Racist Hiester Clymer campaign poster from 1866 “smearing” the eventual winner Union General John W. Geary. In this era, the Republicans are the Progressives. Simple as that.
TIP: There isn’t “one Klan,” the Klan comes in three iterations, each with multiple factions. Some members have a liberal and democratic ideology; some are more authoritative, and fascist. It is a populist movement that is progressively socially conservative and right-wing, but each era and faction are unique. We discuss the first iteration below, the Second was founded in 1915 in Georgia and was puritanically American and Moralist (they support Prohibition in the style of the Reformists like Bryan; “worst, progressive era, ever”). The Third iteration is the one we know today, it arose in response to Civil Rights and included many changing factions (some of whom want to be recognized Democratically, some who are more extreme, some who are more like neo-Nazis, some more like neo-Confederates).
Founding the KKK: The first Klan was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee, sometime between December 1865 and August 1866 (after the end of the Civil War, during Reconstruction) by six former officers of the Confederate army (according to Wikipedia at least). It was founded as a fraternal, social club inspired at least in part by the then largely defunct Sons of Malta. Here we should note the opposing party was the Northern and, at-the-time Republican, party. However, no party had a monopoly on nativism. Nativism started in both parties, in the North we see earlier notable groups like the Anti-Masons and Know-nothings allied with the Republicans; in the South during Reconstruction we see the new KKK allied with the Democrats (specifically the States’ Rights ex-Confederate Democrats). The groups. their geography, and their time of activity are different, but in all cases the general concept is a banding together of militant Christian Evangelical Whites within a liberal nation to stand against “others,” like blacks, Catholics, Jews, non-Protestant non-White Immigrants, and in the case of the KKK and Confederates, the elite Federal Government. Here it helps to remember that, for the KKK specifically, it wasn’t “just about race.” They focused on an extension of Calhoun’s old argument that was revived in the Reconstruction era. A primary goal was to “push-back against the northern elite who just beat us in the war and are trying to change our whole way of life, making the poor white man the equal of the black man via the votes of the freedmen.” This was as important as it was “to create a dominant White Protestant master race state.”
A Century of Jim Crow, but Otherwise Lots of Progress
From 1877 to at least the 1960’s, the Solid South KKK-like Progressively Socially Conservative Democrats remained a formidable faction of the Democratic Party.
This is true even though the party was increasingly dominated by Progressives like William Jennings Bryan. We can see in Wilson that both factions held sway in the party, Wilson was both a progressive liberal and a “son of the Confederates.”
TIP: During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s Eugenics was a popular theory. In this era, we might find Margaret Sanger, liberal economists and social scientists, Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Ford, a young Hitler, and the KKK all agreeing on aspects of eugenics. There are many sides of the eugenics argument, and one must study its history in earnest before making a judgment call. Very radical right-wing propaganda equated birth control with genocide, but there was a wide range of beliefs. An espousal of negative eugenics is part of the dark history of the Democratic party.[13][14]
The World Wars, a Fight For Freedom, Equality, and Liberalism Abroad
During the World Wars, all KKK related issues took a back seat while the nation focused on the fascists in Europe. After the war, Solid South States’ Rights Dixiecrats started trying to run third parties. In this, we can see a clear split from the increasingly liberal Democrats.
Malcolm X – Dixiecrats. Malcolm X talks about Dixiecrats and the strained relationship between Democrats and Black Americans. There is a dark, dark, dark history of what they used to call “slave power” (a difficult term, but bear with me) from 1776 to 1976, Malcolm saw it clearly in his time, but that doesn’t change where we are at today. Remember M.L.K. made his choice; he did not choose to be a Republican, much for the same reasons Henry A. Wallace (not George C. Wallace) and Teddy left. Some accuse the liberal welfare state of being a thing of “slave power” (here understood as “a thing that keeps the lower economic classes, of which many are minorities like immigrant and black Americans, down), but look a little closer at what factions are aligned today. History is clear; the alternative facts aren’t always. Teddy, the Republican and Lincoln, the Republican were what we would today call “Progressive.” They used state power to ensure social justice, just as the W J Bryans and FDRs sought to (or like LBJ, Obama, and Clinton). The folly of the modern Democratic party wasn’t found in some racist undertone; it was found in the same principle that created the KKK, in the paradoxical irony that extremes of equality and liberty are corrupting.
FACT: The Birth of a Nation (1915) popularized the Klan and gave them much of their symbolism (including the burning cross). Today the KKK might blame “Liberal Jew Hollywood” for indoctrinating our children with “multiculturalism” at the whims of “the international globalist bankers” “who just want to rule the poor whites.” Back in 1915, Hollywood gave visibility to the Klan in a process similar to the way the movies Easy Rider and Colors influenced Hip-Hop culture. We are all connected, be it via Hollywood when it acts as a mirror for society or Ford’s Dearborn Independent.Actions have consequences. We can frame and skew this to make it look as though liberals created the KKK and gangs and are the bad guys, but that is mostly a simplified misreading of history mixed with propaganda. History is complex, and often dark, and there is plenty of room to get confused.
Finally, the Democrats aren’t [that] Racist Anymore; Those Goldwater Republicans Though… and States’ Rights Parties, and the American Independent Party, Plus…
Eventually, we got a blended conservative movement of Goldwater that combines Hoover-Republicanism with States’ Rights Dixiecrat ideology.
By the 1960’s the Democrats were so progressive that the Dixiecrat LBJ gave into his liberal wing and supported Humphrey and M.L.K. That upset the relationship between the Solid South and liberals, and, from there, Nixon revived Hoover’s Lily White southern strategy to gain southern support for the increasingly conservative Republican party.
Southernization; Oh that Sounds Fun! Wait, it isn’t…
From the 1960’s to the 2000’s a “southernization” of the Republican party occurs. Paired with Goldwater and Hoover states’ rights conservatism and along with old Anti-Communist ideology, it was enough to completely change the political parties.
From the late 1800’s to the 2000’s Republican progressives moved toward the Democratic Party and Southern Conservatives moved toward the Republican party. See the New Deal Coalition and Conservative Coalition.
The grand result is that the David Dukes of the world today fly the Confederate Battle flag and vote Republican.
Meanwhile, while we can still see Gores and Clintons, and sometimes even a Byrd, in the modern Democratic party, those Redeemer and Redeemed liberals made a conscious choice to ally with the dominate Progressive and “Neoliberal” factions in this cycle.
The State of the Nation and the Modern KKK; How to Pick a Party and Faction
Today, the socially liberal left-wing of our divided nation, the Democratic party, is a very different collection of factions to the party who housed the KKK or called themselves Confederate. The party of states’ rights and abolishing the central government is the Republicans. They, ironically, have been overtaken by the southern spirit of the Confederates, with many of their policies mirroring those of that faction. Although Teddy Progressives are long gone, this remains close to old nativist know-nothing and anti-communist and elitist anti-immigrant factions.
Ultimately, M.L.K. made a choice; Bernie Sanders made a choice, and they both made it for a reason. We know which party sprayed fire hoses in Alabama; it was the same party who was marching. These two factions went head-to-head, and the progressive liberals were left standing.
Whether the reason M.L.K. and Sanders fought for is found in the messages of Jefferson, Jackson, and W.J. Bryan, or found in FDR’s revival of his cousin’s ideology, I’m not sure. One thing is sure. The party that waves the Confederate flag today is the Republican party although, as history shows us, a much is subject to change.
TIP: The point of the Civil War was a fight for Unity and against extremes. This was also the aim of the World Wars. When one feels beaten down, it can be tempting to push back, but we must remember that America is a balanced and liberal nation. We don’t need to wear kid gloves, but we do need to be united.
THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS: You can’t say “n-word, n-word, n-word” anymore. Or to translate that, progressive social liberals are censoring the speech of fascist hate groups like the KKK and neo-NAZIs, which in the environment of neoliberal globalism and immigration is causing a push back from what we today call the alt-right.
This is an alliance of fringe fascist groups, old conservatives, and many other right-wing ideologies that comprise what we call American Conservatism. Simply, the modern Democratic Party is part of the globalist New Left, they are not on the same team as the neo-Fascists like the KKK. But hey, factions changes parties and actions have paradoxical effects.
The name of the game is finding balance, and that means we need to understand groups like the KKK, understand why their extremes don’t work whether they are being democratic or authoritative, and understand why an equal opposite reaction of censorship and activism can unbalance the scales just as easily as it can help balance them in the first place.
The KKK, you know with their living in the South and Waving the Confederate Battle Flag and all, are most certainly South Conservatives. Today they are in the Republican Party, yesterday they used to be Democrats, that is because factions, ideologies, voter issues, and voter bases of parties change over time as Roosevelts come in and out of our lives.
Author: Thomas DeMichele
Thomas DeMichele is the content creator behind ObamaCareFacts.com, FactMyth.com, CryptocurrencyFacts.com, and other DogMediaSolutions.com and Massive Dog properties. He also contributes to MakerDAO and other cryptocurrency-based projects. Tom's focus in all...
lmao. That is Funny the parties switched while this author ignores all the migration from northern states south. What is a trumpian ? Some dumb ass loser creates a site and claims what a trumpian is ? The democrat party and there enslaved party supporters engaged in 4 years of riots and division based on hate and lies. The democrats fabricated a phony russia hoax to take down a president and created 2 phony sham impeachments. any party or regime that engages in this type of behavior will 1000 percent steal an election. Now under the fraud president Brandon who hid in his basement during covid and had empty rallies some how got more votes then oboma for doing what ?? lmao. Never mind the voting corruption in our faces all ignored.
GOD HELP THE USA and STOP THE DEMOCRAT REGIME
Democrats claims of systematic racism in America is absurd! Democrats appear to love making people feel beholding to the democrat party. The you know I’m right and you must be stupid if you don’t vote for a democrat.Democrats appear to be able to do the impossible, such as screw up a warm pitcher of spit and blame others for their debacle. Now we have inflation and of course democrats blame everyone else for their mess.n Democrats even try to call minorities that disagree with them racist supremacists .Rampant hypocrisy is the party platform.
By constantly trying to erase our nation’s history, Democrats show their hand in their involvement with the KKK. Even as late as the 50′ 60’s and 70’s there were clan members in congress active and vocal about their animosity towards people of color. All of them Democrats !
I’ve read history also. One key point you left out while subtly trying to shift the blame on “Southern” Democrats for the KKK and the other Democrat bigotry of that time (and this) is that NOT ONE NORTHERN DEMOCRAT voted for the Emancipation Proclamation in the congress. Not one. So that “southern democrat” old saw is made a lie. Tell me truthfully…have blacks prospered and done well under Democrat-controlled jurisdictions, like Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, Washington DC, etc.? The Republicans might harshly expect them to get a job instead of live a dependent life as a welfare parasite…but…kicking your addictions (to anything, but especially to “free stuff”) may be painful, but it turns out better in the end.
You have to understand that my claim is that things changed over time, not that they had already changed on day 1 or that regardless of the changes everything that happened from there was good.
This article omits certain key events that infact show that the parties have not switch from Democrat party and LBJ essentially trapping Black and minority people and making them dependent with the so called affirmative action and other so-called welfare policies which decimated the black family. Combine that with the democrat party now re-immersing itself in race talks, claiming one race is “oppressors” or “oppressed” goes to show that essence of the the party policies have not changed. Similar to in 20th century KKK roaming through the streets you now have a new race-based organizations rioting, destroying property and even killing people in the streets.
While you do have David Duke voting republican, you have his successor Richard Spencer (white supremacist, not KKK since the group is essentially defunct) fully advocating for democrat policies and ideas.
The parties did not change, what happened was that the democrat party didn’t chose not to stress their platform on the policies and ideas that they had before, they modified those racist policies and re-adapted it. Of course I could go more in depth.
Also i notice this “Sanger. This is mostly just propaganda from the religious-Right… ” in your comments. That’s a completely not true but that’s something for another time.
I think what happened is pretty clear given current cultures and the voting map, but its not simple and I always appreciate hearing the other side. Thank you for your comment.
There is good reason that some Democrats flipped is because they ran to hide their racist and bigoted past behind the Republican, god fearing, pro life, anti-slavery and racist ideology. When I read up on DeMichelle, liberal is all you need to know that his twisted lies will not be accepted except for those who share the same anger and use of people as pons as the Democratic party still does. You can’t change the spots on a leopard.
Just because I learn liberal (that is true), doesn’t mean I’m lying. This article contains my conclusions after research as well as justifications. Don’t expect everyone to have the same takeaway, but I am for sure not just lying.
After a period of decline, white Protestant nativist groups revived the Klan in the early h century, burning crosses and staging rallies, parades and marches denouncing immigrants, Catholics, Jews, African Americans and organized labor. The civil rights movement of the 19 also saw a surge of Ku Klux Klan activity, including bombings of Black schools and churches and violence against Black and white activists in the South.
The article doesn’t make excuses, it explains the history of the party and shows how the parties, and their ideologies, strongholds, bases, and representatives, changed over time.
They ARE the party of slavery still. The rich white liberal wants all minorities and poor whites still on the plantation while the rich white liberal democrat tells them what to do and how to act. Funny how humans never change.
Who wrote this BULL!!! Well we know it was a Democrat!!Making it sound like republicans are now the racists?!!!! 🤬 🙄 I Hope no one is dumb enough to believe this nonsense. Want biden the one sporting a black face with friends with ties to the kkk and biden that stated he didn’t want to end segregation?
You really think all those democrat politicians …most have been in there while the kkk was still active mind you…have suddenly changed their views? They don’t exist in the Democratic Party now?? You’re naive if you do.
I don’t think trying to point out the nuance in the history of the country is political. I think ignoring the nuance to paint one part as is-and-always-has-been saints is political. I also think distancing one’s self from the history of the south using inaccuracies is political. In terms of what Biden did or didn’t do, I don’t know. Doesn’t change the history of the country or the parties.
Why do Dems use terms like “nuance” and “complex” to dismiss their own culpability; and “racist” to block debate from the other side? It’s nuanced and subtle why Biden passed the 1994 crime bill that disproportionately punished Black communities. It’s nuanced and subtle how the Dems embraced Robert Byrd when he had blood on his hands. It’s nuanced and complex how the media has failed to report *every single times* Trump denounced white supremecists; going right back to the original speech where he said there were good people on both sides. And that Trump passed prison reform that freed many of the people Biden’s crime bill unjustly imprisoned, guaranteed funding to Traditionally Black Colleges, supported employment legislation that lead to a historically-low employment gap between left and right – well he’s just a damned, dirty, racist.
This is BS.
If anyone supports Slavery it’s a Liberal Democrat.
This is total spin to coverup for the Democrats.
Liberals are less restrictive with their beliefs see the Libertines.
Conservative means you have more ethics or morals and follow rules.
Liberals are less bound to laws or ethics.
Democrats didn’t switch. They are just as incompetent and corrupt as the Southern Democrats that put the US through the Civil War.
You lost me in your second paragraph. If you look at the electoral map, all southern states are RED, Republican.
Yet liberals still refer to them today as the racist? This is just another Liberal narrative. Malcom X called white Liberals sleezy foxes. First black Senator for the Democrats was 130 years after Republicans voted their first.
I don’t know what is hard to understand about looking at the voting map over time and comparing 1860 to 1968 to 2008. Switch is easy to see and so is the solid south, no?
So FDR was a Republican by today’s standards and Lincoln was a Democrat by today’s standards? Must be fun to manipulate history to make your party look good. Doing a media-bias check on your entire website shows you lean left, so that’s all that needs to be know right there. But it’s cool, the Democrats have the minorities they’ve historically (and continue to) oppress fooled and are doing a great job destroying everything they touch in America, so keep up the good work.
I may have a left-leaning bias, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong about the changes to the parties in history. I don’t think we can say FDR was Republican or Lincoln was a Democrat by today’s standards, but we can say both supported key progressive left ideas that we would expect our modern left-wing liberal party to champion today. Who wants to tear down confederate statues today? Who wants to expand the social welfare system today? Which party says “Black lives matter,” etc. So we compare those planks to planks of FDR and Lincoln and come away saying “hmmmm, wait, did something change.” And to this I say “yes” and then I show you a map to show how the social conservative solid south leadership began to party switch starting in the 1960s… and this explains one aspect of it (the one noted on the page), but then we can go deeper and see more shifts and changes and that things are a bit more complex than that. We end up seeing a factionalization of American and changing politics and factions changing parties and politics changing. Interesting stuff and lots up for debate, but there was for sure some important changes that make this idea that Lincoln was a Republican like today’s Republicans and the KKK favored Democrats like today’s Democrats underwhelmingly simple ideas that miss some important truths about political history in America.
This is a well-thought out breakdown of 150 years of politics. It’s obvious you went to great pains to stick to facts, pretty difficult unless you are truly apolitical, but a genuine historian doesn’t have an agenda. Hats off to you – well done
Thank you for the compliment, any breakdown of history can come off as political. And while it’s hard to study and write about politics without having any conclusions, I really do try to take as centered as possible stance when conveying information.
The democrats were the party of the KKK. The party switch is a strange thing, some people think it just happened overnight or that it happened as soon as the civil rights movement. Its not so easy to explain, but southerners didnt start switching red consistently until W Bush. And southerners started voting on economic policies because of the growth of business. So this whole party switch is actually fairly recent. Even in one of the articles you posted about the KKK to relate to republicans was from 1999.
I am an independent that tends to vote more conservative, but im not against immigration, just open borders. I dont think abortion should be used as birth control but also believe there are reasons it is necessary.
But to completely dismiss democrats being responsible for the atrocities of this country is just wrong. Slavery, Indian removal, KKK, Jim Crow, Japanese internment, all democrats.
So if a bunch of liberals show up at a unite the right party in the south with a big juicy looking statue and confederate flags, do the hardcore southern confederates welcome them in or stand against them? Because I recall from all of my experience these are two different groups and the current Democrats are standing to the left against the confederates, statues, and general on-paper racism.
See where I’m going with this. If you play out the logic it makes sense, and then if you look at history you see that the truth lines up with the logic. To square it up you have to know the history of both parties and the evolution of them… it is complex, but it is not “the Dems did everything bad in history; just like a saw on that one Dinesh D’Souza video.”
It is very complex and nuanced to understand how a southerner might regard the flag and statues as part of their heritage, without it having to be racist. It’s probably difficult for them to understand how a group of activists, who have never personally experienced either slavery or Jim Crow, can decide to be personally offended by another culture to the point of destroying it. I don’t know. I can see both sides of the issue. However, Dems of all colors, creeds, and sexual preference do show up to Republican events, and there are accounts of how stunned they are at how diverse the crowds are when not filtered through the media’s cameras, and how very welcomed they’ve been – when they’ve shown up out of a genuine desire for truth, and not just to be insulting and inciteful. They didn’t find the hate and violence they were taught was central to the Conservative way of life.
Oh my gosh, I just noticed that *all* your sources are Wikipedia!!! Very representative of the state of modern journalism and critical-thinking, citing recursive sources that are handily already linked to one another.
I appreciate you taking the time to write out your arguments even though we don’t seem to fully agree. I always think of citations about backing up my argument and showing I’m right, not about whether I’m linking to Wikipedia, Vanity Fair, or the New York Times. I’m not a journalist, I’m a blogger doing pay-to-play (it costs me more to run this site than I make). The point of this site is to find the truth (basically a hobby of mine). When I think I know I’ve found it, I write it up and then let others prove it wrong if they can. I don’t think I’m wrong on this one, but I do like to debate the nuances since history is complex. I also really like this one as it forces people to learn so much about our country, its history, and the party system. Crazy to think the Confederates were Democrats and yet today we know Republicans are sort of Southern guys. What changed and didn’t is fascinating.
You state facts – the Democratics were the slave owners.
You then state myths/lies – Republican know nothings. The Democrats know nothing. They believe every Media lie, they don’t/can’t show any facts to support their lies. They follow their Party which is ‘tax and spend’ while keeping the poor poor.
Even if you don’t want to hear it, I would say the page above is well researched account of history, where you have presented me with a jumble of opinion and misunderstanding (sorry to be blunt, but you did squish together sparse and partly unrelated ideas in your argument). I’m not saying you aren’t well intentioned, but media spin has nothing to do with the subject, know nothings are a party of anti-immigrant Republican allies from the mid-1800s, and the old Democrats were the anti-tax party of the day. Again, my argument is about the changes, which even your comment eludes to perhaps without you realizing.
Well, research can say anything you want it to say if you carefully vet your materials. Are you using attitudes towards taxation to pin the “racism” tag on Conservatives? Wowee. It make no sense that one group of people would go from hundreds of years of deeply-ingrained racism to no racism at all beginning with when it was politically expedient for them to do so. The Dems continue to use minorities to their own ends without doing a thing to address the ills of that community. Throw ’em a little money, teach ’em a little hate, and they’ll continue to vote how you want. It may not be in the sources you cite, but as you’re “left leaning” I’m sure you carefully culled the available literature. There are racists on both sides, but it’s still the Dems who own the black community.
During the 60s the Republican Party drove the civil rights acts. The foremost opponents were Democrats led by a Democratic Senator from Tennessee, Al Gore Senior. Your apologetic for the Democrat Party is where stop using facts and start using your opinion.
I would just argue you are twisting history and not properly understanding how Gore and a few others broke away from the solid south line and got flack and that is why the Gores ended up staying in the Dems even as the parties switched.
The Democratic Party today are socialist commie fools, and baby killers, godless evil people who love, and serve Satan. All I can say to you, is REPENT, before it is to late for you. I can see in your writings, you have been brainwashed in your high school, and college, to hate America. No Mercy for traitors of of the United States Of America. Patriots will rise, and defeat this evil behavior. You will never take our freedoms away, COME AND TAKE IT, I can’t wait for the day you fools try to.
I don’t think anyone is trying to take anything. Having two parties is the key to Democracy, so I don’t think a two party or more system is evil at all. But of course in a heated ball game we always root for our own team. But…. in a ball game you don’t want to see another team actually hurt. Right? I would say you will feel better if you take a deep breath and let a little positivity into your life. Cheers and good luck!
Saying that the GOP flipped and became evil KKK members and Democrats became the ‘good guys’ is like saying, God decided to stop being Holy and Righteous and went over to the dark side and he and Satan have now traded places…
Evil never becomes good and good never becomes evil. The devil himself will transform his image to appeal to anyone, including the Democratic party and its followers. You cannot force out the KKK of their party. They are still in the Democratic Party. And yes, it’s true that there are some racist Republicans, but I can assure you that the GOP does not claim them. On the other hand, the Democratic Party never disclaims ANTIFA.
The characteristics of God are obvious and include freedom to choose, true love, industrious which are only a few of his characteristics. Satan’s characteristics are controlling, hatred, and laziness. Now, neither party is perfect; however, the GOP does not force anything on anyone, we tolerate others, and we like to work and get things done and live by the fruits of our labor. The Democratic Party has the entire liberal lying media behind them. And most Christians believe that the media is merely a puppet of Satan. The Democratic Party lies and twists its words calling abortion, healthcare, and labeling anyone who does not agree with their doctrine ‘racist’ ‘homophobe’ or ‘xenophobe’. It takes the truth and skews it. It rewards lazy people with Section 8 and they are telling people to stay at home during the COVID-19 even when there is less than 0.01% chance of dying from it. They want to destroy the economy (just as the devil does) in hope that it will kill Trump’s chance for reelection. The party loves Muslims but hates Christians and Jews.
So, for you to tell me that the Democratic Party is now the party of love and acceptance and tolerance and peace and hope and that the two parties ‘switched’. You are full of it.
You cannot make a good man become evil and an evil man become good. If that holds true, and it does, it stands to reason that the GOP never went to the dark side and the Democratic Party never corrected its evil ways…
The Democratic Party was and still is the party of slavery. LBJ was a racist and was quoted as saying…”I’ll have then n!$$3rs voting the Democratic ticket for the next 200 years!” And he was right. He conned the black population into selling their souls to the racist Democratic Party. The way the racist Democrats saw it was like this…’ we get those blacks to vote for us and we won’t have to worry about the GOP ever getting their vote.’ The Democrats knew the psychology needed to manipulate the black vote. After all, their ancestors used that psychology to keep the black slave in ‘mental chains’ and do the work of the white master for fear of death. They began running campaigns against the GOP and began lying on them calling them “Racist” and then used those lies to make the black man think that the Democratic Party actually cares for them. After all, they gave us free government cheese, welfare, section 8, and other entitlement programs when the GOP never did anything for us, right?
The truth is the Democratic Party never changed. It only changed its outer appearance. It’s still the same old hateful party of white racists. The same old racists that taught the black man to say “N!$$er” and do so with affection to one another instead of banning that word forever. Pretty clever huh? Teach a black man to say a word that was meant to insult him and then have him use that word with affection, mostly. Though, it’s still used a lot out of hatred for one another…
Oh yes, they are now all-inclusive… They now have blacks and gays and every color of the rainbow in their ranks. That’s all-inclusive, right? Did not the white slave master have blacks in his house too? Why did he have blacks in his house cooking his meals, washing his clothes, and such? It wasn’t because he loved them. It was because they were his property. He owned their minds and bodies. Just the same way the Democratic Party owns the minds of the masses who believe in them.
You know why we hear black men calling each other “N!$$er” and sagging their pants. It’s remanents of slavery. The same slavery that was imposed by the KKK Southern Democrats. Slavery was abolished by law, but the Democratic Plantation will never be outlawed because it is the party of Satan, and no good will ever come from it.
I know many people look at this many different ways, but on a historic level the state leadership seats that used to be held by Southern Democrats are now held by Southern Republicans and a lot of the voting map has generally flipped. That is what I’m getting at here. But think we all generally agree racism is bad and neither party wants to be associated with it, just like the average person doesn’t see themselves as racist. Appreciate your two cents.
American History teacherDoesn't beleive this myth.
Sorry, this is all completely illegitimate. I’ve taught American history for 12 years. Whole parties didnt flip gradually or quickly. The north was Republican and the south was democratic and was where all the rich democratic plantations were. Most people in the south, who didnt own those huge plantations, didnt agree with slavery at all. They only appeased the rich white man because they had to count on them to help feed their smaller farm families and so they were supported by these manipulators. As the civil war broke out there was mass exodus to the south to fight for freedom of the black man and for other economical reasons. That is when the rich democratic white people fled to the north once the war was over because they could no longer make money since they had no more slaves so they sold their plantations to the rich Republicans from the North who made their money from factories. Once this happened you have the geographical switch. It was never a party switch. This site needs to be taken down, sir. It is spreading disinformation and the idea of having people who are just as unknowledgeable as you are vote on whether or not your opinions on this page are fact, is further proof that you don’t believe your own knowledge.
Well… just because you are well-informed and a teacher doesn’t mean we have to agree here. You say truths, but they aren’t overriding my truths. I won’t reiterate what I say, but happy to let your comment augment it and offer an opposing view.
Glad you can be so magnanimous. I’m so happy you’re so comfortable letting half the country be called White Supremecists undeservedly. While Dems retain their shiny tin crown of virtue, Conservatives get savaged. But when a Black person becomes successful, learns the truth, becomes a Conservative, just look and see which side *publicly* spew the racial epithets. Every politician. Every Hollywood lefty. You’re so immersed in it you can’t tell truth from propaganda.
Sir if your the author your a liar nothing more trying to change history in your own sick demented way. You ignore the migration of millions of americans wo simply moved from the north to the south for warmer climate. The parties never switched and the nazi democrat regime is destroying the usa in our faces. Tell me something good democrats did for the american citizen while Trump was president ??? lmao. Riots, a russia hoax and 2 sham impeachments. This only divided us more just like they did during the civil war and killed lincoln which is what they would have done proudly to trump if they could get away with it. That is why we seen so many mock assissinations of Trump and your were smiling with glee. never have i seen such a disrespect for human life and then mocking the 1st lady. an immigrant who spoke 5 languages, a super model. true evil is all a democrat is and as you can see you have fooled nobody as nobody here agrees with you. LOL. Nice try.,
They moved for the climate? So is this why they are anti-climate science, making the north warm again. So honestly, I might change my affiliation now that I know. Cold AF here 🙂
Jokes aside, thank you for the comment.
PACDid not vote.
So, after the Republican’s help LBJ pass Civil Rights legislation with opposition from the Democrats they randomly turned evil and switch parties? After being the party that opposed slavery and supported Civil Rights right on down the line? *That makes no sense*. Like, “We won and we’re mad about it.” MUCH more likely the Dems secured their control of the group by becoming benevolent parental figures, standing against the evil right. They do nothing for the black community, AND they get votes. A shining example of the a Dem who didn’t switch parties was Robert Byrd, who was in the highest tiers of the Klan during some of their worst years. There’s no doubt he presided over atrocities. So just because his side lost he dropped his hatred. Or was his “change of heart” much more about “securing his power base”. He never repented, just started denouncing the “bad” Republicans, re-writing history. He became a respected elder statesman in the Democratic party up until his death still with blood on his hands. Biden even eulogized him. Are Dems still racist? They control the cities where black-on-black violence is the worst. They control the schools where children are taught hate and hopelessness, rather than the academics that will actually left them up in life. Dems deny children of color school choice, even though there’s ample evidence that those children flourish outside of public schools. And if a black, successful, conservative ever steps up they are denounced with pure racism – for not carrying the water for and following the dictates of their overseers. The Dems lost their slaves; lost their Jim Crow; lost control of a population they still look down on as helpless children, and still sneer at as being unable to, for instance, use a computer (!!???). After Civil Rights Dems switched the narrative and did a full-court press on Republicans. Are there racists on the right – of course – but most of the Democratic party is so culturally and intrinsically racist that they can’t even see it. Black people are useful idiots to the Dems as evidenced by how they go off the deep end when one decides to think for themselves. Your facts aren’t facts if they come from faulty sources. But you’re probably also indoctrinated with the mindset in which Dems are the White Saviors, and Republicans were always the villains.
Of course the revisionist historians like the author above, promotes the lie and BS that there was some sort of Southern Strategy and a switch of the Dixie Democrats to become Conservative Republicans, a flat out that has been perpetuated over time by those like him. Out of the more than 30 Dixie Democrats, exactly 1 switched parties to Republican in their entire lifetime. So this fantasy that Southern Democrats “turned into” Republicans is simply BS of the highest order. The Democrat party had as its Senate MAJORITY LEADER a former KKK Democrat by the name of Robert Byrd, who was the Grand Kleagle of one of the factions of the KKK down in W. Virginia. The Democrat party is composed of nothing but liars and those who support the lying leftists. Today their political ideology is totalitarian and borders on Communism. They will always have the uninformed sheep who make up the vast majority of their constituency, to rely on for their votes, however their voters are utterly uniformed and ignorant of basic historic facts.
It isn’t revisionist history. It is just that the south used to favor racism and democrats and now they favor republicans and less racism. Explain that how you want, but the progressive and the liberal wings of the democratic party now dominate it, where the southern social conservative faction used to be a major force (but now they are a major force in the republican party).
If we can find better words to say this, then let’s use those words. But specific words aside, let’s not confuse ourselves with incorrect ideas and useless asides like stories of commies or Byrd.
“Were.”
What confuses many about MLK/MLK Jr. is that MLK Sr., along with most Blacks of his generation back to the Civil War, were Republicans/voted Republican where the Democrats weren’t strong enough to block them. MLK Jr. didn’t identify with either party as he didn’t want to be beholden to either.
So when someone says, “Martin Luther King was a lifelong Republican,” either they are ignorant of Dr. Martin Luther King’s father, thinking that they were told that Dr. MLK Jr. was a lifelong Republican. Or someone is being intentionally deceptive.
When the internet became— True History from the books was changed to a viewpoint of a political party who would benefit. The Democrats are erasing history, and removing statues of History. This shows proof. They are the KKK.
I don’t think so, this page for example describes how there is truth in the link between Democrats, the Confederacy, the south, the KKK, etc; but how things have changed. This is why today it is the GOP and alt-right who are upset about statues being torn down. I don’t think the logic is super hard to follow, but I do see how it is hard to swallow.
Did you know that the Democratic Party defended slavery, started the Civil War, founded the KKK, and fought against every major civil rights act in U.S. history? Watch as Carol Swain, PhD, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University, shares the inconvenient history of the Democratic Party.
Yes, yes I did. That is why I wrote this article. As for the video, I have watched it and… that is also part of the reason I wrote this article.
So let’s start again, “Hi, I’m the guy debunking the misinformation related to how we should interpret that very real fact that you shared. Pls read article again. Thx.”
“Today the solid south, and figures like Jeff Sessions, are in an alliance in the big tent of the Republican ”
After this comment I stopped reading.
Donald nominated Jeff to AG, then less than two years in…. Jeff is fired.
So if Donald a semi Republican fires a supposed Republican… your arguments mean squat.
Jeff obviously a government guy first, that enjoyed under-minding a duly elected President.
Just look at his decisions
That being said if Donald was not supported by this hack, then maybe Donald is who he claims to be.
A American that puts the US first..
Why do we need to “vote” for whether this is fact or myth? I mean, facts are facts, and myths are myths. This is a fact – although the WAS needs to be underlined, in BOLD, ALL-CAPS, and Italics! Things have changed drastically over the years since that was true.
It amazes me, reading the comments left here, especially the one spouting D’souza (who is such a good liar that he supposedly changed a Democrat into a Republican, way down at the bottom here), at how many people have been gaslighted into believing the crazy that certain factions in the GOP have been pumping out at more and more strength over the last few years. They are trying their darnedest to become fascist authoritarians, and are already entrenched in at least one major news source, where they can sit there, smiling, and lie to even more people every day. The concept is nauseating, but they are obviously managing to sell it to a pretty large minority of the populace. Say, about 40% of the voting population, in fact.
I have been a student of history (among other subjects) my whole life. You did a very good job clearly delineating what the factions in each party did as the populace changed over time, and what the parties did to take advantage of that populace. Although, there is one video that is listed as “no longer available” on youtube, the one labeled “Ku Klux Klan – A Secret History.” Not sure if you want to delete it from the article, or try to find an alternative source and insert it there, instead. Just a heads up about it, for you, in case you can edit the article at this late date.
Thank you for this article, including all of the cited information, and all of the links to other articles which back up this information. Well done!
Thank you for the compliment and the suggestions. Much appreciated.
To your first point, we let people vote because 1. people don’t always agree on facts (even if there is one truth, so often we don’t agree what it is), and 2. because it is always possible that we get something wrong and this gives people a way to challenge our conclusions.
Who are the ones who support the silencing of invited speakers on campus through any means necessary to have the event cancelled? Milo Y.? Ben S.? Lauren S. Ann Coulter, Jordan Peterson and many others. They’ll protest, disrupt, pull fire alarms…some even call themselves “antifa” and actually want violence. “Antifa,” as seen today in the US, is NOT an “anti-fascist” group. THEY are the fascists. They’re the modern day black-shirts and brown-shirts. There’s literally no difference.
Who is attacking freedom of speech?
Who is attacking freedom of thought and expression?
Who is going around encouraging activists to harass members of congress and reporters, like Tucker C. and Mitch M., for example? Standing outside of their houses at all hours of the night chanting and name calling? And all because they have a different political opinion than the leftist agenda. This type of action is a cornerstone of fascist ideology. I don’t see any conservatives trying to get speakers banned or silenced. Do you? Why isn’t Trump creating his own black-shirt units to go around to universities, TV stations, newspapers etc., and kick the crap out of anyone critical of him? THAT’S what a fascist would do, after all. But he’s not doing that. The media is constantly going after him 24/7 and he’s not doing a damn thing about it. Can’t say the same for those critical of the left. Criticize the left and you WILL be dealt with one way or another. So who’s the real fascists?
Everything the left is doing now is inline with classic, historical leftist ideology (Marxism, socialism, communism and fascism) and these have more in common, today, with the democratic left than modern conservatism. The racism, intolerance, hatred…it’s on the left side of the fence. The history books are wrong. The dictionaries are wrong on the definition of fascism.
“It is obvious what the fraudulent issue of fascism versus communism accomplishes: it sets up, as opposites, two variants of the same political system; it eliminates the possibility of considering capitalism; it switches the choice of “Freedom or dictatorship?” into “Which kind of dictatorship?”—thus establishing dictatorship as an inevitable fact and offering only a choice of rulers. The choice—according to the proponents of that fraud—is: a dictatorship of the rich (fascism) or a dictatorship of the poor (communism).
That fraud collapsed in the 1940’s, in the aftermath of World War II. It is too obvious, too easily demonstrable that fascism and communism are not two opposites, but two rival gangs fighting over the same territory—that both are variants of statism, based on the collectivist principle that man is the rightless slave of the state—that both are socialistic, in theory, in practice, and in the explicit statements of their leaders—that under both systems, the poor are enslaved and the rich are expropriated in favor of a ruling clique—that fascism is not the product of the political “right,” but of the “left”—that the basic issue is not “rich versus poor,” but man versus the state, or: individual rights versus totalitarian government—which means: capitalism versus socialism.” – Ayn Rand, from The Objectivist
She’s right. Just like Dinesh.
BTW, i wasn’t “turned into a republican/conservative.” I’m still a registered democrat. The democratic party has shifted so far to the left but i’ve remained where i always have been.
Yeah, I specifically disagree with his point of view. I realized as i did these articles that a lot of misinformation was coming from him. Not a fan to say the least, find his work very misleading and disingenuous. I would be curious to know if he believed what he said or if he was just purely political and pandering.
Yeah, the thing about Dinesh D’souza is that he presents you with more than enough evidence so that it’s not a matter of believing it or not, it just is – whether the listeners like it or not, it just simply is.
I’ve been a registered democrat for my entire adult life (almost 50). I took his challenges to “look it up for myself” on his talking points on this subject. I set out to prove him wrong, i wanted to shut him up and expose him as a liar. Nothing he said had made sense, in fact it was basically the exact opposite of what i KNEW was the truth.
What kind of a person would lie so blatantly, turning history on its head? I mean, how could anyone say the things he was saying with a straight face. He was obviously KNOWINGLY lying.
It was a humbling moment to say the least when i realized that i not only couldn’t prove him wrong, i proved him to be correct in everything he was saying in the process. It’s been a wake-up call.
So i understand your position, i really do. He’s right, Thomas. It’s terrible, but he’s right.
He really isn’t right though, he is taking some facts about history and twisting it into a pretzel to present what adds up to a falsehood for the most part.
If you want to discuss it though, feel free to throw out a proof you found and I’ll give you my take.
what a bunch of absolute crap. it nearly doesn’t matter – conservative or liberal – democrats have given the USA every single racial atrocity without so much as a single exception. This is obfuscation like there’s no tomorrow. Democrats need to apologize and beg forgiveness every day and pay reparations for their evils. Not because they are Americans. But because they are democrats. Ignorant racist eugenicist KKK forming and then KKK reviving segregation Jim Crow Japanese internment Trail of Tears opposing the Civil Rights Bill under Ike wow I don’t have another three years to keep on listing these crimes against humanity off. when will we rise up and crush these evil people and their vile philosophies of white supremacy?
Replace “Democrats” with “the south” and if you still agree then ok. I actually don’t think apologizing is a bad idea to be honest. Maybe the south and Democrats can apologize together. Considering the southern leaders in the gop, I could then see this as both modern parties apologizing. Maybe they can take down a few statues at the apology event?
Your comment is 1. incorrect in terms of “always being the party of slavery” on a few levels, and 2. misleading and subjective in the assumption that the Democratic Party hasn’t been a good ally in the modern day.
First off, there hasn’t been any actual slavery since the times after the Confederate south lost the war. So neither party is the party of something that isn’t a thing.
As for how black Americans have done, as a group I think we can agree neither party did enough for them. However, especially in from the progressive era forward progressives and liberals have generally fought for civil rights. Given that the Democratic party has generally been the party that the progressive and liberal factions gathered in, and given that that faction even drove out the socially conservative southern faction over the course of the 20th century, I would say that the Democratic party (especially by today) has done far more and continues to do far more good.
But look, any progressive will tell you not enough has been done. The idea that progressives have, where they want to expand healthcare, workers rights, jobs, etc. That is aimed at helping everyone, and that for sure includes African American communities. Prison reform, the way we prosecute drug crimes, etc… so much you know, all focused on human rights.
Meanwhile the GOP is the party that supports the confederate statues staying up and has the majority vote in the states that made up the Confederacy.
History is clear, open your eyes.
Both parties can do more, but your point is talking point and nothing more.
Hah, big switch? Is this how simple minded and easily fooled people are these days? The “big switch” was nothing but a desperate bid to easily garner decades of votes from a certain demographic just like LBJ said. And the recent new switch in the last decade of promoting a border wall and enforced immigration laws to now being completely lax on any ICE enforcement is more of the same.
After people see failed policy after failed policy come to fruition, the Dems are consistently needing a new voter base. From Woodrow Wilson to present, the Democratic party seems like they are doing anything they can to hurt the USA in order to create a single global government, while claiming and having children as well as simple people fall for the hook that it is all in the name of altruism.
You can literally on a voter map see the conservative south “switch” from favoring the Democratic party to the Republican party. This switch was very big. It was, a big switch.
That said, as the long article above points out, there was actually a lot that did and didn’t change, and history is way more complex than people tend to imply in slanted videos and articles and overly simple talking points and memes.
I have, to the best of my ability, correctly documented history with nuance above, my suggestion to anyone curious is to put your bias aside and really look at what I’m saying. The best arguments in my opinion are ones that are rooted in explaining why the switch was made, not ones that try to argue that there was no switch (because there was and it is pretty clearly documented).
This is a generic pro-dem talking point.
The Dems are trying to make Universal Basic Income for Whites only.
Dems support Antifa and DSA (Democrat Socialists of America) are allowed to run as Dems.
Dems are liberal disasters with a history of racism and corruption. See Cuomo and Huizar and all those Dem Mayors like Kwame Kilpatrick.
Thomas DeMicheleThe AuthorDid not vote.
History is history. I don’t know why the Democrats would bother bringing up the fact that they were the Confederacy and party of slavery if not to point out that they lost control of the socially conservative south. Seems like an odd strategy. But let’s just say, interpret this how you want, but I wouldn’t confuse progressives and social liberals in the north who are democrats with the southern confederacy. That part is for sure wrong.
Rol99andSupports this as a Fact.
This is what an education by prussian marxist in a playpen looks like.
It’s hard to believe you consider this nonsense facts. From reading your article and your responses to people. You will justify your article because you believe it to be true. It is so factually incorrect it’s hard to find a starting point. The Democrats will not against the government. slavery and the Wolf around slavery were imposed by the government and big government ! 1964 Civil Rights Act was blocked by the Democrats in 1957 when Eisenhower was trying to get it passed. And it was passed in 1964 by a majority of Republicans not Democrats. Which destroys your whole switch Theory on top of which the party never switched. And the south started becoming Republican when they supporting Reagan in the 80s. Are you trying to leave everybody to believe that the racist Southerners who supported Reagan because the South was more racist in 1980 and it was a 1964 ? There’s so much crap you put that is wrong it’s not worth my breath cuz you’re going to justify your article.
The parties changed over time. One thing that happened was the solid south conservatives, the “solid south” dixicrats we might call them, switched from favoring the Democratic party to the Republican party over the course of the 1900s (one major catalyst is in the 1960s, that has a ripple effect which changes the parties over the coming decades).
The change is slow, but the result is so drastic you can see it on the map (I feature these maps many times above).
How do we discuss the reality that the solid conservative south (the southern bloc social conservatives) used to vote side-by-side with progressives (although often in disagreement on issues)? How do we discuss how Thomas Jefferson Supported this faction then (although with disagreements)? How do we discuss Jeff Sessions and Trump’s support now? Why would the extreme antifa favor the left and maybe Bernie over Trump and the extreme right neo nazis favor the right and maybe Trump over Bernie today (these groups are small, but we know clearly which group favors which party)? How do we discuss how the south has changed and how maybe that region’s conservative voter isn’t racist anymore but today really just cares about small government? And then, do we point out that “I’m not racist, I just care about small government” was essentially the motto of the south from the late 1700s to today (it was one of the main justifications of Civil war and the root of tensions leading up to it in fact; a neo confederate talking point is “the war was about big government”… heck dude, you just said “big government”)?
I’ll discuss any aspect of this, how the Democrats as a historic party have slavery in their history, how the south does too, how the country does, and who the conservative south voted en bloc for in each election be it one of the major parties or a third party… but none of those roads will lead us to any other conclusion than the one I’ve presented above.
We can maybe say “race used to matter and there used to be racists, but now there are not” (and then we can debate that), but we can’t say “race has always mattered, there are racists, and the ones of the Confederacy, slavery, and the KKK were yesterday and have always been even today Democrats.” We can’t make the conclusions Dinesh D’Souza does and be right, but we can be respectful to the southern conservative of today and not blame them for yesterday (and be respectful to the Democrats of today and not blame them for what was done under the banner of the party yesterday).
Likewise, we can say “the south favored Reagan because he was just great and because the Democrats were too Big government progressive”… but like, this fits in my story perfectly, it doesn’t detract from it. It tells of the southern strategy and the growing progressivism of the left and the old “small government” argument. It helps explain our story, but it does not change what happened!
A voting map shows us the political history of the south from when the Confederacy was the strongest until today, the south changed from being solidly blue to solidly red. We have to acknowledge that change and what it means, and then we can debate from there.
Meaning, I won’t necessarily force a conversation that points a finger at the south and modern GOP with their southern social conservative wing and connects it to the worst parts of 1860 or 1960 (times when the south was still blue), but more than this I won’t accept a conversation which says “the Democrats were responsible for slavery, and nothing has changed, therefore they still are the party of this today.”
Also, personally and most of all, I won’t accept a conversation that confuses progressive liberals, neo liberals, and southern social conservatives when it comes to policies like Civil Rights. These factions may have been in the same party in the past, but the southern social conservative is clearly not in that coalition today… I mean, that couldn’t be more clear.
In summary, we can be polite and give the benefit of the doubt to our current generation, but we can’t twist the history of the south into a pretzel to absolve the conservative south of everything it did just because it now votes GOP while at the same time blaming that history on the Democrats because they used to vote under that banner. Since we can’t do that, we should also toss D’souza’s work on the fire, because it is confusing propaganda. There are much better texts out there from people who do the south far more justice anyway.
NOTE: There is one extra problem here. If I start absolving the conservative south of the Confederacy. Say maybe we have a statue destroying party. I mean, we will get a Charlottesville, right? The reality is the southern conservative who votes for Trump today knows darn well their own history stretches between parties. This makes this whole argument a little silly. I shouldn’t have to explain that which we all really know in this sense. I’m happy to play historian, but we all know darn well we aren’t 100% ready to destroy those statues, and given this we should really acknowledge which faction it is that wants to leave them up and which wants to rip them down. From there it should be another hint that I am right.
Your anaylses are wrong. It is the view held by the majority and the majority is almost always wrong. You try your hardest to conflate that state’s rights and limited government equals support for slavery. You do the same with big government equals freedom!
Both are a distorted view of reality based totally on one’s bias. I’m not going to go into all the details, because it would be a waste of my time and yours.
You will undoubtedly reinforce the beliefs of the naivete. 5% think, 15% think they think, and 80% would rather die than think!
The southern democrats were the “states’ rights” faction who were anti-big government (to the extent they tried to go to war against the other half of the country in the Civil War and fought against the Constitution in the 1770s – 1780s; etc). The whole thing was “government shouldn’t be able to tell us whether or not we can own slaves or whether or not we have to serve blacks or have a central bank or tax us or [insert just or arguably unjust cause here]… etc.”
Essentially you are supporting my argument with what you say in that respect.
I’m not even making a judgement call on slavery, KKK, confederates, dixiecrats, etc here (although I certainly have my opinions), and I’m not really making a judgement call on states’ rights (its actually, all else aside, a classical liberal pillar), I am just saying “that states’ rights southern conservative faction that used to vote Democrat now votes GOP, and this shouldn’t be confused with say a Bernie Sanders supporter or Obama.”
I stopped reading early when the author roughly says “Why its not fair to compare Old democrats to New democrats”……but its apparently ok to compare old conservatives with new conservatives… if this piece isn’t a one-sided political smear I don’t know what is.
This page isn’t about the Republican party, that is why I don’t zero in on every quality of that party.
It is not fair to compare the old GOP to the new one either honestly. Both parties changed.
And when I say “not fair to compare,” I mean they aren’t “exactly the same.” Like, we don’t want to blame a current citizen of Mississippi for the Civil War, we don’t want to hold the current Democratic party responsible for every action and quality of the Democratic party of 1860.
That said, the article above is generally right, learn from it as you wish or not.
Doesn’t make the article wrong though. Wikipedia might not win an argument, but it’s a good place to look to help verify I’m right. I think most reasonable people can use that resource to get a sense of whether or not my facts line up. Going back in time, maybe though I could have done better with the citations. I do hear the argument against Wikipedia a lot, even though in my mind it is a reasonable thing to cite.
Also, I have to go pretty far to the right to get right-wingers backing up my thesis 😀
I think I explained this above that it isn’t that individual representatives switch, it is that their seats are replaced by members of the opposite party. So the south goes from blue to red, not because individual representatives changed parties, but because seats are replaced by the opposite party as the voter base switches. It is complex, but I would argue that the article is correct.
Bull Connor (D)
FDR (D)
Margaret Sanger (Nazi sympathizer and racist Eugenics)
Planned Parenthood (democrat party)
Woodrow Wilson (D)
D Senator and Grand Cyclops or wizard Robert Byrd (D)
Just to name a few
……hmmm
Yes, you listed off a bunch of progressives (some, like Wilson, Dixiecrats progressives from the south).
That list fits right in with the story we told above.
– Bull, well he was the one that JFK and MLK’s people stood up to. Today, the gentleman from Alabama would most likely be GOP, just like all the others like him are today.
– FDR, he is a hero, but as a 4 term President from the Democratic Party of that era, of course he was friendly with the solid south social conservatives. They were a major force in the Democratic party back in his day (you know, before the “big switch.”)
– Sanger. This is mostly just propaganda from the religious-Right who can’t understand the difference between positive and negative eugenics and elective and non-elective. With that said, find me someone who didn’t support questionable eugenics programs in the early 1900s, and lets start there. It is a bipartisan blight on our country, but let us not conflate a woman’s right to choose, or the solid south’s support of that movement, or any other part of this complex story with the modern women’s’ health center. http://factmyth.com/factoids/eugenics-has-historically-been-a-popular-theory/
– Woodrow Wilson. You see, when the Democratic Party was the party of the South, and when it was the progressive era, Wilson was the man who represented all the factions of the Democratic party. He was a southern progressive, and he was a solid south conservative intellectual. He helped ensure a strong south economically with social programs, and he pass progressive legislation for the rest of the party. He helped win WWI, and although he was a bit of bigot, we can also remember him as an important politician scientist and president. If the south wanted to proud of something, Wilson wouldn’t be a bad choice. The northern modern alt-right almost irks me with their willingness to bash their current brothers and sisters in the conservative south with their twisting of the “switch” story. Afterall, all you are really trying to say is Confederate south = so bad modern Democrats should be ashmed off it… but like, clearly the modern right is in an allaience with the Sessions’ of the world. So you bash them, and they vote for you anyways…. because “big government.” I get it, but still ironic for me.
– Byrd is the example of the one who reformed instead of switched. And really, that was all anyone was ever asking for. He did, great, we accept your apology even if we don’t forgive you (just like with LBJ), moving on, thanks for supporting social justice from here forward. Simple. Would be nice to see some more reformed solid southerners. I mean if it was me, the whole mentality of the northern alt-right would be wearing on me. Maybe we need some more states’ rights parties? At least have the conservative south standing on their own two feet instead of bending down for the Know-Nothings from their golden towers in new York city. The rebel flag for me is not a great symbol, but if it stands for one thing, does it not stand for a middle finger to the NYC elite who want central banks and central control… from their towers in the city? Anyways, I like both NYC and Dixie myself, don’t think we have any benefit from further division.
In other words, yes, Bull, FDR, Sanger, PP, Wilson, Byrd. Also Gore, LBJ, and more. Allies of the south or Dixiecrats from the Democratic Party of old before the switch. AKA the point of the essay above.
When is was politically expedient when he ended up on the wrong side of history he had a miraculous “change of heart”. Not enough to acknowledge his half-black daughter publicly, or to particularly atone – but definitely enough to start attacking the Republicans, and isn’t that enough? Generally when someone is humbled by their own evil actions this response isn’t to deflect blame onto someone else; but he spent the rest of his life attacking Republicans. Which, of course he did, they took away his Jim Crow.
BobDid not vote.
You are a confused little snowflake and have zero knowledge of what you’re talking about. But its ok, we’ll give you an “A” for effort for today. Now go color in your big boy coloring book
Yeah, well I appreciate the compliment, but I am right and am very knowledge on the subject. Dare you to argue facts and not just spew ad hominems. I would start, but like, whole page on the subject is featured above. So please refute that with specifics.
Free soil position was that states should decide. They said they were anti slavery, but didn’t want to tell States what to do. At the time they were accused of saying one thing, but having many memebers that acted another way.
It is kind of like taking a States’ rights position toward civil rights in the 60s where they say “we don’t not want equal rights, we just don’t want the government telling people they have to offer equal rights.”
I’ll double check how I frame this above. But that is essentially where I’m going with that.
I think the history of the free soil party is clear enough, I don’t think I’m confused on it.
Don Brish Did not vote.
lmao. That is Funny the parties switched while this author ignores all the migration from northern states south. What is a trumpian ? Some dumb ass loser creates a site and claims what a trumpian is ? The democrat party and there enslaved party supporters engaged in 4 years of riots and division based on hate and lies. The democrats fabricated a phony russia hoax to take down a president and created 2 phony sham impeachments. any party or regime that engages in this type of behavior will 1000 percent steal an election. Now under the fraud president Brandon who hid in his basement during covid and had empty rallies some how got more votes then oboma for doing what ?? lmao. Never mind the voting corruption in our faces all ignored.
GOD HELP THE USA and STOP THE DEMOCRAT REGIME
Mike Striker Supports this as a Fact.
Democrats claims of systematic racism in America is absurd! Democrats appear to love making people feel beholding to the democrat party. The you know I’m right and you must be stupid if you don’t vote for a democrat.Democrats appear to be able to do the impossible, such as screw up a warm pitcher of spit and blame others for their debacle. Now we have inflation and of course democrats blame everyone else for their mess.n Democrats even try to call minorities that disagree with them racist supremacists .Rampant hypocrisy is the party platform.
Edward L Otero Supports this as a Fact.
By constantly trying to erase our nation’s history, Democrats show their hand in their involvement with the KKK. Even as late as the 50′ 60’s and 70’s there were clan members in congress active and vocal about their animosity towards people of color. All of them Democrats !
Steve Knight Supports this as a Fact.
I’ve read history also. One key point you left out while subtly trying to shift the blame on “Southern” Democrats for the KKK and the other Democrat bigotry of that time (and this) is that NOT ONE NORTHERN DEMOCRAT voted for the Emancipation Proclamation in the congress. Not one. So that “southern democrat” old saw is made a lie. Tell me truthfully…have blacks prospered and done well under Democrat-controlled jurisdictions, like Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, Washington DC, etc.? The Republicans might harshly expect them to get a job instead of live a dependent life as a welfare parasite…but…kicking your addictions (to anything, but especially to “free stuff”) may be painful, but it turns out better in the end.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
You have to understand that my claim is that things changed over time, not that they had already changed on day 1 or that regardless of the changes everything that happened from there was good.
Jack Doesn't beleive this myth.
This article omits certain key events that infact show that the parties have not switch from Democrat party and LBJ essentially trapping Black and minority people and making them dependent with the so called affirmative action and other so-called welfare policies which decimated the black family. Combine that with the democrat party now re-immersing itself in race talks, claiming one race is “oppressors” or “oppressed” goes to show that essence of the the party policies have not changed. Similar to in 20th century KKK roaming through the streets you now have a new race-based organizations rioting, destroying property and even killing people in the streets.
While you do have David Duke voting republican, you have his successor Richard Spencer (white supremacist, not KKK since the group is essentially defunct) fully advocating for democrat policies and ideas.
The parties did not change, what happened was that the democrat party didn’t chose not to stress their platform on the policies and ideas that they had before, they modified those racist policies and re-adapted it. Of course I could go more in depth.
Also i notice this “Sanger. This is mostly just propaganda from the religious-Right… ” in your comments. That’s a completely not true but that’s something for another time.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
I think what happened is pretty clear given current cultures and the voting map, but its not simple and I always appreciate hearing the other side. Thank you for your comment.
J. Moral Supports this as a Fact.
There is good reason that some Democrats flipped is because they ran to hide their racist and bigoted past behind the Republican, god fearing, pro life, anti-slavery and racist ideology. When I read up on DeMichelle, liberal is all you need to know that his twisted lies will not be accepted except for those who share the same anger and use of people as pons as the Democratic party still does. You can’t change the spots on a leopard.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
Just because I learn liberal (that is true), doesn’t mean I’m lying. This article contains my conclusions after research as well as justifications. Don’t expect everyone to have the same takeaway, but I am for sure not just lying.
Balduin Did not vote.
After a period of decline, white Protestant nativist groups revived the Klan in the early h century, burning crosses and staging rallies, parades and marches denouncing immigrants, Catholics, Jews, African Americans and organized labor. The civil rights movement of the 19 also saw a surge of Ku Klux Klan activity, including bombings of Black schools and churches and violence against Black and white activists in the South.
Dale Brummel Supports this as a Fact.
This is liberal bullcrap. Slaver owners and kkk are all the way democrats, no excuses.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
The article doesn’t make excuses, it explains the history of the party and shows how the parties, and their ideologies, strongholds, bases, and representatives, changed over time.
R Doesn't beleive this myth.
They ARE the party of slavery still. The rich white liberal wants all minorities and poor whites still on the plantation while the rich white liberal democrat tells them what to do and how to act. Funny how humans never change.
J Did not vote.
Who wrote this BULL!!! Well we know it was a Democrat!!Making it sound like republicans are now the racists?!!!! 🤬 🙄 I Hope no one is dumb enough to believe this nonsense. Want biden the one sporting a black face with friends with ties to the kkk and biden that stated he didn’t want to end segregation?
You really think all those democrat politicians …most have been in there while the kkk was still active mind you…have suddenly changed their views? They don’t exist in the Democratic Party now?? You’re naive if you do.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
I don’t think trying to point out the nuance in the history of the country is political. I think ignoring the nuance to paint one part as is-and-always-has-been saints is political. I also think distancing one’s self from the history of the south using inaccuracies is political. In terms of what Biden did or didn’t do, I don’t know. Doesn’t change the history of the country or the parties.
PAC Did not vote.
Why do Dems use terms like “nuance” and “complex” to dismiss their own culpability; and “racist” to block debate from the other side? It’s nuanced and subtle why Biden passed the 1994 crime bill that disproportionately punished Black communities. It’s nuanced and subtle how the Dems embraced Robert Byrd when he had blood on his hands. It’s nuanced and complex how the media has failed to report *every single times* Trump denounced white supremecists; going right back to the original speech where he said there were good people on both sides. And that Trump passed prison reform that freed many of the people Biden’s crime bill unjustly imprisoned, guaranteed funding to Traditionally Black Colleges, supported employment legislation that lead to a historically-low employment gap between left and right – well he’s just a damned, dirty, racist.
Samara Supports this as a Fact.
This is BS.
If anyone supports Slavery it’s a Liberal Democrat.
This is total spin to coverup for the Democrats.
Liberals are less restrictive with their beliefs see the Libertines.
Conservative means you have more ethics or morals and follow rules.
Liberals are less bound to laws or ethics.
Democrats didn’t switch. They are just as incompetent and corrupt as the Southern Democrats that put the US through the Civil War.
James Murphy Did not vote.
You lost me in your second paragraph. If you look at the electoral map, all southern states are RED, Republican.
Yet liberals still refer to them today as the racist? This is just another Liberal narrative. Malcom X called white Liberals sleezy foxes. First black Senator for the Democrats was 130 years after Republicans voted their first.
James Murphy Did not vote.
First paragraph, sorry.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
I don’t know what is hard to understand about looking at the voting map over time and comparing 1860 to 1968 to 2008. Switch is easy to see and so is the solid south, no?
Does it matter? Supports this as a Fact.
So FDR was a Republican by today’s standards and Lincoln was a Democrat by today’s standards? Must be fun to manipulate history to make your party look good. Doing a media-bias check on your entire website shows you lean left, so that’s all that needs to be know right there. But it’s cool, the Democrats have the minorities they’ve historically (and continue to) oppress fooled and are doing a great job destroying everything they touch in America, so keep up the good work.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
I may have a left-leaning bias, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong about the changes to the parties in history. I don’t think we can say FDR was Republican or Lincoln was a Democrat by today’s standards, but we can say both supported key progressive left ideas that we would expect our modern left-wing liberal party to champion today. Who wants to tear down confederate statues today? Who wants to expand the social welfare system today? Which party says “Black lives matter,” etc. So we compare those planks to planks of FDR and Lincoln and come away saying “hmmmm, wait, did something change.” And to this I say “yes” and then I show you a map to show how the social conservative solid south leadership began to party switch starting in the 1960s… and this explains one aspect of it (the one noted on the page), but then we can go deeper and see more shifts and changes and that things are a bit more complex than that. We end up seeing a factionalization of American and changing politics and factions changing parties and politics changing. Interesting stuff and lots up for debate, but there was for sure some important changes that make this idea that Lincoln was a Republican like today’s Republicans and the KKK favored Democrats like today’s Democrats underwhelmingly simple ideas that miss some important truths about political history in America.
Eddie Chapman Did not vote.
This is a well-thought out breakdown of 150 years of politics. It’s obvious you went to great pains to stick to facts, pretty difficult unless you are truly apolitical, but a genuine historian doesn’t have an agenda. Hats off to you – well done
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
Thank you for the compliment, any breakdown of history can come off as political. And while it’s hard to study and write about politics without having any conclusions, I really do try to take as centered as possible stance when conveying information.
Victor Supports this as a Fact.
The democrats were the party of the KKK. The party switch is a strange thing, some people think it just happened overnight or that it happened as soon as the civil rights movement. Its not so easy to explain, but southerners didnt start switching red consistently until W Bush. And southerners started voting on economic policies because of the growth of business. So this whole party switch is actually fairly recent. Even in one of the articles you posted about the KKK to relate to republicans was from 1999.
I am an independent that tends to vote more conservative, but im not against immigration, just open borders. I dont think abortion should be used as birth control but also believe there are reasons it is necessary.
But to completely dismiss democrats being responsible for the atrocities of this country is just wrong. Slavery, Indian removal, KKK, Jim Crow, Japanese internment, all democrats.
Wayne Mead Did not vote.
“The Democrats ARE the Party of the Ku Klux Klan and Slavery” Now that is a FACT! WERE is misleading BULLSHIT on your part!!
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
So if a bunch of liberals show up at a unite the right party in the south with a big juicy looking statue and confederate flags, do the hardcore southern confederates welcome them in or stand against them? Because I recall from all of my experience these are two different groups and the current Democrats are standing to the left against the confederates, statues, and general on-paper racism.
See where I’m going with this. If you play out the logic it makes sense, and then if you look at history you see that the truth lines up with the logic. To square it up you have to know the history of both parties and the evolution of them… it is complex, but it is not “the Dems did everything bad in history; just like a saw on that one Dinesh D’Souza video.”
PAC Did not vote.
It is very complex and nuanced to understand how a southerner might regard the flag and statues as part of their heritage, without it having to be racist. It’s probably difficult for them to understand how a group of activists, who have never personally experienced either slavery or Jim Crow, can decide to be personally offended by another culture to the point of destroying it. I don’t know. I can see both sides of the issue. However, Dems of all colors, creeds, and sexual preference do show up to Republican events, and there are accounts of how stunned they are at how diverse the crowds are when not filtered through the media’s cameras, and how very welcomed they’ve been – when they’ve shown up out of a genuine desire for truth, and not just to be insulting and inciteful. They didn’t find the hate and violence they were taught was central to the Conservative way of life.
Oh my gosh, I just noticed that *all* your sources are Wikipedia!!! Very representative of the state of modern journalism and critical-thinking, citing recursive sources that are handily already linked to one another.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
I appreciate you taking the time to write out your arguments even though we don’t seem to fully agree. I always think of citations about backing up my argument and showing I’m right, not about whether I’m linking to Wikipedia, Vanity Fair, or the New York Times. I’m not a journalist, I’m a blogger doing pay-to-play (it costs me more to run this site than I make). The point of this site is to find the truth (basically a hobby of mine). When I think I know I’ve found it, I write it up and then let others prove it wrong if they can. I don’t think I’m wrong on this one, but I do like to debate the nuances since history is complex. I also really like this one as it forces people to learn so much about our country, its history, and the party system. Crazy to think the Confederates were Democrats and yet today we know Republicans are sort of Southern guys. What changed and didn’t is fascinating.
Kathy Gail Supports this as a Fact.
You state facts – the Democratics were the slave owners.
You then state myths/lies – Republican know nothings. The Democrats know nothing. They believe every Media lie, they don’t/can’t show any facts to support their lies. They follow their Party which is ‘tax and spend’ while keeping the poor poor.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
Even if you don’t want to hear it, I would say the page above is well researched account of history, where you have presented me with a jumble of opinion and misunderstanding (sorry to be blunt, but you did squish together sparse and partly unrelated ideas in your argument). I’m not saying you aren’t well intentioned, but media spin has nothing to do with the subject, know nothings are a party of anti-immigrant Republican allies from the mid-1800s, and the old Democrats were the anti-tax party of the day. Again, my argument is about the changes, which even your comment eludes to perhaps without you realizing.
PAC Did not vote.
Well, research can say anything you want it to say if you carefully vet your materials. Are you using attitudes towards taxation to pin the “racism” tag on Conservatives? Wowee. It make no sense that one group of people would go from hundreds of years of deeply-ingrained racism to no racism at all beginning with when it was politically expedient for them to do so. The Dems continue to use minorities to their own ends without doing a thing to address the ills of that community. Throw ’em a little money, teach ’em a little hate, and they’ll continue to vote how you want. It may not be in the sources you cite, but as you’re “left leaning” I’m sure you carefully culled the available literature. There are racists on both sides, but it’s still the Dems who own the black community.
ROBERT DAMON Did not vote.
During the 60s the Republican Party drove the civil rights acts. The foremost opponents were Democrats led by a Democratic Senator from Tennessee, Al Gore Senior. Your apologetic for the Democrat Party is where stop using facts and start using your opinion.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
I would just argue you are twisting history and not properly understanding how Gore and a few others broke away from the solid south line and got flack and that is why the Gores ended up staying in the Dems even as the parties switched.
American Patriot Supports this as a Fact.
The Democratic Party today are socialist commie fools, and baby killers, godless evil people who love, and serve Satan. All I can say to you, is REPENT, before it is to late for you. I can see in your writings, you have been brainwashed in your high school, and college, to hate America. No Mercy for traitors of of the United States Of America. Patriots will rise, and defeat this evil behavior. You will never take our freedoms away, COME AND TAKE IT, I can’t wait for the day you fools try to.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
I don’t think anyone is trying to take anything. Having two parties is the key to Democracy, so I don’t think a two party or more system is evil at all. But of course in a heated ball game we always root for our own team. But…. in a ball game you don’t want to see another team actually hurt. Right? I would say you will feel better if you take a deep breath and let a little positivity into your life. Cheers and good luck!
Douglas Jones Did not vote.
Saying that the GOP flipped and became evil KKK members and Democrats became the ‘good guys’ is like saying, God decided to stop being Holy and Righteous and went over to the dark side and he and Satan have now traded places…
Evil never becomes good and good never becomes evil. The devil himself will transform his image to appeal to anyone, including the Democratic party and its followers. You cannot force out the KKK of their party. They are still in the Democratic Party. And yes, it’s true that there are some racist Republicans, but I can assure you that the GOP does not claim them. On the other hand, the Democratic Party never disclaims ANTIFA.
The characteristics of God are obvious and include freedom to choose, true love, industrious which are only a few of his characteristics. Satan’s characteristics are controlling, hatred, and laziness. Now, neither party is perfect; however, the GOP does not force anything on anyone, we tolerate others, and we like to work and get things done and live by the fruits of our labor. The Democratic Party has the entire liberal lying media behind them. And most Christians believe that the media is merely a puppet of Satan. The Democratic Party lies and twists its words calling abortion, healthcare, and labeling anyone who does not agree with their doctrine ‘racist’ ‘homophobe’ or ‘xenophobe’. It takes the truth and skews it. It rewards lazy people with Section 8 and they are telling people to stay at home during the COVID-19 even when there is less than 0.01% chance of dying from it. They want to destroy the economy (just as the devil does) in hope that it will kill Trump’s chance for reelection. The party loves Muslims but hates Christians and Jews.
So, for you to tell me that the Democratic Party is now the party of love and acceptance and tolerance and peace and hope and that the two parties ‘switched’. You are full of it.
You cannot make a good man become evil and an evil man become good. If that holds true, and it does, it stands to reason that the GOP never went to the dark side and the Democratic Party never corrected its evil ways…
The Democratic Party was and still is the party of slavery. LBJ was a racist and was quoted as saying…”I’ll have then n!$$3rs voting the Democratic ticket for the next 200 years!” And he was right. He conned the black population into selling their souls to the racist Democratic Party. The way the racist Democrats saw it was like this…’ we get those blacks to vote for us and we won’t have to worry about the GOP ever getting their vote.’ The Democrats knew the psychology needed to manipulate the black vote. After all, their ancestors used that psychology to keep the black slave in ‘mental chains’ and do the work of the white master for fear of death. They began running campaigns against the GOP and began lying on them calling them “Racist” and then used those lies to make the black man think that the Democratic Party actually cares for them. After all, they gave us free government cheese, welfare, section 8, and other entitlement programs when the GOP never did anything for us, right?
The truth is the Democratic Party never changed. It only changed its outer appearance. It’s still the same old hateful party of white racists. The same old racists that taught the black man to say “N!$$er” and do so with affection to one another instead of banning that word forever. Pretty clever huh? Teach a black man to say a word that was meant to insult him and then have him use that word with affection, mostly. Though, it’s still used a lot out of hatred for one another…
Oh yes, they are now all-inclusive… They now have blacks and gays and every color of the rainbow in their ranks. That’s all-inclusive, right? Did not the white slave master have blacks in his house too? Why did he have blacks in his house cooking his meals, washing his clothes, and such? It wasn’t because he loved them. It was because they were his property. He owned their minds and bodies. Just the same way the Democratic Party owns the minds of the masses who believe in them.
You know why we hear black men calling each other “N!$$er” and sagging their pants. It’s remanents of slavery. The same slavery that was imposed by the KKK Southern Democrats. Slavery was abolished by law, but the Democratic Plantation will never be outlawed because it is the party of Satan, and no good will ever come from it.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
I know many people look at this many different ways, but on a historic level the state leadership seats that used to be held by Southern Democrats are now held by Southern Republicans and a lot of the voting map has generally flipped. That is what I’m getting at here. But think we all generally agree racism is bad and neither party wants to be associated with it, just like the average person doesn’t see themselves as racist. Appreciate your two cents.
American History teacher Doesn't beleive this myth.
Sorry, this is all completely illegitimate. I’ve taught American history for 12 years. Whole parties didnt flip gradually or quickly. The north was Republican and the south was democratic and was where all the rich democratic plantations were. Most people in the south, who didnt own those huge plantations, didnt agree with slavery at all. They only appeased the rich white man because they had to count on them to help feed their smaller farm families and so they were supported by these manipulators. As the civil war broke out there was mass exodus to the south to fight for freedom of the black man and for other economical reasons. That is when the rich democratic white people fled to the north once the war was over because they could no longer make money since they had no more slaves so they sold their plantations to the rich Republicans from the North who made their money from factories. Once this happened you have the geographical switch. It was never a party switch. This site needs to be taken down, sir. It is spreading disinformation and the idea of having people who are just as unknowledgeable as you are vote on whether or not your opinions on this page are fact, is further proof that you don’t believe your own knowledge.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
Well… just because you are well-informed and a teacher doesn’t mean we have to agree here. You say truths, but they aren’t overriding my truths. I won’t reiterate what I say, but happy to let your comment augment it and offer an opposing view.
pac Did not vote.
Glad you can be so magnanimous. I’m so happy you’re so comfortable letting half the country be called White Supremecists undeservedly. While Dems retain their shiny tin crown of virtue, Conservatives get savaged. But when a Black person becomes successful, learns the truth, becomes a Conservative, just look and see which side *publicly* spew the racial epithets. Every politician. Every Hollywood lefty. You’re so immersed in it you can’t tell truth from propaganda.
Donald Did not vote.
Sir if your the author your a liar nothing more trying to change history in your own sick demented way. You ignore the migration of millions of americans wo simply moved from the north to the south for warmer climate. The parties never switched and the nazi democrat regime is destroying the usa in our faces. Tell me something good democrats did for the american citizen while Trump was president ??? lmao. Riots, a russia hoax and 2 sham impeachments. This only divided us more just like they did during the civil war and killed lincoln which is what they would have done proudly to trump if they could get away with it. That is why we seen so many mock assissinations of Trump and your were smiling with glee. never have i seen such a disrespect for human life and then mocking the 1st lady. an immigrant who spoke 5 languages, a super model. true evil is all a democrat is and as you can see you have fooled nobody as nobody here agrees with you. LOL. Nice try.,
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
They moved for the climate? So is this why they are anti-climate science, making the north warm again. So honestly, I might change my affiliation now that I know. Cold AF here 🙂
Jokes aside, thank you for the comment.
PAC Did not vote.
So, after the Republican’s help LBJ pass Civil Rights legislation with opposition from the Democrats they randomly turned evil and switch parties? After being the party that opposed slavery and supported Civil Rights right on down the line? *That makes no sense*. Like, “We won and we’re mad about it.” MUCH more likely the Dems secured their control of the group by becoming benevolent parental figures, standing against the evil right. They do nothing for the black community, AND they get votes. A shining example of the a Dem who didn’t switch parties was Robert Byrd, who was in the highest tiers of the Klan during some of their worst years. There’s no doubt he presided over atrocities. So just because his side lost he dropped his hatred. Or was his “change of heart” much more about “securing his power base”. He never repented, just started denouncing the “bad” Republicans, re-writing history. He became a respected elder statesman in the Democratic party up until his death still with blood on his hands. Biden even eulogized him. Are Dems still racist? They control the cities where black-on-black violence is the worst. They control the schools where children are taught hate and hopelessness, rather than the academics that will actually left them up in life. Dems deny children of color school choice, even though there’s ample evidence that those children flourish outside of public schools. And if a black, successful, conservative ever steps up they are denounced with pure racism – for not carrying the water for and following the dictates of their overseers. The Dems lost their slaves; lost their Jim Crow; lost control of a population they still look down on as helpless children, and still sneer at as being unable to, for instance, use a computer (!!???). After Civil Rights Dems switched the narrative and did a full-court press on Republicans. Are there racists on the right – of course – but most of the Democratic party is so culturally and intrinsically racist that they can’t even see it. Black people are useful idiots to the Dems as evidenced by how they go off the deep end when one decides to think for themselves. Your facts aren’t facts if they come from faulty sources. But you’re probably also indoctrinated with the mindset in which Dems are the White Saviors, and Republicans were always the villains.
Richard A Davis Supports this as a Fact.
Of course the revisionist historians like the author above, promotes the lie and BS that there was some sort of Southern Strategy and a switch of the Dixie Democrats to become Conservative Republicans, a flat out that has been perpetuated over time by those like him. Out of the more than 30 Dixie Democrats, exactly 1 switched parties to Republican in their entire lifetime. So this fantasy that Southern Democrats “turned into” Republicans is simply BS of the highest order. The Democrat party had as its Senate MAJORITY LEADER a former KKK Democrat by the name of Robert Byrd, who was the Grand Kleagle of one of the factions of the KKK down in W. Virginia. The Democrat party is composed of nothing but liars and those who support the lying leftists. Today their political ideology is totalitarian and borders on Communism. They will always have the uninformed sheep who make up the vast majority of their constituency, to rely on for their votes, however their voters are utterly uniformed and ignorant of basic historic facts.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
It isn’t revisionist history. It is just that the south used to favor racism and democrats and now they favor republicans and less racism. Explain that how you want, but the progressive and the liberal wings of the democratic party now dominate it, where the southern social conservative faction used to be a major force (but now they are a major force in the republican party).
If we can find better words to say this, then let’s use those words. But specific words aside, let’s not confuse ourselves with incorrect ideas and useless asides like stories of commies or Byrd.
Al Grayson Supports this as a Fact.
“Were.”
What confuses many about MLK/MLK Jr. is that MLK Sr., along with most Blacks of his generation back to the Civil War, were Republicans/voted Republican where the Democrats weren’t strong enough to block them. MLK Jr. didn’t identify with either party as he didn’t want to be beholden to either.
So when someone says, “Martin Luther King was a lifelong Republican,” either they are ignorant of Dr. Martin Luther King’s father, thinking that they were told that Dr. MLK Jr. was a lifelong Republican. Or someone is being intentionally deceptive.
Jeff Supports this as a Fact.
When the internet became— True History from the books was changed to a viewpoint of a political party who would benefit. The Democrats are erasing history, and removing statues of History. This shows proof. They are the KKK.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
I don’t think so, this page for example describes how there is truth in the link between Democrats, the Confederacy, the south, the KKK, etc; but how things have changed. This is why today it is the GOP and alt-right who are upset about statues being torn down. I don’t think the logic is super hard to follow, but I do see how it is hard to swallow.
Don Supports this as a Fact.
Did you know that the Democratic Party defended slavery, started the Civil War, founded the KKK, and fought against every major civil rights act in U.S. history? Watch as Carol Swain, PhD, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University, shares the inconvenient history of the Democratic Party.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_a7dQXilCo
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
Yes, yes I did. That is why I wrote this article. As for the video, I have watched it and… that is also part of the reason I wrote this article.
So let’s start again, “Hi, I’m the guy debunking the misinformation related to how we should interpret that very real fact that you shared. Pls read article again. Thx.”
Doug Did not vote.
“Today the solid south, and figures like Jeff Sessions, are in an alliance in the big tent of the Republican ”
After this comment I stopped reading.
Donald nominated Jeff to AG, then less than two years in…. Jeff is fired.
So if Donald a semi Republican fires a supposed Republican… your arguments mean squat.
Jeff obviously a government guy first, that enjoyed under-minding a duly elected President.
Just look at his decisions
That being said if Donald was not supported by this hack, then maybe Donald is who he claims to be.
A American that puts the US first..
Mary Ann Supports this as a Fact.
Why do we need to “vote” for whether this is fact or myth? I mean, facts are facts, and myths are myths. This is a fact – although the WAS needs to be underlined, in BOLD, ALL-CAPS, and Italics! Things have changed drastically over the years since that was true.
It amazes me, reading the comments left here, especially the one spouting D’souza (who is such a good liar that he supposedly changed a Democrat into a Republican, way down at the bottom here), at how many people have been gaslighted into believing the crazy that certain factions in the GOP have been pumping out at more and more strength over the last few years. They are trying their darnedest to become fascist authoritarians, and are already entrenched in at least one major news source, where they can sit there, smiling, and lie to even more people every day. The concept is nauseating, but they are obviously managing to sell it to a pretty large minority of the populace. Say, about 40% of the voting population, in fact.
I have been a student of history (among other subjects) my whole life. You did a very good job clearly delineating what the factions in each party did as the populace changed over time, and what the parties did to take advantage of that populace. Although, there is one video that is listed as “no longer available” on youtube, the one labeled “Ku Klux Klan – A Secret History.” Not sure if you want to delete it from the article, or try to find an alternative source and insert it there, instead. Just a heads up about it, for you, in case you can edit the article at this late date.
Thank you for this article, including all of the cited information, and all of the links to other articles which back up this information. Well done!
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
Thank you for the compliment and the suggestions. Much appreciated.
To your first point, we let people vote because 1. people don’t always agree on facts (even if there is one truth, so often we don’t agree what it is), and 2. because it is always possible that we get something wrong and this gives people a way to challenge our conclusions.
Ace Did not vote.
Who are the ones advocating for censorship?
Who are the ones who support the silencing of invited speakers on campus through any means necessary to have the event cancelled? Milo Y.? Ben S.? Lauren S. Ann Coulter, Jordan Peterson and many others. They’ll protest, disrupt, pull fire alarms…some even call themselves “antifa” and actually want violence. “Antifa,” as seen today in the US, is NOT an “anti-fascist” group. THEY are the fascists. They’re the modern day black-shirts and brown-shirts. There’s literally no difference.
Who is attacking freedom of speech?
Who is attacking freedom of thought and expression?
Who is going around encouraging activists to harass members of congress and reporters, like Tucker C. and Mitch M., for example? Standing outside of their houses at all hours of the night chanting and name calling? And all because they have a different political opinion than the leftist agenda. This type of action is a cornerstone of fascist ideology. I don’t see any conservatives trying to get speakers banned or silenced. Do you? Why isn’t Trump creating his own black-shirt units to go around to universities, TV stations, newspapers etc., and kick the crap out of anyone critical of him? THAT’S what a fascist would do, after all. But he’s not doing that. The media is constantly going after him 24/7 and he’s not doing a damn thing about it. Can’t say the same for those critical of the left. Criticize the left and you WILL be dealt with one way or another. So who’s the real fascists?
Everything the left is doing now is inline with classic, historical leftist ideology (Marxism, socialism, communism and fascism) and these have more in common, today, with the democratic left than modern conservatism. The racism, intolerance, hatred…it’s on the left side of the fence. The history books are wrong. The dictionaries are wrong on the definition of fascism.
“It is obvious what the fraudulent issue of fascism versus communism accomplishes: it sets up, as opposites, two variants of the same political system; it eliminates the possibility of considering capitalism; it switches the choice of “Freedom or dictatorship?” into “Which kind of dictatorship?”—thus establishing dictatorship as an inevitable fact and offering only a choice of rulers. The choice—according to the proponents of that fraud—is: a dictatorship of the rich (fascism) or a dictatorship of the poor (communism).
That fraud collapsed in the 1940’s, in the aftermath of World War II. It is too obvious, too easily demonstrable that fascism and communism are not two opposites, but two rival gangs fighting over the same territory—that both are variants of statism, based on the collectivist principle that man is the rightless slave of the state—that both are socialistic, in theory, in practice, and in the explicit statements of their leaders—that under both systems, the poor are enslaved and the rich are expropriated in favor of a ruling clique—that fascism is not the product of the political “right,” but of the “left”—that the basic issue is not “rich versus poor,” but man versus the state, or: individual rights versus totalitarian government—which means: capitalism versus socialism.” – Ayn Rand, from The Objectivist
She’s right. Just like Dinesh.
BTW, i wasn’t “turned into a republican/conservative.” I’m still a registered democrat. The democratic party has shifted so far to the left but i’ve remained where i always have been.
Ace Supports this as a Fact.
Have you ever heard of Dinesh D’souza?
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
Yeah, I specifically disagree with his point of view. I realized as i did these articles that a lot of misinformation was coming from him. Not a fan to say the least, find his work very misleading and disingenuous. I would be curious to know if he believed what he said or if he was just purely political and pandering.
Ace Did not vote.
Yeah, the thing about Dinesh D’souza is that he presents you with more than enough evidence so that it’s not a matter of believing it or not, it just is – whether the listeners like it or not, it just simply is.
I’ve been a registered democrat for my entire adult life (almost 50). I took his challenges to “look it up for myself” on his talking points on this subject. I set out to prove him wrong, i wanted to shut him up and expose him as a liar. Nothing he said had made sense, in fact it was basically the exact opposite of what i KNEW was the truth.
What kind of a person would lie so blatantly, turning history on its head? I mean, how could anyone say the things he was saying with a straight face. He was obviously KNOWINGLY lying.
It was a humbling moment to say the least when i realized that i not only couldn’t prove him wrong, i proved him to be correct in everything he was saying in the process. It’s been a wake-up call.
So i understand your position, i really do. He’s right, Thomas. It’s terrible, but he’s right.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
He really isn’t right though, he is taking some facts about history and twisting it into a pretzel to present what adds up to a falsehood for the most part.
If you want to discuss it though, feel free to throw out a proof you found and I’ll give you my take.
Ace Did not vote.
______________There are no “takes” to be given. He’s telling the truth. It’s not an opinion, it’s a matter of public record.
Doug Did not vote.
Pandering such as those on permanent welfare to those that should be working.
Yup, I get it now!
Michael Hunt Did not vote.
what a bunch of absolute crap. it nearly doesn’t matter – conservative or liberal – democrats have given the USA every single racial atrocity without so much as a single exception. This is obfuscation like there’s no tomorrow. Democrats need to apologize and beg forgiveness every day and pay reparations for their evils. Not because they are Americans. But because they are democrats. Ignorant racist eugenicist KKK forming and then KKK reviving segregation Jim Crow Japanese internment Trail of Tears opposing the Civil Rights Bill under Ike wow I don’t have another three years to keep on listing these crimes against humanity off. when will we rise up and crush these evil people and their vile philosophies of white supremacy?
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
Replace “Democrats” with “the south” and if you still agree then ok. I actually don’t think apologizing is a bad idea to be honest. Maybe the south and Democrats can apologize together. Considering the southern leaders in the gop, I could then see this as both modern parties apologizing. Maybe they can take down a few statues at the apology event?
Matt Did not vote.
Democrats have always been the party of slavery. Just look at how well Black America has done under Dem policies
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
Your comment is 1. incorrect in terms of “always being the party of slavery” on a few levels, and 2. misleading and subjective in the assumption that the Democratic Party hasn’t been a good ally in the modern day.
First off, there hasn’t been any actual slavery since the times after the Confederate south lost the war. So neither party is the party of something that isn’t a thing.
As for how black Americans have done, as a group I think we can agree neither party did enough for them. However, especially in from the progressive era forward progressives and liberals have generally fought for civil rights. Given that the Democratic party has generally been the party that the progressive and liberal factions gathered in, and given that that faction even drove out the socially conservative southern faction over the course of the 20th century, I would say that the Democratic party (especially by today) has done far more and continues to do far more good.
But look, any progressive will tell you not enough has been done. The idea that progressives have, where they want to expand healthcare, workers rights, jobs, etc. That is aimed at helping everyone, and that for sure includes African American communities. Prison reform, the way we prosecute drug crimes, etc… so much you know, all focused on human rights.
Meanwhile the GOP is the party that supports the confederate statues staying up and has the majority vote in the states that made up the Confederacy.
History is clear, open your eyes.
Both parties can do more, but your point is talking point and nothing more.
Bobby T Supports this as a Fact.
Hah, big switch? Is this how simple minded and easily fooled people are these days? The “big switch” was nothing but a desperate bid to easily garner decades of votes from a certain demographic just like LBJ said. And the recent new switch in the last decade of promoting a border wall and enforced immigration laws to now being completely lax on any ICE enforcement is more of the same.
After people see failed policy after failed policy come to fruition, the Dems are consistently needing a new voter base. From Woodrow Wilson to present, the Democratic party seems like they are doing anything they can to hurt the USA in order to create a single global government, while claiming and having children as well as simple people fall for the hook that it is all in the name of altruism.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
You can literally on a voter map see the conservative south “switch” from favoring the Democratic party to the Republican party. This switch was very big. It was, a big switch.
That said, as the long article above points out, there was actually a lot that did and didn’t change, and history is way more complex than people tend to imply in slanted videos and articles and overly simple talking points and memes.
I have, to the best of my ability, correctly documented history with nuance above, my suggestion to anyone curious is to put your bias aside and really look at what I’m saying. The best arguments in my opinion are ones that are rooted in explaining why the switch was made, not ones that try to argue that there was no switch (because there was and it is pretty clearly documented).
Matt Did not vote.
Trump gives blacks a way to better themselves. Democrat policies keep them dependent.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
That is sort of just a generic pro-Trump talking point. Feel free to offer citations. Otherwise, see my other comment.
Samara Did not vote.
This is a generic pro-dem talking point.
The Dems are trying to make Universal Basic Income for Whites only.
Dems support Antifa and DSA (Democrat Socialists of America) are allowed to run as Dems.
Dems are liberal disasters with a history of racism and corruption. See Cuomo and Huizar and all those Dem Mayors like Kwame Kilpatrick.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
History is history. I don’t know why the Democrats would bother bringing up the fact that they were the Confederacy and party of slavery if not to point out that they lost control of the socially conservative south. Seems like an odd strategy. But let’s just say, interpret this how you want, but I wouldn’t confuse progressives and social liberals in the north who are democrats with the southern confederacy. That part is for sure wrong.
Rol99and Supports this as a Fact.
This is what an education by prussian marxist in a playpen looks like.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
What, giving a basic rundown of history? If the Prussian is teaching American history, then perhaps.
Hector Supports this as a Fact.
It’s hard to believe you consider this nonsense facts. From reading your article and your responses to people. You will justify your article because you believe it to be true. It is so factually incorrect it’s hard to find a starting point. The Democrats will not against the government. slavery and the Wolf around slavery were imposed by the government and big government ! 1964 Civil Rights Act was blocked by the Democrats in 1957 when Eisenhower was trying to get it passed. And it was passed in 1964 by a majority of Republicans not Democrats. Which destroys your whole switch Theory on top of which the party never switched. And the south started becoming Republican when they supporting Reagan in the 80s. Are you trying to leave everybody to believe that the racist Southerners who supported Reagan because the South was more racist in 1980 and it was a 1964 ? There’s so much crap you put that is wrong it’s not worth my breath cuz you’re going to justify your article.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
Here is the thing though, I cover all of that in the article (and more broadly on this page: http://factmyth.com/factoids/democrats-and-republicans-switched-platforms/ and this page: http://factmyth.com/a-summary-of-how-the-major-parties-switched/). For the record, I strongly disagree with your stance and given the time and attention am able to prove it wrong.
The parties changed over time. One thing that happened was the solid south conservatives, the “solid south” dixicrats we might call them, switched from favoring the Democratic party to the Republican party over the course of the 1900s (one major catalyst is in the 1960s, that has a ripple effect which changes the parties over the coming decades).
The change is slow, but the result is so drastic you can see it on the map (I feature these maps many times above).
How do we discuss the reality that the solid conservative south (the southern bloc social conservatives) used to vote side-by-side with progressives (although often in disagreement on issues)? How do we discuss how Thomas Jefferson Supported this faction then (although with disagreements)? How do we discuss Jeff Sessions and Trump’s support now? Why would the extreme antifa favor the left and maybe Bernie over Trump and the extreme right neo nazis favor the right and maybe Trump over Bernie today (these groups are small, but we know clearly which group favors which party)? How do we discuss how the south has changed and how maybe that region’s conservative voter isn’t racist anymore but today really just cares about small government? And then, do we point out that “I’m not racist, I just care about small government” was essentially the motto of the south from the late 1700s to today (it was one of the main justifications of Civil war and the root of tensions leading up to it in fact; a neo confederate talking point is “the war was about big government”… heck dude, you just said “big government”)?
I’ll discuss any aspect of this, how the Democrats as a historic party have slavery in their history, how the south does too, how the country does, and who the conservative south voted en bloc for in each election be it one of the major parties or a third party… but none of those roads will lead us to any other conclusion than the one I’ve presented above.
We can maybe say “race used to matter and there used to be racists, but now there are not” (and then we can debate that), but we can’t say “race has always mattered, there are racists, and the ones of the Confederacy, slavery, and the KKK were yesterday and have always been even today Democrats.” We can’t make the conclusions Dinesh D’Souza does and be right, but we can be respectful to the southern conservative of today and not blame them for yesterday (and be respectful to the Democrats of today and not blame them for what was done under the banner of the party yesterday).
Likewise, we can say “the south favored Reagan because he was just great and because the Democrats were too Big government progressive”… but like, this fits in my story perfectly, it doesn’t detract from it. It tells of the southern strategy and the growing progressivism of the left and the old “small government” argument. It helps explain our story, but it does not change what happened!
A voting map shows us the political history of the south from when the Confederacy was the strongest until today, the south changed from being solidly blue to solidly red. We have to acknowledge that change and what it means, and then we can debate from there.
Meaning, I won’t necessarily force a conversation that points a finger at the south and modern GOP with their southern social conservative wing and connects it to the worst parts of 1860 or 1960 (times when the south was still blue), but more than this I won’t accept a conversation which says “the Democrats were responsible for slavery, and nothing has changed, therefore they still are the party of this today.”
Also, personally and most of all, I won’t accept a conversation that confuses progressive liberals, neo liberals, and southern social conservatives when it comes to policies like Civil Rights. These factions may have been in the same party in the past, but the southern social conservative is clearly not in that coalition today… I mean, that couldn’t be more clear.
In summary, we can be polite and give the benefit of the doubt to our current generation, but we can’t twist the history of the south into a pretzel to absolve the conservative south of everything it did just because it now votes GOP while at the same time blaming that history on the Democrats because they used to vote under that banner. Since we can’t do that, we should also toss D’souza’s work on the fire, because it is confusing propaganda. There are much better texts out there from people who do the south far more justice anyway.
NOTE: There is one extra problem here. If I start absolving the conservative south of the Confederacy. Say maybe we have a statue destroying party. I mean, we will get a Charlottesville, right? The reality is the southern conservative who votes for Trump today knows darn well their own history stretches between parties. This makes this whole argument a little silly. I shouldn’t have to explain that which we all really know in this sense. I’m happy to play historian, but we all know darn well we aren’t 100% ready to destroy those statues, and given this we should really acknowledge which faction it is that wants to leave them up and which wants to rip them down. From there it should be another hint that I am right.
Marq George Supports this as a Fact.
Your anaylses are wrong. It is the view held by the majority and the majority is almost always wrong. You try your hardest to conflate that state’s rights and limited government equals support for slavery. You do the same with big government equals freedom!
Both are a distorted view of reality based totally on one’s bias. I’m not going to go into all the details, because it would be a waste of my time and yours.
You will undoubtedly reinforce the beliefs of the naivete. 5% think, 15% think they think, and 80% would rather die than think!
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
The southern democrats were the “states’ rights” faction who were anti-big government (to the extent they tried to go to war against the other half of the country in the Civil War and fought against the Constitution in the 1770s – 1780s; etc). The whole thing was “government shouldn’t be able to tell us whether or not we can own slaves or whether or not we have to serve blacks or have a central bank or tax us or [insert just or arguably unjust cause here]… etc.”
Essentially you are supporting my argument with what you say in that respect.
I’m not even making a judgement call on slavery, KKK, confederates, dixiecrats, etc here (although I certainly have my opinions), and I’m not really making a judgement call on states’ rights (its actually, all else aside, a classical liberal pillar), I am just saying “that states’ rights southern conservative faction that used to vote Democrat now votes GOP, and this shouldn’t be confused with say a Bernie Sanders supporter or Obama.”
Johnny Did not vote.
I stopped reading early when the author roughly says “Why its not fair to compare Old democrats to New democrats”……but its apparently ok to compare old conservatives with new conservatives… if this piece isn’t a one-sided political smear I don’t know what is.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
This page isn’t about the Republican party, that is why I don’t zero in on every quality of that party.
It is not fair to compare the old GOP to the new one either honestly. Both parties changed.
And when I say “not fair to compare,” I mean they aren’t “exactly the same.” Like, we don’t want to blame a current citizen of Mississippi for the Civil War, we don’t want to hold the current Democratic party responsible for every action and quality of the Democratic party of 1860.
That said, the article above is generally right, learn from it as you wish or not.
PAC Did not vote.
All of his sources are either far-left or Wikipedia.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
Doesn’t make the article wrong though. Wikipedia might not win an argument, but it’s a good place to look to help verify I’m right. I think most reasonable people can use that resource to get a sense of whether or not my facts line up. Going back in time, maybe though I could have done better with the citations. I do hear the argument against Wikipedia a lot, even though in my mind it is a reasonable thing to cite.
Also, I have to go pretty far to the right to get right-wingers backing up my thesis 😀
Fletch Did not vote.
There was no “big switch”. All but 3 of the Dixiecrats went back to the Democrat party and were Democrats for life.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
I think I explained this above that it isn’t that individual representatives switch, it is that their seats are replaced by members of the opposite party. So the south goes from blue to red, not because individual representatives changed parties, but because seats are replaced by the opposite party as the voter base switches. It is complex, but I would argue that the article is correct.
Cheerios Supports this as a Fact.
Bull Connor (D)
FDR (D)
Margaret Sanger (Nazi sympathizer and racist Eugenics)
Planned Parenthood (democrat party)
Woodrow Wilson (D)
D Senator and Grand Cyclops or wizard Robert Byrd (D)
Just to name a few
……hmmm
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
Yes, you listed off a bunch of progressives (some, like Wilson, Dixiecrats progressives from the south).
That list fits right in with the story we told above.
– Bull, well he was the one that JFK and MLK’s people stood up to. Today, the gentleman from Alabama would most likely be GOP, just like all the others like him are today.
– FDR, he is a hero, but as a 4 term President from the Democratic Party of that era, of course he was friendly with the solid south social conservatives. They were a major force in the Democratic party back in his day (you know, before the “big switch.”)
– Sanger. This is mostly just propaganda from the religious-Right who can’t understand the difference between positive and negative eugenics and elective and non-elective. With that said, find me someone who didn’t support questionable eugenics programs in the early 1900s, and lets start there. It is a bipartisan blight on our country, but let us not conflate a woman’s right to choose, or the solid south’s support of that movement, or any other part of this complex story with the modern women’s’ health center. http://factmyth.com/factoids/eugenics-has-historically-been-a-popular-theory/
– Woodrow Wilson. You see, when the Democratic Party was the party of the South, and when it was the progressive era, Wilson was the man who represented all the factions of the Democratic party. He was a southern progressive, and he was a solid south conservative intellectual. He helped ensure a strong south economically with social programs, and he pass progressive legislation for the rest of the party. He helped win WWI, and although he was a bit of bigot, we can also remember him as an important politician scientist and president. If the south wanted to proud of something, Wilson wouldn’t be a bad choice. The northern modern alt-right almost irks me with their willingness to bash their current brothers and sisters in the conservative south with their twisting of the “switch” story. Afterall, all you are really trying to say is Confederate south = so bad modern Democrats should be ashmed off it… but like, clearly the modern right is in an allaience with the Sessions’ of the world. So you bash them, and they vote for you anyways…. because “big government.” I get it, but still ironic for me.
– Byrd is the example of the one who reformed instead of switched. And really, that was all anyone was ever asking for. He did, great, we accept your apology even if we don’t forgive you (just like with LBJ), moving on, thanks for supporting social justice from here forward. Simple. Would be nice to see some more reformed solid southerners. I mean if it was me, the whole mentality of the northern alt-right would be wearing on me. Maybe we need some more states’ rights parties? At least have the conservative south standing on their own two feet instead of bending down for the Know-Nothings from their golden towers in new York city. The rebel flag for me is not a great symbol, but if it stands for one thing, does it not stand for a middle finger to the NYC elite who want central banks and central control… from their towers in the city? Anyways, I like both NYC and Dixie myself, don’t think we have any benefit from further division.
In other words, yes, Bull, FDR, Sanger, PP, Wilson, Byrd. Also Gore, LBJ, and more. Allies of the south or Dixiecrats from the Democratic Party of old before the switch. AKA the point of the essay above.
Doug Did not vote.
– Byrd is the example of the one who reformed instead of switched
This such a lie.
Senator Byrd will 1000 years after he was dead was still will be a KKK member.
So love blatant lies.
Reason Did not vote.
This such a lie.
He did everything you can do to renounce the Klan
PAC Did not vote.
When is was politically expedient when he ended up on the wrong side of history he had a miraculous “change of heart”. Not enough to acknowledge his half-black daughter publicly, or to particularly atone – but definitely enough to start attacking the Republicans, and isn’t that enough? Generally when someone is humbled by their own evil actions this response isn’t to deflect blame onto someone else; but he spent the rest of his life attacking Republicans. Which, of course he did, they took away his Jim Crow.
Bob Did not vote.
You are a confused little snowflake and have zero knowledge of what you’re talking about. But its ok, we’ll give you an “A” for effort for today. Now go color in your big boy coloring book
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
Yeah, well I appreciate the compliment, but I am right and am very knowledge on the subject. Dare you to argue facts and not just spew ad hominems. I would start, but like, whole page on the subject is featured above. So please refute that with specifics.
Parth Trivedi Doesn't beleive this myth.
The Free Soilers were against slavery and did not side with the democrats. Try again.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
Free soil position was that states should decide. They said they were anti slavery, but didn’t want to tell States what to do. At the time they were accused of saying one thing, but having many memebers that acted another way.
It is kind of like taking a States’ rights position toward civil rights in the 60s where they say “we don’t not want equal rights, we just don’t want the government telling people they have to offer equal rights.”
I’ll double check how I frame this above. But that is essentially where I’m going with that.
I think the history of the free soil party is clear enough, I don’t think I’m confused on it.