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Actually, you just wanted to make an inane statement about southern racism that had absolutely nothing to do with what I posted. I would appreciate you not using my posts to project hatred. You are welcome to discuss what I posted rationally. We are all Americans no matter who we vote for, not enemies.
I was simply stating my theory on it. What I was saying was that historically, southerners liked self reliance because they preferred to be left alone. And many preferred to be left alone for the reasons I mentioned in my previous post. That's my theory. Not projecting hatred, just making some conclusions with observations from history. But if you want to discuss from a different angle, maybe we can start over:
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It has to do with the democrat party being taken over by the northeast and west coast liberals. Their ideas of how to run the country do not mix well with southerners who value self sufficiency. Was FDR a Republican? No, so why the argument that dems were repubs until the civil rights movement? The argument of southern strategy does have some truth, no question, but it is far more than that.
North and South always had different ideas about how to run the country since the revolution. Southerners favored less government involvement. I have my own ideas as to why, but I already mentioned those. Northerners had their reasons. Tariff disputes had something to say in this.
I still think the big catalyst for north and south switching parties was the civil rights movement. There were enough white southern segregationists who were so upset about blacks getting rights that they switched to the Republicans. The deep south went first, then the upper south. Through the 80s and 90s, the trend toward the GOP continued, but the reasons changed to more of a pro-small govt. attitude. Nowadays I don't think southerners are this way because they want to oppress black people (they did historically, but not these days) They favor smaller government for many other reasons, but not necessarily due to racism.
What's even more interesting is how Southerners deny their history. The Civil War was now supposedly just about "states rights" and had noting to do with slavery. And apparently their shift to the Republian Party after the 60s had nothing to do with the Civil Rights Movement.
What's even more interesting is how Southerners deny their history. The Civil War was now supposedly just about "states rights" and had noting to do with slavery. And apparently their shift to the Republian Party after the 60s had nothing to do with the Civil Rights Movement.
It is fascinating to watch conservatives in general try to have it both ways. Lincoln is both a dictator and rapist who sent his goons in an illegal war to destroy the south yet also the godfather of all Republicans, and MLK was a communist woman-abusing plagiarist and general rabble-rouser who was also the second godfather of the Republican party. Then you have the "the Republicans ended slavery" thing and more recently "more Republicans than Democrats voted for Civil Rights", which are both on the surface true, but which completely ignores everything that happened afterward as a result (obviously that's a intentional rhetorical device). That there's so little cognitive dissonance from these people, how can you deal with them rationally? You can't.
It is fascinating to watch conservatives in general try to have it both ways. Lincoln is both a dictator and rapist who sent his goons in an illegal war to destroy the south yet also the godfather of all Republicans, and MLK was a communist woman-abusing plagiarist and general rabble-rouser who was also the second godfather of the Republican party. Then you have the "the Republicans ended slavery" thing and more recently "more Republicans than Democrats voted for Civil Rights", which are both on the surface true, but which completely ignores everything that happened afterward as a result (obviously that's a intentional rhetorical device). That there's so little cognitive dissonance from these people, how can you deal with them rationally? You can't.
At the time, the south was much poorer than the rest of the country (much more bigger difference than today) so the New Deal and government intervention in the economy (such as getting electricity to rural areas and the south was mostly rural) was appealing.
While some Southern Democrats then were very conservative, a few were to the left politically and help write New Deal laws. And one of the most left-wing populist leaders during the Great Depression, Huey Long, came from the south and helped push FDR towards the left.
I think the Republicans figured out a brilliant way to align laissez faire politics for the rich with fundamentalist social views. Only the wealthy corporate types were fighting for the marriages of the social conservatives. All the democrats were for ***** communists getting married. The southern conservative specializes in having a chip on the shoulder and holding a grudge, and the corporate goons have played them like a bad fiddle for the last 40 years.
Health care for all citizens? OBAMASCARE! Etc,etc,etc.
I was talking to a neighbor of mine (an older guy) who grew up in the South and he told me that his father and grandfather "would never have voted Republican if their lives depended on it." He said during his time, people in the South hated Republicans and almost all of them were Democrats.
I took a politics course in college and discovered that this was absolutely true. The Democratic Party controlled southern politics for more than a 100 years. Democrats' control of the region was referred to as the "Solid South" and they controlled the governments in those states at every level (i.e. state and local).
When you look at the voting patterns of the South now, the region votes heavily Republican. In fact, most (if not all) southern states are hard-red Republican states. What exactly caused this political change? How can a region support a party for over 100 years and just completely leave that party in such a short period of time?
Many southern states are still very much Democratically controlled in state and local elections, but tend to vote Republican during national elections. Some of the overwhelmingly 'red state' voting in the south might be due to the south being the 'Bible Belt' and the people living there having a different culture or set of social values which Republican candidates usually line up with better than Democratic candidates do.
I think the Republicans figured out a brilliant way to align laissez faire politics for the rich with fundamentalist social views.
Yeah, that's known as the Big Tent philosophy- a fusionist approach that brought together traditional industrialist big business Northeast Republicans, disaffected anti-Communist Democrats (who became the neoconservatives), and the then-nascent Religious Right, who themselves had been strongly aligned with anti-Communism in the decades prior. This was all intentionally done in the late-60s in the wake of the Goldwater debacle. The problem the party has had is maintaining control over each element to ensure the traditional business wing remains dominant. Which is why Ronald Reagan's real legacy and why he's so revered, and rightly so, is his expert way of appealing to each wing of the party without bringing to the surface the inherent contradictions in their desires.
Well, it seems that a fine ol' time of Southern bashing was had by all.
The blue/red voting division in this country? It's rural versus urban. That's the core source of tension in democratic systems. Our Founding Fathers knew that. The American people evidently lack the education and reasoning skills to understand that.
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