Genuine But Irrelevant Fact: The Democrats Were Pro-Slavery (generations, Reagan, racism)

[Phil75230]

I'm gonna just say it straight out. As the old saying goes "This ain't your great grandfather's Democratic Party" (or even your father's GOP any more either, but that's not the topic). Given enough time, parties can and change their most deeply held positions - even if it takes several generations to do so.

So it is that this anachronism that Democrats were pro-slavery/pro-segergation, pro large government while Republicans are anti-slavery and broke up monopolistic trusts needs calling out.

*Turn of last century. Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, and his Republican allies broke up monopolistic companies in order to prevent the rich interests from controlling the supply of goods and services. That was a "liberal" move in those days! The conservative move was to KEEP monopolies.

*Woodrow Wilson, Democrat. Yes he did stand for the 8 hour working day, but that's about all that party did back in those days that was liberal.

1930s-Depression. THIS is where the 40 or so year switchover to the current setup begins. Republicans fought the New Deal, Social Security, Rural electrification, and all sorts of things done for the people's sake. Granted, racial equality wasn't on the Democrat agenda in 1933, but Roosevelt definitely was moving in that direction (it is said his wife Eleanor nudged him in that direction, but I can't absoultly vouch for it).

*1940s - Beginnings of Civil Rights legislation, begun under DEMOCRATS. National Democratic Party formally adopted Civil Rights platform in 1948. This caused many, if not most, southern Democrats to walk out of the party, call themselves "Dixiecrats". Republicans not yet into the racial equality thing big-time yet (though see the next point).

1950s - Eisenhower sends the 101st Airborne to Little Rock to enforce admission of nine black students to Central High School.

1960s - JFK slowly, then finally LBJ, completes the move of the Democratic Party to a Civil Right AND "war on poverty" platform. Nixon's 1968 "Southern Strategy" finally brings Southerners to vote Republican. By this time, the "liberal democrat" / "conservative republican" dichotomy is mostly complete except for..

1976 election - Jimmy Carter, liberal Southern Democrat, elected President, the first president from the Deep South since before the Civil War. The prospect of a southerner in the white house, plus the fact that older whites still voted Democrat interrpted the transition.

1980 election - Carter, unpopular nationwide, even with white Southerners for being too liberal and too weak on countering the Soviet menace, is out. Reagan enthusiastically accepted by Southerns - further shifting the South to the Republicans.

around 1990 - Supreme Court ruling that basically made constitutional "race based" districts, creating districts of strange shapes. This already-republican white districts super-white and already democratic black districts super-black (though later the supreme court did put limits on this - declaring that race alone is an unconstitutional criteria).

So it's frankly absurd to say one party is this way or that way because of what it did 160, or even 60, years ago. The name of the party, or its lineage, is irrelevant!!! The real relevancy is if it stands for keeping or dismantling the status quo. While the Republicans were anti-status during Teddy Roosevelt's presidency, they became the status quo soon afterward and certainly proved themselves the status quo party by the 20s - just before the Great Depression struck. The Democrats in FDRs time were very much "shake up the system" (and shake it up he and his party did!!!). Certainly by 1972 the current tendencies were largely in place

[American Expat]

In the case of the Democrats, they are a party that wins votes by being racist against 1 race so they get other races to vote for them. They were racists against blacks when that got them more vote and now they think they will get more votes by being racist against whites....it's a political party based on racism for votes.

[Phil75230]

Originally Posted by American Expat

In the case of the Democrats, they are a party that wins votes by being racist against 1 race so they get other races to vote for them. They were racists against blacks when that got them more vote and now they think they will get more votes by being racist against whites....it's a political party based on racism for votes.

Whites are in the majority already. If the Dems are racist against whites, then how come they still get elected in majority white districts? By contrast, there are very, very few, if any majority minority-districts that are Republican, and a number of them still blow dog whistles of hate (not just on racial matters).

This thing about other minorities getting more and more privileged at the expense of the whites? It sure doesn't look that way according to this chart. If anything, the percentage gap remained steady over the decades. This doesn't even begin to answer Bill Clinton's 1990s welfare reform without reforming wealth-fare.
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files...B_widened1.png

[woxyroxme]

[Phil75230]

Like I said in the OP in so many words, "That was then, this is now".

[Three Wolves In Snow]

Not this "switch" thing again. There was no "switch". For identity politics Dems, it was one group of people:

The Dems And Slavery, Civil War, Civil Rights Act

The "New Deal" is what got the black folks voting for the Dems.

Until the New Deal, blacks had shown their traditional loyalty to the party of Abraham Lincoln by voting overwhelmingly Republican. By the end of Roosevelt's first administration, however, one of the most dramatic voter shifts in American history had occurred. In 1936, some 75 percent of black voters supported the Democrats. Blacks turned to Roosevelt, in part, because his spending programs gave them a measure of relief from the Depression and, in part, because the GOP had done little to repay their earlier support.

Digital History

While New Deal programs failed to extend as much economic relief to Black Americans as to whites, the tangible assistance they provided conferred a sense that the system was at least addressing a few issues that were important to African Americans. For those who had been marginalized or ignored for so long, even the largely symbolic efforts of the Roosevelt administration inspired hope and renewed interest in the political process.

Weiss, Farewell to the Party of Lincoln: 227

Problem is, just as today, the handouts didn't actually help the black people at all:

https://www.cato.org/publications/co...al-harm-blacks

The Dems are still the same people, they just gave hand outs which brought a lot of blacks from the Republican party to the Dem party. The leaders themselves, and what they believe, not a thing has changed since the Democart party was started by slave loving Andrew Jackson. You know, the guy who took away the 40 acres and a mule that were promised to the free slaves. Repartations? Fine, get it from the Dems.

[gallowsCalibrator]

Originally Posted by Three Wolves In Snow

Not this "switch" thing again. There was no "switch".

Hard as it may be to comprehend, but at one point Democrats were indeed more socially conservative and Republicans were more socially liberal.

[cachibatches]

Were? They still are. They want to keep blacks on the welfare plantation and import as many impoverished, dependent immigrants as possible as a source of votes.

They are truely the same souless vermin that they always were. They just dress it up better these days.

[prospectheightsresident]

Were? They still are. Slavery to the state, etc.

[PedroMartinez]

No Bigfoot, no Nessie, no Jersey Devil and no party swap.