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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.
I agree. While I do not deny history. What happened 50 years ago has no bearing on today.
Maryland is a good example. The dems control the state. The population is larger in the Wash, DC and Baltimore areas. The vast majority of the population in the rest of the state is outnumbered even though it compromises 70% of the land area.
Through gerrymandering the dems keep control. Anne Arundel County has been growing in Repub population. In the last re-districting, the dems split the county in 4 parts so as to keep control knowing that if the county was 1 district it would vote republican.
This goes back to the civil war. Not so much the freeing of slaves, but rather how the south was treated by Union soldiers after the war. South Louisiana was particularly hit hard. Not content with defeating the south, they added several insults to Louisiana. One big one in particular was to make French language illegal. They then brought in teachers from up north and were told to get the kids to stop speaking French and speak English. Problem was French (Cajun/Creole) was the only language they knew. Speaking French in school was banned and the punishments would sometimes include beatings (fist, belt, or bullwhip). Eventually the northern carpetbagger politicians were gotten rid of and the locals were able to take control of their own state government and education again. However for Louisiana, the damage was done. The French language was disappearing and was looked down upon by people outside the area. Then came WW1 and WW2 with battle fought in France. Those Cajuns and Creoles who were regularly insulted for speaking English badly were now needed as translators. Following WW2, a movement was begun to try to save the language and culture. Many generations lost the language. The reason for the association with the Democratic party has to do with the association of the actions of Union troops and carpetbagger politicians to Lincoln's Republican party. After a century of Democratic party rule, many of us have grown tired of them running our state like a banana republic. Former Governor Edwin Edwards and multiple state elected officials going to prison for their actions have helped to turn the tide. Some voters though still hold tight to the old ways. Some former Democrat politicians saw the tide turning and switched parties. Some voters continued to vote for them based upon name recognition alone. With the internet, we're getting better informed as to their actions regardless of the local news media's undying support for such politicians.
The real trigger was Democratic support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. After Lyndon Johnson signed it, he told an aide, "We [the Democrats] have lost the South for a generation."
This bill resulted in many southern Democrats switching to be Republicans.
Rural vs urban does not explain the red pockets in New England. The rural areas in my state are more democrat than average for the state; the most republican areas tend to be the exurbs of Boston. Vermont contains some of the most rural areas of New England but most of it is very blue, and a rural vs urban pattern doesn't fit that well with New Hampshire either.
The demographic make-up of certain counties will vary. But the rural versus urban does explain the red/blue division much better than regional variances. Also, "rural" can mean different things. I'm originally from Western Massachusetts as well, and I can tell you that rural in Massachusetts is not the same as rural in Kansas, for instance. In Massachusetts, no matter where you live, you can be in a dense urban environment in pretty much less than an hour. In Kansas, event the urban centers are not very urban by New England standards.
Part of the reason for Massachusetts becoming more Republican has to do with taxes as well. Especially around the Boston area.
I will say I am shocked at how conservative the Boston Globe has become. Though it may not be more "conservative" but simply less liberal than it used to be.
When democrats passed the Civil Rights act of 1964, the south turned red almost over night. I have friends who told me their grandparents switch from the democratic party to the republican party because of the civil rights act. The parties were switch. Blacks were republicans after Lincoln ended slavery and racists were democrats. The democrats were the ones who put the Jim Crow laws in place. Today most racists are republicans and most blacks are democrats.
Really? That's news to me here in Louisiana. Last time I checked, our state had been controlled by the Democratic party until the last ten years when the shift started going towards Republicans. The more you people make blanket racist statements without knowing the facts, the more you show your ignorance and bigotry.
Democratic party supporters and haters of the South like to point to Strom and yet completely ignore KKK Byrd.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quick Enough
Name calling again.
Being YOU want to bring up Strom, let's look at a couple of things.
In 1954 ( way before the Civil Rights movement) the senior senator from South Carolina, Burnet R. Mayfield, died, leaving the selection of his replacement to the State Democratic Committee. Overlooking Thurmond's strong showing against Johnston, the committee appointed a state senator to serve as Mayfield's replacement. Thurmond, at the encouragement of numerous individuals, decided to challenge the new appointee as a write-in candidate to succeed Mayfield. In a surprise election, Thurmond carried the state with 63 percent of the vote (and 37 of the 46 counties), again making political history as the first write-in candidate to win election as a United States senator."
In later years, Thurmond tried to deflect criticism by stating in an interview in the Baltimore Sun: "It was my duty [as Governor of South Carolina] to enforce segregation laws. After the laws changed, I changed." Thurmond was the first Senator to hire an African American for his staff and voted in favor of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.[LEFT]
Read more: Strom Thurmond: Biography from Answers.com
It's not just a matter of white Dixiecrats switching party affiliation (although that certainly has happened to a great extent). As the center of population in the South shifted from poor rural areas to more middle-income suburbs, many Southerners' views on things like taxes, business, and spending changed from being supportive of government intervention to being more suspicious. Furthermore, the Southern strategy was most concentrated in the suburbs of Southern cities. And the rise of the suburban religious right in the 1970s and the shift of the Southern Baptist Convention to hard-line conservatism undoubtedly played a big role.
If you look at poor rural areas in the South, turnout and participation in electoral politics is pretty bad. Many people there are Democrats still, but they either don't vote or vote Republican because they feel the national Dems are out of touch with their concerns. The real center of power for the Republicans in the South is in the suburbs of cities like Dallas, Houston, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Jackson, Atlanta, Birmingham, Montgomery, Mobile, Tampa, Orlando, etc. Not only is the voting population bigger in those areas, but more people there are Republican than in the rural areas.
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