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That's a weird and extremely sanitized view of what happened. A more accurate explanation is that the Democratic party was a coalition of (mainly) Northern prog

That's a weird and extremely sanitized view of what happened. A more accurate explanation is that the Democratic party was a coalition of (mainly) Northern progressives who supported integration, and Southern "Dixiecrats" who were opposed. Following the Act's passage, the Southern coalition switched en masse to the Republican party. Many of these voters continued to oppose racial (and "legal") equality for many years, and in some cases are still do. Even as recently as last year, Alabama had a Congressional map struck down by the US Supreme Court for violations of the Voting Rights Act -- and the Alabama legislature then proceeded to ignore the decision and write a new map with exactly the same deficiencies [1]. [1] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/alabama-defies-voting-rights-act https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/alab...

rayiner 3y ago
> Following the Act's passage, the Southern coalition switched en masse to the Republican party. Except the switch didn’t happen until decades later. Virtually no Dixiecrat switched parties. And Carter won every southern state except Virginia in 1976. He did better in Alabama than in New York. Reagan and George H. W. Bush muddy the analysis because they won everywhere, including deep blue states. But Reagan did better in wealthier, more educated southern metro areas in the south than in presumably more racist rural areas. Clinton won a number of southern states in the 1990s. Republicans didn’t win a majority of southern congressional seats until 1994. Apart from it making no sense to say Dixiecrats protested Democratic support for the civil rights act by switching to the party that not only supported it more, but supported all the previous civil rights acts, that narrative ignores the actual issues that mattered to voters in the 1980s and 1990s. Abortion, foreign policy (patriotism), and economic policy became defining issues during that time. And on all those fronts, ”new south” voters were more aligned with the Republican position. Put differently, democrats support for segregation was keeping southern democrats in the party. It was preventing what would otherwise be ideological sorting of a voting bloc that was already more religious conservative, patriotic, and was benefiting economically from deregulation as industry moved from northern states to southern states. > Many of these voters continued to oppose racial (and "legal") equality for many years, and in some cases are still do. Nobody opposes legal equality. Many republicans oppose what we now call “equity”—taking race into account to produce racially even results. If you look at “racial resentment” tests, for example, the fundamental difference in attitudes that appears is that liberals have a special sympathy toward black people, while conservatives have equally unsympathetic attitudes towards everyone: https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/renos/files/carneyenos.pdf https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/renos/files/carneyenos.pdf. Your Alabama example illustrates the point. Alabama is trying to draw a map favorable to republicans for the same reason Maryland draws a map favorable to democrats: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/marylands-extreme-gerrymander https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/mary.... Alabama isn’t trying to disadvantage black voters, just as Maryland isn’t trying to disadvantage white voters.
- dctoedt 3y ago
  > Nobody opposes legal equality. Possibly that's true now. It was quite different in the South 50 and 60 years ago. (I grew up mostly in the South during that time period: my USAF dad was stationed at different places there.) And as a South Asian, you likely would not have counted as "white" — maybe legally you would have been, but as a practical matter an awful lot of people would have treated you and your family as "colored."
  - rayiner 3y ago
    The assertion I was responding to stated that republicans opposed legal equality. Obviously it’s true in the years immediately after segregation ended the democrats who supported it continued to support it.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    >> Nobody opposes legal equality. > Possibly that's true now It's clearly not true: Acts of hate and discrimination are at highs; White nationalism and Christian nationalism are at multi-generational highs, with advocates in the White House and Congress. Leading news organizations promote replacement theory; laws openly discriminate against immigrants, liberals, and LGBTQ+ people. Much of that is not done by and otherwise not uncommon in the Republican party.
    - rayiner 3y ago
      Quite the opposite. The only thing at “multi-generational highs” is non-white support for the supposedly “racist” GOP candidate: https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/27/politics/minority-voters-biden-trump-analysis/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/27/politics/minority-voters-bide.... (Obviously all these folks aren’t listening to enough NPR.) Discrimination is at such historic lows that democrats have literally had to redefine terms like “racism” and “white supremacy.” In the 1990s that meant wearing a klan hood. Now it means opposing violent rioting. In terms of substantive policy, Donald Trump is literally to the left of where Bill Clinton was just a couple of decades ago. Possibly to the left of where Obama was when he was campaigning in 2008. Because there is no meaningful opposition to legal equality, democrats have had to switch to policing thoughts and speech about race and gender and trying to socialize children into thinking about race and gender in certain ways. Look at how they react to Trump: they fixate on his lack of manners, not any particular policy. There’s no sweeping civil rights bill they support that he opposes. They don’t want to increase immigration, or give amnesty to illegal immigrants, or defund the police, or grant reparations, etc. (At least they won’t admit that publicly.) They simply don’t like how Trump talks about immigrants, crime, etc.

rayiner 3y ago

> Following the Act's passage, the Southern coalition switched en masse to the Republican party. Except the switch didn’t happen until decades later. Virtually no Dixiecrat switched parties. And Carter won every southern state except Virginia in 1976. He did better in Alabama than in New York. Reagan and George H. W. Bush muddy the analysis because they won everywhere, including deep blue states. But Reagan did better in wealthier, more educated southern metro areas in the south than in presumably more racist rural areas. Clinton won a number of southern states in the 1990s. Republicans didn’t win a majority of southern congressional seats until 1994. Apart from it making no sense to say Dixiecrats protested Democratic support for the civil rights act by switching to the party that not only supported it more, but supported all the previous civil rights acts, that narrative ignores the actual issues that mattered to voters in the 1980s and 1990s. Abortion, foreign policy (patriotism), and economic policy became defining issues during that time. And on all those fronts, ”new south” voters were more aligned with the Republican position. Put differently, democrats support for segregation was keeping southern democrats in the party. It was preventing what would otherwise be ideological sorting of a voting bloc that was already more religious conservative, patriotic, and was benefiting economically from deregulation as industry moved from northern states to southern states. > Many of these voters continued to oppose racial (and "legal") equality for many years, and in some cases are still do. Nobody opposes legal equality. Many republicans oppose what we now call “equity”—taking race into account to produce racially even results. If you look at “racial resentment” tests, for example, the fundamental difference in attitudes that appears is that liberals have a special sympathy toward black people, while conservatives have equally unsympathetic attitudes towards everyone: https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/renos/files/carneyenos.pdf https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/renos/files/carneyenos.pdf. Your Alabama example illustrates the point. Alabama is trying to draw a map favorable to republicans for the same reason Maryland draws a map favorable to democrats: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/marylands-extreme-gerrymander https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/mary.... Alabama isn’t trying to disadvantage black voters, just as Maryland isn’t trying to disadvantage white voters.

dctoedt 3y ago
> Nobody opposes legal equality. Possibly that's true now. It was quite different in the South 50 and 60 years ago. (I grew up mostly in the South during that time period: my USAF dad was stationed at different places there.) And as a South Asian, you likely would not have counted as "white" — maybe legally you would have been, but as a practical matter an awful lot of people would have treated you and your family as "colored."
- rayiner 3y ago
  The assertion I was responding to stated that republicans opposed legal equality. Obviously it’s true in the years immediately after segregation ended the democrats who supported it continued to support it.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  >> Nobody opposes legal equality. > Possibly that's true now It's clearly not true: Acts of hate and discrimination are at highs; White nationalism and Christian nationalism are at multi-generational highs, with advocates in the White House and Congress. Leading news organizations promote replacement theory; laws openly discriminate against immigrants, liberals, and LGBTQ+ people. Much of that is not done by and otherwise not uncommon in the Republican party.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    Quite the opposite. The only thing at “multi-generational highs” is non-white support for the supposedly “racist” GOP candidate: https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/27/politics/minority-voters-biden-trump-analysis/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/27/politics/minority-voters-bide.... (Obviously all these folks aren’t listening to enough NPR.) Discrimination is at such historic lows that democrats have literally had to redefine terms like “racism” and “white supremacy.” In the 1990s that meant wearing a klan hood. Now it means opposing violent rioting. In terms of substantive policy, Donald Trump is literally to the left of where Bill Clinton was just a couple of decades ago. Possibly to the left of where Obama was when he was campaigning in 2008. Because there is no meaningful opposition to legal equality, democrats have had to switch to policing thoughts and speech about race and gender and trying to socialize children into thinking about race and gender in certain ways. Look at how they react to Trump: they fixate on his lack of manners, not any particular policy. There’s no sweeping civil rights bill they support that he opposes. They don’t want to increase immigration, or give amnesty to illegal immigrants, or defund the police, or grant reparations, etc. (At least they won’t admit that publicly.) They simply don’t like how Trump talks about immigrants, crime, etc.