The political party "inversion" myth

[MembersSchoolPizza]

I remember when I was a little bagel bite of a pizza, in elementary school, there was a "fact" we were taught when they introduced Baby's First politics and also whenever (unsurprisingly) the civil war was discussed.

Basically, we were told, "Republican and Democrat switched stances on everything after the Civil War, so the Republicans of today are the Democrats of yesterday, and vis versa."

And I believed that for a long time, despite my dad always telling me it was bullshit, because the teachers all were so very clear on that point.

I haven't believed it for a long time now, not intellectually, but sometimes when I hear someone talking about this or that, a little twinge tries to fire in my brain and tell me I need to remember up is down and war is peace.

But for the life of me, I can't remember any explanation for this supposed inversion. I'm sure they had one, but I can't remember it. Does this still get taught to kids? Where did it come from, specifically, and what is the supposed logic behind it?

 

[Bixby Snyder]

It’s only taught by the political junkies to explain away their sides being the Confederacy during Civil War and all that goes along with it.

They will cry southern strategy and bullshit along those lines and how it ‘switched’.

Easy way to debunk is how nobody elected in the parties switched wholesale when the ‘switch’ occurred. Like 1 or 2 changed over but if anything were going to party of segregation.

Also, this party that ‘switched’ still had high up leadership that were open klansman at some points (Byrd) and he was admired.

So parties didn’t ‘switch’ — just the dems messaging did

 

[Just A Butt]

everyone was homo back then

 

[The Ugly One]

I think you mean Civil Rights, not the Civil War, because Democrats continued to be the Southern party for a long time..

After the Civil Rights Act, the Democrats started getting close to 100% of the negro vote. Nobody could deny that before '64, pretty much all important civil rights legislation came from Republicans, or that the Eisenhower-Nixon administration was pushing it pretty hard. After '64, the Democrats increasingly settled on the message that the GOP is the Racist KKK Hitler Nazi Rapeculture party, so the only way they could square that with the undeniable facts of who was actually doing what before '64 was to invent this narrative that the GOP and the Democrats swapped platforms and voting blocs.

One thing contributing to this narrative was that Lee Atwater, a GOP strategist, formulated the Southern Strategy. He observed that now that segregation was off the table politically, all remaining issues that mattered to Southerners naturally would align them more with Republicans than with Democrats. He advised a multipronged push for the Republicans to realign more explicitly with God, Guns, and the Flag, while framing Democrats as the party of Crime, Communists, and Abortion. This included mashing the pedal to the floor on messaging whenever negro crime got out of control, which it frequently did, and did entirely because of Democrat policies.

Since liberals are retards who think that the South = Racism and Nothing Else, to them, the GOP's gradual gains in the South from '68 onward, eventually flipping the Solid South deep red, are proof that the GOP is the Party of Racism.

 

[Chilson]

The logic is:
"we are democrats, the democrats were on the side of slavery in the civil war, we have to somehow not be associated with those who supported slavery, re-write history so we are no associated, mental gymnastics complete"

 

[Absolutego]

I mean, there was a party shift. It wasn't as simple as "Civil Rights changed everything", but Democrats have worn at least 3 hats over the course of the last 200 years.
-They were mostly the party of yeoman farmers wanting to be left alone in the 1820s
-They were a VERY socially conservative, fiscally progressive party around the time of William Jennings Bryan (who refused to disavow actual oppression by Jim Crow Democrats in the south, even while comparing being held to the gold standard to a crucifixion)
-Then they became the party of educated activists after the New Left took over in the late 1960s.

Republicans have been way more consistent since their founding, in terms of generally being an industrialist party representing the interests of businessmen. Reagan augmented it by inviting in all the Evangelicals, and Trump's forcing it towards a more populist direction now, but from 1860-1980 Republicans were incredibly consistent in terms of their principles and who they represented.

I think the whole "southern strategy" meme is mostly another case of left-leaning academics projecting their own malleable tendencies onto the other party in a hamfisted way to blame them for racism, and whitewash their own party's bad history with the subject.

 

[Sperghetti]

I can’t say I ever heard that in school, but I’ve heard it here and there moreso in recent years.

To be fair, the notion that the ideas and demographics associated with these political parties have changed over the years isn’t completely a myth, but it also isn’t that clear-cut.

Especially back in the 1800’s, the Democrat party was heavily associated with the southern US, rather than the coastal, urban areas. Through a lot of the 20th century, they were associated with blue-collar workers thanks to their ties with unions, while the Republican party was more associated with the wealthy and business owners. These are things that are definitely not the case today.

Even over the course of my lifetime, I've seen basic ideas get shifted from being something that most people who ID with the left would wholeheartedly agree on, to something that people who ID with the left recoil at and insist that it's an inherently -ist idea and only the far right would ever want it.

Politics is complicated.

 

[Fomo Hoire]

I wasn't taught the inversion in school, but I was taught about women getting jobs and how employers refused to hire them and if they did hire them then they'd get paid less for the same work. I asked why would they not hire 100% women to save money then? "Because they just hated women that much". And then of course the next lesson was about how inhumane and dangerous factories are, they're the kind of place you'd only want your worst enemies to work in.

Really sounds like the women haters would have hired 100% women on a BOGO salary deal, then cackled with glee when only women died in their factories. They're accomplish both their economic and social goals that way. They could probably even advertise that actually they love women and they're the company of equality and any woman that doesn't want to work for them is a dumb bitch who doesn't know her own self interests. All while killing women in their inhumane factories.

Teachers know what they're been told to tell you but they don't actually understand the material and they can't actually explain why anything happened to any meaningful degree. And they get away with it because kids are too dumb to push harder (and if they did push they'd get sent to detention for causing a disruption).

I wouldn't trust that OPs school actually taught a coherent explanation for the party switch, if they attempted to explain it at all.

 

[JustSomeDong]

Ah, the Great Switcharoo! Because it would be foolish to not think that D's and R's could come to 100% complete agreement to swap party names. Just so they agree on absolutely nothing else, ever.

 

[Brahma]

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/402754-the-myth-of-nixons-southern-strategy/

Here's a good article by well known neo Nazi white supremacist pajeet Dinesh D'Souza

The myth being that for "reasons" the repubs decided they liked the weather better in the south or something so became racists to appeal to the racist Dixiecrats so they'd have an excuse to hold their conventions south of the Mason-Dixon line

 

[Foxxo]

I mean, there was a party shift. It wasn't as simple as "Civil Rights changed everything", but Democrats have worn at least 3 hats over the course of the last 200 years.
-They were mostly the party of yeoman farmers wanting to be left alone in the 1820s
-They were a VERY socially conservative, fiscally progressive party around the time of William Jennings Bryan (who refused to disavow actual oppression by Jim Crow Democrats in the south, even while comparing being held to the gold standard to a crucifixion)
-Then they became the party of educated activists after the New Left took over in the late 1960s.

Republicans have been way more consistent since their founding, in terms of generally being an industrialist party representing the interests of businessmen. Reagan augmented it by inviting in all the Evangelicals, and Trump's forcing it towards a more populist direction now, but from 1860-1980 Republicans were incredibly consistent in terms of their principles and who they represented.

I think the whole "southern strategy" meme is mostly another case of left-leaning academics projecting their own malleable tendencies onto the other party in a hamfisted way to blame them for racism, and whitewash their own party's bad history with the subject.

Very interesting and informed stance! But why are you feeding the Thunderdome?

 

[Grand Wizard Wakka]

Political "sides" seem to swap on issues all the time. 20 years ago Republicans were the pro-world-police political party. Since Obama, the Democrats have been the ones all about how important it is to take down foreign regimes. Ditto with issues like censorship. Ditto with pushing fundamentalist ideologies in school and everywhere: Used to be Christians right-wingers pushing theirs, now its leftist wokeness.

 

[Johnny Salami]

My US history teacher told us the same shit. When I brought up Robert Byrd being a klansmen and filibustering civil rights he kicked me out of class, then told the class not to listen to me. He was forced to give me an A when I got a 5 on my AP test.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

It's an insane simplification of the facts. The truth is that between the Civil War and WWII, both Republicans and Democrats had "progressive" factions (which at times were socialist, especially after the 1920s when the actual Socialist Party of Eugene Debs declined because of conflict with their communist wings) and conservative factions. Republicans tended to be the party of big business at the end of the day, which in some places (especially the South) was actually objectively beneficial for the common man because they were pro-middle class and not pro-aristocracy. Although granted in places they were in power in the South like East Kentucky/East Tennessee (both states as a whole had a few Republican governors in the Jim Crow era but, well, were still broke poor ass places), they didn't do a particularly good job.

Republicans were moderates in the Civil Rights era, like Southern Republicans were anti-Civil Rights, other Republicans divided, like the Barry Goldwater proto-libertarian types. Non-Southern Democrats tended to be very pro-Civil Rights. So Republicans expanded their moderate, pro-business/anti-government stance to capture the South. In turn, the Democrats used their social liberalism to destroy the Republican Party in old strongholds like New England. Your "Rockefeller Republicans" were the last gasp of the old progressive Republicans, although I guess a Republican like Charlie Baker in Massachusetts is close enough to that old left-wing Republican.

This is basically the American version of how historically conservative parties globally (i.e. British Conservative Party, especially the pre-Victorian one in the 18th/early 19th century) were pro-government intervention and usually very pro-church and liberals were pro-free market and anti-government which in many places (especially in continental Europe or Latin America where the churches were stronger) were very anti-clerical. Pro-freedom liberals tended to be better for SOME people because the church (be it Protestant or Catholic, or Muslims in the case of Ottoman/Egyptian/Persian liberals, or Buddhists for Japanese liberals) was insanely restrictive and owned too much land. Sometimes shit got fucked like in the 1830s when Spanish liberals confiscated a bunch of church land and it all got bought by rich bastards who were worse than the church ever was, but still, sometimes liberals mostly avoided these consequences.

In any case the liberals became the new group who had too much power as church and nobility declined globally, so socialism arose to combat them. Conservatives usually merged with the liberals, except the minority who merged with socialists and became fascists/para-fascists. In some places they became paleoconservatives. Socialists also merged with the segment of liberals who were the "social liberals", because the most radical socialists became the communists since Lenin booted all the moderates out of the Comintern. The latter segment is the group who practically rules the world now.

 

[Sarvon]

Anime itself isn't the issue that I have qualms towards. It's the normalization of perversive behavior. Wanting to create a fantastical world with a superhuman protagonist that overcomes odds is perfectly fine as it embodies the mindset of being better than the current self. But a lot of anime/manga series creates this abnormal behavior that is framed as being "normal". I really despise the concept of finding child like characters that have the bodies of 10 year olds "but they're totally like a thousand and thefore okay to be sexualized" the real problem.

 

[Cpl. Long Dong Silver]

Anime itself isn't the issue that I have qualms towards. It's the normalization of perversive behavior. Wanting to create a fantastical world with a superhuman protagonist that overcomes odds is perfectly fine as it embodies the mindset of being better than the current self. But a lot of anime/manga series creates this abnormal behavior that is framed as being "normal". I really despise the concept of finding child like characters that have the bodies of 10 year olds "but they're totally like a thousand and thefore okay to be sexualized" the real problem.

Was this supposed to be in the V Tuber thread?

I don't think Repulbicans are 5000 year old vampires in mini skirts.

 

[Sarvon]

Was this supposed to be in the V Tuber thread?

I don't think Repulbicans are 5000 year old vampires in mini

I'm drunk and posted in the wrong thread prompt. I apologize for that

 

[Haim Arlosoroff]

Where did it come from, specifically, and what is the supposed logic behind it?

There were around three-ish, but they were mostly bullshit:

1. FDR's New Deal coalition of labor unions, blue collar workers, racial and religious minorities (such as Jews, Catholics, and African-Americans), farmers, rural white Southerners, and urban intellectuals moved specifically Democrats away from their Conservative policies.
2. In the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. He apparently said something to the effect of "I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for 200 years." To be fair, historians point out that sometimes — as in this case, presumably — Johnson’s more bigotry-laden statements were calculated to achieve a specific end, such as convincing his pro-segregation States' Rights Democratic Party colleagues that it was in their best interests to support civil rights legislation. But there were also instances of casual racism that can’t be so easily rationalized. Johnson biographer Robert Caro notes that Johnson is said to have replied as follows to a black chauffeur who told him he’d prefer to be called by name instead of “boy,” “nigger” or “chief” "As long as you are black, and you’re gonna be black till the day you die, no one’s gonna call you by your goddamn name. So no matter what you are called, nigger, you just let it roll off your back like water, and you’ll make it. Just pretend you’re a goddamn piece of furniture."
3. Alongside the civil rights movement, Republican politicians developed strategies to take electoral advantage of the now disenfranchised white, conservative voters in the South who had traditionally supported the Democratic Party rather than the Republican Party. These approaches are known as the Southern strategy. Anti-civil rights members left the Democratic Party in droves, and Senator Strom Thurmond, the States' Rights Democratic Party's presidential candidate from 1948, joined the Republican Party in 1964.

So you can say the conservative Democrats moved to the Republican Party, you can say that the Democrats lied to minorities for votes (and still do), or you can place the blame on the Great Depression and FDR forcing Washington to bend so that it did not break on the tide of Radicalism which some say has returned today.

​

 

[BiggerChungus]

It's more that the parties completely changed themselves, not just reversing stances, but overhauling themselves entirely. Democrats in the Civil War era were basically a party focusing on states' rights, while Republicans were focused on the authority of the federal government, and neither party was very similar to what they are today or what they'd be if reversed. Jefferson Davis's book, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, describes a lot of the political workings before and during the Civil War in detail.

 

[SwanSwanson]

It’s only taught by the political junkies to explain away their sides being the Confederacy during Civil War and all that goes along with it.

They will cry southern strategy and bullshit along those lines and how it ‘switched’.

Easy way to debunk is how nobody elected in the parties switched wholesale when the ‘switch’ occurred. Like 1 or 2 changed over but if anything were going to party of segregation.

Also, this party that ‘switched’ still had high up leadership that were open klansman at some points (Byrd) and he was admired.

So parties didn’t ‘switch’ — just the dems messaging did

What political party do modern racist support then?