Republicans Aren’t Racists, Democrats Are
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Racist, bigoted, white supremacists. It has become constantly repeated that these are the characteristics of Republicans. An immense majority of Republicans are white men, anyway, so wouldn’t that be self-evident? The truth is that this is just the opposite. As Dinesh D’Souza rightly puts it, the Democratic party is the party of “Plantation Politics.”
To prove this, we look at the very birth of the Republican party with Abraham Lincoln. Being the first Republican president, Lincoln was a strict abolitionist. He cited claims that the Constitution did not consider Blacks as people as “obvious violence to the plain unmistakable language” of it and other documents surrounding it. Lincoln, in advocating for equal rights for all, clearly would have lined up with what leftists supposedly champion today; however, he positioned himself very vehemently as a conservative. When speaking in Ohio, he stated that “[t]he chief and real purpose of the Republican party is eminently conservative. It proposes nothing save and except to restore this government to its original tone in regard to this element of slavery…” The fact is that Democrats, many of who which succeeded and joined the Confederacy as Dixiecrats, wanted to keep slavery. This is unopposed by history in every writing authored by Republicans and Democrats, which show a stark contrast in their respective behavior towards people of color at the time.
So what about modern politics, the “Party Switch,” and the evil “Southern Strategy” created by Republican Richard Nixon? The “racist tactics” used by Nixon in 1968 to win the South was not perpetuated by him, contrary to popular leftist belief. In actuality, Republicans in the South started to ‘have a dog in the fight’ as early as 1928, when Herbert Hoover gained 47% of the popular vote in Southern States. This trend continued when Dwight D. Eisenhower won the electoral votes of Tennessee, Florida, and Virginia in 1952. He then went on to pick up Louisiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia too, all after he supported the decision of Brown v. Board of Education and sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock High School to enforce integration. When Nixon purportedly exercised his Southern Strategy, he lost the Deep South. If the South was racist, and Kevin Phillips, who the left pins as Nixon’s “Political Strategist”, was right, surely he should have won. But he didn’t, because the Southern Strategy is a myth. Kevin Phillips himself, on the first page in his book The Emerging Republican Majority, states that his racist views were not the views which Nixon shared and acted on, but Phillips’ opinion only.
Further, the “Party Switch,” which leftists claim to have happened, is also not true. It stems from the myth that the Democrats who voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 switched parties when re-elected. Looking at the 21 Democrats who opposed this law, only one of them became a Republican, while the rest still continued to run as and affiliate with the Democratic Party; in fact, Republicans did not hold a congressional majority until 1994.
So this leaves us with a final string of questions: why is the South overwhelmingly Republican, why are most of those Republicans white, and why do a majority of black people now vote for Democrats? First, black citizens didn’t start voting Democrat because they were the party of social justice, but rather for the economic benefits of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal policies, which still gave first priority to whites. They continued to vote blue, since the Democrats expanded the welfare state while also oppressing people of color through certain policies then, and now the perpetuation of victim culture. These tactics of oppression, though unseen, made it harder for Blacks to make a living, causing them to need the welfare that the Democrats gave them, and in turn, created a system that turned black people from legal slaves, or workers who could not vote, to voters who could not work. Second, when it comes to the question of why Southern Republicans are mostly white is very simple: the demographics of the South show that most inhabitants of those states are white. But finally, addressing the question of why the South has become overwhelmingly Republican, there are multiple factors, but one main reason ties it all together. When Republican President Ronald Reagan came into office, his appeal of patriotism, anti-communism, free markets, opposition to abortion, and family values swept the South, causing many Southerners to vote red. As Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University Carol Swain says, “Southern whites are far more likely to vote for a black conservative, like Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, than a white liberal. In short, history has moved on. Like other regions of the country, the South votes values, not skin color.”
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“But finally, addressing the question of why the South has become overwhelmingly Republican, there are multiple factors, but one main reason ties it all together. When Republican President Ronald Reagan came into office, his appeal of patriotism, anti-communism, free markets, opposition to abortion, and family values swept the South, causing many Southerners to vote red. As Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University Carol Swain says, “Southern whites are far more likely to vote for a black conservative, like Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, than a white liberal. In short, history has moved on.”
Yes, many of the racist, confederate loving descendants who once voted Democrat when there was some power left in the Southern Democrat party, now began to vote red. The wind started blowing a little over a decade earlier in the mid 1960's when the Democrat party overwhelmingly supported the 1964 civil rights act and a Texas Democrat President signed it into law. But yes, it wasn't until Reagan that the transformation was complete, though some new Republicans were a little pissed off when Reagan eventually signed an amnesty bill legalizing over 2 million undocumented immigrants.
It was no where near complete when Reagan was elected. The south didn’t become Republican for another 20 years after Reagan first won and it did so by defeating a democrat southerner the son of a segregationist. The son of a transplanted northerner swept the south turning Gores, Clinton’s , and Byrd’s home states red.
"Robert Byrd said that he regretted filibustering and voting against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and would change it if he had the opportunity. Byrd also said that his views changed dramatically after his teenage grandson was killed in a 1982 traffic accident, which put him in a deep emotional valley. "The death of my grandson caused me to stop and think," said Byrd, adding he came to realize that African-Americans love their children as much as he does his. During debate in 1983 over the passage of the law creating the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, Byrd grasped the symbolism of the day and its significance to his legacy, telling members of his staff "I'm the only one in the Senate who must vote for this bill".
For the 2003–2004 session, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) rated Byrd's voting record as being 100% in line with the NAACP's position on the thirty-three Senate bills they evaluated. Sixteen other senators received that rating. In June 2005, Byrd proposed an additional $10,000,000 in federal funding for the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial in Washington, D.C., remarking that, "With the passage of time, we have come to learn that his Dream was the American Dream, and few ever expressed it more eloquently." Upon news of his death, the NAACP released a statement praising Byrd, saying that he "became a champion for civil rights and liberties" and "came to consistently support the NAACP civil rights agenda ".
I was no big Robert Byrd fan, he's said and done some extremely reprehensible things, but to still be disparaging him after years of apologies and working hard to rectify his mistakes seems pretty dishonest. He's more akin to Saul of Tarsus if you want a biblical comparison. Paul was dedicated to persecuting the early disciples of Jesus in the area of Jerusalem before his repentance. I don't think many Christians would continually harp on the fact that previously Paul was an anti-Christian bigot but rather focus on the work he did after his eyes were opened.
Robert Bryd admitted his racist past when he publically condemned the Klan and apologized for his beliefs and actions. Strom Thurmond never did.
If the GOP doesn't want to be associated with the alt-right then maybe they should separate themselves from it and condemn it.
Please, C4P... try to find seeds whose authors can write coherent sentences.
I thought Trump was a R.
As the south became less racist and more prosperous , it became more republican.
Exactly! The seeded article covers the tradition of the south perfectly and very accurately.
People who see race as an identifier overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump.
“when it comes to the question of why Southern Republicans are mostly white is very simple: the demographics of the South show that most inhabitants of those states are white. But finally, addressing the question of why the South has become overwhelmingly Republican, there are multiple factors, but one main reason ties it all together. When Republican President Ronald Reagan came into office, his appeal of patriotism, anti-communism, free markets, opposition to abortion, and family values swept the South, causing many Southerners to vote red. As Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University Carol Swain says, “Southern whites are far more likely to vote for a black conservative, like Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, than a white liberal. In short, history has moved on. Like other regions of the country, the South votes values, not skin color.””
Since most of your information comes from Trump's ass, I'll include this meaningless babble.
“In actuality, Republicans in the South started to ‘have a dog in the fight’ as early as 1928, when Herbert Hoover gained 47% of the popular vote in Southern States. This trend continued when Dwight D. Eisenhower won the electoral votes of Tennessee, Florida, and Virginia in 1952. He then went on to pick up Louisiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia too, all after he supported the decision of Brown v. Board of Education and sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock High School to enforce integration.”
Because the 60s and everything since then never happened.
Of course the history happened. It took almost 40 years after the civil rights act passed for the south to switch to the GOP. There flat out was no conversion of racist segregationist old men to the GOP as a result of the passage of the civil rights bill. South Carolina elected an Indian American woman as governor of their state and an African American man as their US Senator in statewide elections. As the seeded article says, southerners would elect a conservative African American over a white liberal. The south is largely conservative. It’s not racist.