How do "the parties switched platforms" people explain Joe McCarthy?

[jojoju1998]

I don't think anyone is arguing that the parties completely switched, but both parties used to be much more ideologically diverse and have both liberal and conservative factions. There was a robust liberal wing of the GOP that was primarily based in the Northeast, along with a large contingent of conservative Democrats mostly from the South.

Now, most Northeastern liberals are Democrats and most Southern conservatives are Republicans.

A Conservative Republican Senator  voted against the 1964 Civil Rights act. And no, he was not Barry Goldwater.

It was a guy named Norris Cotton; who otherwise voted for the 1965 voting rights act.

[jojoju1998]

I don't think anyone is arguing that the parties completely switched, but both parties used to be much more ideologically diverse and have both liberal and conservative factions. There was a robust liberal wing of the GOP that was primarily based in the Northeast, along with a large contingent of conservative Democrats mostly from the South.

Now, most Northeastern liberals are Democrats and most Southern conservatives are Republicans.

The Northeastern Republicans were the ones that could be more reasonably described as “far-right,” insofar as anyone can. The Governor in charge of Attica and the population control report was not a liberal.

No but George Aiken, Bill Cohen, and Lowell Weicker definitely were.

Don't forget Nelson Rockefeller ! The most famous Liberal Republican of all.

[jojoju1998]

The answer to the OP's question is that the parties never switched platforms.

The Republicans always had an isolationist, populist, and somewhat xenophobic faction. Look at Pat Buchanan. But they were often always overshadowed by the more big city liberal republicans.

Starting after the 1970s, decades and a century after the civil war, the Isolationist faction realized they have more in common with the Solid south than they ever did with the big city liberal republicans .