Southern Democrats ... I still don’t get it

[MillennialModerate]

I’ve asked this before but I didn’t get much of a clear answer. So I’ll see if a new set of responses change things. As you all know I’m a staunch Kennedyite.

One thing that has fascinated me in my constant study of the JFK era is the “Southern Democrats”.

I’ve read that often FDR efforts were stopped in congress the same way JFKs efforts sometimes were. And what made no sense to me is that in both cases there were MAMMOTH majorites for the Democrats in both the House & Senate. How do very popular Presidents with huge majorities in both houses not get absolutely everything they want?

It almost seems to me that there were 3 parties; Republicans, Dems and Southern Dems

The way things are now are simple.

Republican = Center Right, Right, Far Right, Bat sh**t Crazy (Trump)
Democrats: = Center Left, Left, Far Left, Bat sh**t Crazy (the red rose Twitter brigade)

WAY MORE SIMPLE.

But when I study the 50’s and early/mid 60’s it seems like some Republicans were way more in line with (for instance) JFK then some Southern Dems. You had some Republicans more LEFT than JFK and some Democrats more right than Eisenhower

Then there’s the confusion of Presidential elections: Stevenson wins almost all of the South’s EV against a very popular Eisenhower ....but then some states run independent slates in 60 against JF effing K. WTF is that all about. It’s just very confusing to me.

I mean I had always been under the impression that a Southern Democrat was someone who was Left of Center on every issue except RACE. Essentially a liberal who was racist. But clearly it goes beyond that

Someone explain to me the concept of “Southern Democrats”