Awesome Graph of the History of Parties

[Mehmentum]

http://xkcd.com/1127/

Go to the url and click on the picture to zoom in.

[retromike22]

That was awesome. It clearly shows that the Democrats are a left party, while the Republicans are a far-right party.

[DC Al Fine]

How did they decide what counts as Centre-Right vs Far Right etc?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Nothing suggests "far-left" like defending slavery.

[Mehmentum]

How did they decide what counts as Centre-Right vs Far Right etc?

On the chart it says that they are assigned by DW-nominate, a system that places members of congress along the political spectrum based on how consistantly they vote together.  It doesn't rely on the content of the bills voted upon, just if congressmen voted with or against other congressmen.

This means that we can compare ideology across time since the terms of congressmen overlap.  

[Oldiesfreak1854]

"Anger over Democratic support for civil rights led to pro-Segregation Southerners leaving the Democratic Party."

Wow.  Talk about rewriting history.  The shift toward the GOP in the South had started long before that, and it was primarily about economic issues.  Read these articles.  The second is by a liberal professor who ascribes to much of the liberal revisionist history on the Southern strategy but nonetheless debunks this theory:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/300432/party-civil-rights-kevin-d-williamson#
http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.928/article_detail.asp