When did the parties switch platforms?

[darklordoftech]

"The parties have completely switched" and "the parties haven't switched whatsoever" are both oversimplifications. The Republicans have always been the more business-friendly party and the Democrats have always used "common man" rhetoric. However, it used to be that businesses wanted the government to help them and the Democrats saw the free market as anti-elitist, parties have definitely switched their views on blacks, etc. New England used to be more religious, but it was a pr o-civil rights, feminist, and pro-education form of religion. Grover Cleveland opposed women's suffrage.

On another note, William Jennings Bryan was the Bernie Sanders to Cleveland's Bill/Hillary Clinton.

[darklordoftech]

The Jacksonian Democrats opposed public schools.

In 1820-1928, Prohibition was generally supported by Protestant Republicans and opposed by Catholic and Jewish Democrats. In 1984, Frank Lautenberg, a Jewish Democrat, introduced the National Drinking Age act, and initially, the Democrats supported it and the Republicans, including Reagan himself, opposed it.

While the Democrats have always used "common man" rhetoric, I'm not sure how a slaveowning planter elite is any less elitist than a mercantile elite. If a slaveowner calling a banker "elitist" isn't an example of the pot calling the kettle black, I'm not sure what is.

Grover Cleveland opposed disaster relief and women's suffrage.

[darklordoftech]

On an economic level, from ~1860 to ~1925 the two were roughly even, but after this the Democrats became markedly more economically liberal. On social issues, the switch happened on a presidential level from ~1964 to ~1984, but took some time to percolate down ballot. As a result, it would be accurate to say the GOP during much of the 19th and 20th centuries was the more “liberal” party. Nowadays, this is clearly not true.

How many GOP nominees from 1896-1996 was more liberal than the Democratic one lol(There is only 1 and that is 1904)


The fact is ever since the election of 1896 the GOP has been the more conservative party, and the election of 1912 solidified it.

In 1924, 1916, 1908, 1904. From 1896-1932, the GOP was more liberal most of the time.

1924 LMAO , Calvin Coolidge was probably the most conservative president since the 1850s and ran on his record of huge tax cuts , enforcing prohibition , making government smaller , and restricting immigration.


1916 lol again Wilson was clearly more liberal than Hughes

1908 Bryan was clearly more liberal than Taft

Coolidge's opponent opposed child labor laws and anti-lynching laws while Coolidge supported both.

Bryan was perhaps the most liberal politician of his time, but is often misremembered thanks to the Scopes Trial. What few remember is that the time, evolution was being used to justify eugenics and social darwinism.

[darklordoftech]

When did the Republicans become the party of free trade?

When was the first time that Republicans preached "fiscal responsibility"?

[darklordoftech]

The social issues of the time were different and the areas in which the Republicans were reformist was motivated by a paternalistic and even racist viewpoint of forcing protestant civilization and religion on inferior people's. This applied to the Whigs as well, which motivated their support for public school, so they could "educate" catholics out of being catholic and blacks out of being African.

And today Democrats support public schools in order to "educate" people about how guns, cigarettes, alcohol, wearing hats to school, and girls showing skin are the worst things to ever happen to humanity and to "educate" blacks about the evils of rap music and "gang clothing" while Republicans say that public schools are "liberal indoctrination". Nonetheless, the idea that compulsory education (along with many other beliefs about people under 18/21) are anti-Catholic in origin is interesting.

It's also interesting that it was the Whigs who pushed for New England states to abolish the death penalty, yet the 1988 election had the Democrats opposing the death penalty and the Republicans supporting it. The most vocal supporter of the death penalty was Lee Atwater, who started out working for Strom Thurmomd, a former Democrat.

[darklordoftech]

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2018/03/17/pub-refuses-serve-irish-people/433503002/

[darklordoftech]

Amazing how some people manage to convince themselves of things like, "Obama would have been a Klansman", "Lincoln and Reagan would agree on everything," etc.

[darklordoftech]

Is it possible that when Ted Cruz said "New York values", he was tapping into beliefs left over from 19-century anti-Catholicism?

[darklordoftech]

The one constant is that Republicans have always had more support from small business owners, from family farmers tired of competing with slave labor in 1856 straight through to 2016.  Big business has been somewhere between uniformly Republican (1856-76, 1920-1992) to tilting Republican overall with some sectors voting heavily Democratic (1880-1916, 1996ish-present).

Which sectors of big business voted Democratic in 1880-1916 and which sectors have voted Democratic since 1996ish?

[darklordoftech]

I really hate when people say things like, "Obama would have been a Klansman and Trump would have supported MLK Jr.", "Lyndon opposed civil rights and Goldwater supported civil rights", etc.

[darklordoftech]

^ No one says any of that.

Dinesh D'Souza says those things, as do comments and forum arguments whenever the argument of the parties switching comes up.

[darklordoftech]

^ No one says any of that.

My history teacher in 9th and 12th grade said similar things lol. He was an ultra-conservative Republican who said that both parties essentially had the same platforms since the 1800s.

Well, no one not stupid says any of that.  It takes a seriously ignorant person to think political parties stay the same over centuries or that our two parties "switched" platform or ideologies, even gradually.

I'm afraid you underestimate how many stupid people there are.

[darklordoftech]

^ No one says any of that.

Dinesh D'Souza says those things, as do comments and forum arguments whenever the argument of the parties switching comes up.

We are operating on the basis of extremes here. Parties evolve over time, but the Republicans have been a conservative party since at least 1873 (once all the radicals and others who only joined to oppose Slavery had left) and the Democrats have been the "Liberal" Party since the 1830's. In the 1830's, liberalism was about being able to vote without owning property, separation of Church and state and free trade. Now it is about the right to vote, separation of church and state and increasingly again free trade.

In the 1830's being a conservative meant landed and money elites opposing the right to vote for everyone else, protestant moralism and protectionism.

The more things "change" the more they stay the same.

I was talking about when people try to equate Obamacare to slavery and repealing Obamacare to the 13th amendment, try to argue that present-day Democrats are ashamed of their party's past, etc.

[darklordoftech]

Another obnoxious argument is the idea that the Democrats trick blacks into voting for them so that they can bring back slavery/segregation/KKK.

[darklordoftech]

Hard to pinpoint exactly, but if I had to I would say it started in 1896 with the Democratic nomination of William Jennings Bryan, alienating the Bourbon Democrats, and finished in 1964 passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Republican nomination of Goldwater.

Also, at some point the Democrats became moralizers like the Republicans were in 1854-1932, with New York introducing the first laws to require wearing seatbelts, Frank Lautenberg introducing the National Drinking Age, and Tipper Gore founding the Parents Music Resource Center.

[darklordoftech]

Isn't slaveowners calling businesses elitist an example of the pot calling the kettle black?

[darklordoftech]

Isn't slaveowners calling businesses elitist an example of the pot calling the kettle black?

Do you think hypocrisy is anything knew to American politics?


Also, Slave owners said a lot of things based on what benefited them. They were for state's rights when it benefited them, then trampled on it to get their slaves back from that escaped (Fugitive Slave Law). They claimed to demand freedom to live their lives as they saw fit, and yet denied it not only to the slaves but suppressed, Freedom of Speech, Assembly and Religion whenever it seemed to threatened or criticize slavery.

The South's political mindset was always dictated by a sense of living on top of a volcano. We have seen time and again in election results, that white Southerners are more racist proportionally with number of and closeness too African-Americans. This is why black belt and city whites stuck with Smith in 1928, and they were the ones who led the drive for secession in the lead up to the Civil War.

The thing is there is nothing conservative about pro-slavery politics save for the preserving of the object itself, because there is no internal consistency on anything, everything is dictated based on survival be it avoiding a slave revolt, or preserving the profits of slavery. If that means trampling the constitution (Secession), usurping the courts (Dred-Scott and other contemporary rulings differ from rulings in the 1830's and before), or violating freedom of speech (restrictions on abolitionists others who threatened the system) or running roughshod over northerner's state's rights (Fugitive Slave Law), they were only too happy to do so if it helped secure slavery. Remember, for all of Lincoln's war time actions, I recall reading that Jefferson Davis never even appointed Justices to the Confederate Supreme Court.

Hypocrisy and inconsistency were and are defining hallmarks of Southern politics and politicians.

All very accurate.

[darklordoftech]

Am I correct to notice similarities between the term "Bourbon Democrat" in the second half of the 19th  century and the term "neoliberal" today?

[darklordoftech]

Am I correct to notice similarities between the term "Bourbon Democrat" in the second half of the 19th  century and the term "neoliberal" today?

Most certainly, as both have ties to financial elites and support in New York for instance. Both are opposed by more populist forces within the party.

Indeed, and both are accused of pandering to immigrants to distract voters from class issues.

[darklordoftech]

"The GOP has always been xenophobic and business-friendly, therefore the parties didn't switch" = slund argument

"Robert Byrd, therefore the Democrats are still racist" = unsound argument

I wonder: In 1924, it was clear from the Democratic Convention that there were major differences between the Northern and Southern Democrats. The Northern Democrats, such as Al Smith and FDR, were urban, Catholic, "wet", and anti-Klan while the Southern Democrats were rural, anti-Catholic, "dry", and pro-Klan. When did the Northern and Southern Democrats become so different?