Historical continuity of Democrats and Republicans

[darklordoftech]

I find Gilded Age/present parallels interesting, with debates over immigration, income inequality, debt, and anger towards Wall Street among the parallels.

[darklordoftech]

Something I've thought about recently is that contrary to a common misconception that the Democrats and Republicans have "switched sides" there's always been some continuity within each. Republicans have always tended to be the more nationalistic party and accused Democrats of being traitors/soft on the rebs/reds/terrorists, and included in their coalition Protestant zealots (in the north) and small business owners. To some extent current trends are causing the parties to revert to coalitions resembling those in the third party system as well with Democrats as the party of more recent immigrants, finance capital and free trade (DLC type Democrats are actually sort of similar ideologically to the Bourbon Democrats) and Republicans as the party of the native born working class and protectionism. The difference is that now it's as if their had been a nineteenth century coalition that had included the northern conservative Republicans and southern ex-slaveholders.

You can extent it back to the Federalists with rebs/red/terrorists. Daniel Shays played a role in triggering the Constitutional Convention. There is also the whiskey rebellion, and the Dorr Rebellion.

Its one aspect of the Conservative versus Liberal that has remained relatively constant for 200 years and is a good indicator of which side is a Conservative versus which is a Liberal. Ironically, one of the few times this comes up with a contrary example is the Wilson administration, though it should be noted that Wilson came from elitist circles, was very anglophile and was part of a melting of traditional conservative aspects (including elements from Burke) into Liberalism. This is not a flip though, it is an academic absorption to compensate for the embrace of government for egalitarian ends that the left was doing in this period on both sides of the pond. In the UK, the Liberal Party was doing the same things, taking it from largely the same sources, and just like in the US the end result was electoral disaster in the 1920's. The difference is that the Democrats had a rotten borough of a whole region to fall back on for a decade, while the Liberals went bye bye.

Probably a bridge too far and too many butterflies, but from this do you think that if the South won the Civil War (ie no South for the Dems to fall back on), that the Democrats would have collapsed as a national party and been replaced by something else entirely?

If so, what replaces them?

The obvious answer looking at other countries seems to be a socialist party not unlike say, the British Labour party; probably getting elected nationally for the first time in 1932?

Depends on what happens afterwards. I am favorable towards the perspectives that left wing academics add to discussions. For instance, they are very rarely suckered in by "party's flipped on x date". That being said (and here come the Vittorio flashbacks), there is a desire to shoehorn in socialist parties where the ground just simply wasn't there for that to exist.

The Democrats had strong positions in the border states and the Mid-Atlantic excluding Pennsylvania (how appropriate to today in that sense lol). I don't think they would have collapsed and in the aftermath of the war you saw rather close elections in many northern states and that is why the GOP would often lose the PV since they would narrowly win most northern states and get destroyed in the South (lower turnout and small populations meant that the disparity caused by this was not as severe as might at first glance presume but it had an impact).

You run into this a lot with alternate history's about the GOP collapsing if the South won. This is a factor in the Turtledove series of books. It relies on an oversimplification of "war lost/GOP collapses". For the Republican side of things, it is important to understand how the GOP coalition that dominated the North came about in the time since the the founding and I recently laid this out in a series of posts on a Youtube video where this had come up in the context of the vote split in 1860 and whether or not it was relevant to the final outcome:

Lincoln won a majority in all but three of his states. Republicans had secure holds on ME, NH, VT, MA, RI, CT, OH, MI, WI, IA and MN. NY was at risk bc of the Irish, but Fremont had won it in 1856. Fremont had lost PA, ILL and Indiana, but Fremont had focused only on slavery. Lincoln ran as a Whig on economics and tariffs typically sold well in PA since 1846, when the Whigs scored massive gains in the state on that issue, and Lincolns final margin was 56% - 37% (with Breckenridge in second). As for Illinois, already in 1858, the GOP scored more votes than Dems (won by 3,400 votes) but failed to win a legislative majority (Dems had an 8 seat majority) due to nearly decade old maps. Since the 1850 apportionment Northern Illinois had swelled in population mostly with Pious Yankees leaving New England, and also Germans. This means that had direct election of Senators been a thing then, Lincoln would have beat Douglas in 1858. By 1860, Lincoln won by 11,000 votes, nearly quadrupling the 1858 pv margin. Indiana had also had a surge of German immigrants as well as some Yankee migration as well. The flipping of PA, ILL and Indiana were dictated by demographics, economic interests and Dred Scott. After Dred Scott the racist nimby (no blacks taking my jobs) voters were ripe for Lincolns containment message and Northern Democratic narrative that slavery kept them in the South rang hollow. I think however narrow, Lincoln had those states in the bag regardless of his opponent.

New York was more difficult but Lincolns economic message, softer tone on immigrants and solid support upstate would hold the state and as it was he beat a fusion ticket getting 53% of the vote. So yeah I think the split was largely irrelevant bc Lincoln had a good lock on an ec majority.

The Republican coalition that would come dominate the Northern states until the New Deal was coming together right at the end of the 1850s:
1. Pious Yankees voted ~75% Republican or so kind of like the Evangelicals of today. They were the abolitionist base and due to the "Yankee diaspora" as I call it, they had spread to places like Michigan, Illinois, Kansas, Northern CA and Oregon. This meant that Republicans had a energetic core base spread across the Northern states. Over time, intermarriage would erase the voting power of this block as they diffused into the larger group of "Northern Protestant Whites", but that is decades into the future.
2. As the Erie Canal and then later the railroads connected the Great Lakes region to the coastal cities of Boston, New York and Philly, this pulled that region out of the grip of New Orleans river trade and also made settlement in the Northern parts of these states, which had been underpopulated, very attractive. Easy transportation into the region for people and easy export of agricultural products and increasingly manufactured goods, is what made possible a North that was inclusive of the Midwest and thus powerful enough to overtake the South.
3. Republicans held all of the cards in this fight because they had the business interests who wanted protectionism from British competition, meanwhile the factory workers were inclined to vote their industries interest over labor interests because of job preservation (Coal miners and mine owners vote the same way today because of the same reason, they view the other party's policies as economic doomsday). Democrats were traditionally a free trade party and the South especially so, since they wanted global trade and cheap imports. This would constantly leave Democrats struggling over the next decades.

Some over generalizations present obviously, but the big three factors would be present regardless and therefore the idea of a Republican collapse post war doesn't make sense. If anything, it would do well against he backdrop of a Southern victory as a revanchist party and one constantly pointing out how Democrats are "soft on the South", "selling out workers to British Merchant interests" etc.


For the Democrat side of things, you have the immigrant populations, you have the Southern parts of the ILL/IN/OH, you have the dominant positions in the border states as well as NJ, and the ability to make things difficult in New York and Connecticut. Trade will always leave some dissatisfied with the Republicans obviously. There is also Southern PA east to the York/Lancaster county border, The block of Counties including, Lehigh, Monroe and the Lackawanna area, which was settled by a combination of non-Yankee whites and Irish and thus leaned Democratic in the 19th century, and of course the WV like Counties in Western PA.

The Republicans would usually have the upper hand in the Senate, but Democrats would certainly be able to win the House and the White House without the South in a good year. So no, I don't think either party collapses absent a South and then it begs the question of how long does this last and what breaks it. Furthermore, it must be asked if the South wins how long does it last and what happens down there economically and in terms of population growth, as well as if they start conquering in the Carribean, Mexico etc.

I wonder what would happen in terms of the Gilded Age Populist movement. Would there even be a Gilded Age?

[darklordoftech]

I think it's important to remember that motive is a lot more important than method when analyzing ideology, though.  While a current protectionist Republican (when looking at politicians, I think their numbers are really overstated here...) might be advocating for the same surface-level policy as a protectionist Republican from the Nineteenth Century, it's important to ask why each was doing so. 

A current protectionist is arguing against the economic consensus on what is best for the American economy, which can and often is read as what is best for the business community.  They are effectively saying they don't care and that other things - such as a moral obligation to protect domestic industries and workers hurt by free trade - should trump economic concerns.  Is this really the same?  I'd argue not at all.

Nineteenth Century protectionists wanted high import tariffs because our economy was not in a global position to compete on price yet we had a huge domestic population needing goods ... the "pro-business" answer, ironically, was to tax imports to the point where consumers had a clear incentive to buy domestically and prop up American industry.  While it's supporting the exact same policy, it's doing it for quite literally the opposite reason.  There were certainly campaign speech overlaps ("protect the American worker!"), but who would ever label a modern protectionist as a corporate shill who is championing corporate welfare as these Republicans were accused of?

If we appreciate the historical classification of "pro-business" as a conservative ideology and "pro-worker" as a left-leaning one, I suggest that the motive to achieve those ends is somewhat irrelevant.  I mean, the GOP didn't just drop the high tariffs for no reason in the Twentieth Century; our business community had reached such a height after World War II that it didn't just no longer need them, it was actively harmed by them.  The pro-business Republican Party very naturally adjusted what it wanted to promote BECAUSE of what its end goal - which had not changed! - now demanded.

In fact, the income tax was seen as a “populist” alternative to tariffs.

[darklordoftech]

I definitely see a parallel between the Silver Standard in 1892 and 1896 and student debt forgiveness and publicly-funded college today. A group of people in debt as a result of a recession hoping for the government to relieve them of debt and waging war against moderate Democrats, who they perceive as controlled by Wall Street.

[darklordoftech]

Why did Andrew Jackson think the National Bank was elitist?

[darklordoftech]

Also don't forget, WJB is considered a conservative culturally by the 1920's against the likes of "progressive" Al Smith. And Al Smith was a Republican by 1940 for all intents and purposes.

I’d argue that there’s a continuity between Cleveland and Smith (Governors of New York, economically moderate, “wet”, cosmopolitan) and between Bryan and McAdoo (rural, “dry”, religious, economically progressive). The laissez-faire capitalist consensus of the 1920s prevented people from paying attention to the economic views of Bryan, McAdoo, and Smith.

[darklordoftech]

Was the South always religious or did they become more religious at some point?

[darklordoftech]

I wonder how blacks and hispanics tended to feel about Prohibition.

[darklordoftech]

I would argue that the slaveowners were elites and were conservative, even if their interests differed from that of northern business elites. They were probably more Hamiltonian than Jeffersonian when it came to voting rights and immigration, but their economy depended on selling cash crops overseas and therefore they feared tariffs more than they feared Jeffersonian liberty or Tammany Hall, and the de-polarization of tariffs after the Great Depression and WWII allowed them to “come home” and join their fellow elites in the GOP.

[darklordoftech]

^You've made some good points in this thread Yankee, and have somewhat convinced me of your "continuously conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats" theory. However, I think that once you start calling plantation owners "liberals", the term basically loses all meaning. Owning other human beings as property is antithetical to all of liberalism's principles and everything it stands for. But since you don't seem to view the racial issues of the 19th century in a liberal/conservative lens, I'll get away from the obviously illiberal racial stuff to focus on other things. Namely, that plantation owners were fabulously wealthy individuals who believed in all sorts of hierarchies, not just for blacks but also for poor whites. If wealthy and privileged individuals who strongly believed in hierarchy and keeping the poor and and oppressed classes down aren't conservatives, then I don't know who is.

Oh, but I guess that's not "what defined conservative values at the time on the national scale." It doesn't matter if you're a rich and powerful landowner who despised the working poor; to be a conservative you have to be a Northern Republican nativist or a New England banker, because Yankee says so! Why? Because Republicans are always more conservative, Democrats always more liberal, that's just the way it is. It doesn't matter what the members of the party actually believe, as a Democrat is by definition a liberal, and a Republican a conservative. Besides, trying to apply modern ideological definitions onto 19th century political parties isn't historically accurate, even if there are certain principles, like the defense of hierarchy and order, that are definitionally conservative. No matter if Democrats were often at least as strong believers in hierarchy as Republicans; the only 19th century issues that can truly be viewed through a liberal/conservative prism are ones that Democrats and Republicans disagreed on, like immigration and free trade. Because the Democrats were liberals on all the issues and the Republicans conservatives, obviously.

Also, “you were born this way, therefore your rights should be limited” is a conservative way of thinking and the UK’s Conservative Party supported the Confederacy while the UK’s Liberal Party supported the Union.

[darklordoftech]

Can we all agree that “Democrats are still the party of the KKK. They trick blacks into voting for them by promising them welfare” is a nonsensical claim?

[darklordoftech]

Can we all agree that “Democrats are still the party of the KKK. They trick blacks into voting for them by promising them welfare” is a nonsensical claim?

I don't believe anyone in this thread has every suggested otherwise —and yes, obviously, this is an absurdly stupid claim, fundamentally just as ignorant as the "party switch" theory if not more so. Dinesh D'souza is a propagandist, not a historian.

I’m attributing this claim to anyone in this thread. I’m talking about D’Souza and the people who retweet him.

[darklordoftech]

Wealthy Southerners prior to WWII weren't particularly religious either

Yet Mississipi continued Prohibition until 1966, which was one year after the Voting Rights Act. Also, what happened to the pre-WWII Southern elite throughout the rest of the 20th Century?

[darklordoftech]

Prohibition was a progressive policy. That alone should cast doubt on any attempt to argue progressives as a group were left-wing.

There were left-wingers who supported Prohibition, so Prohibition != not left-wing.

[darklordoftech]

I find it interesting how Republicans have consistently advocated a unilateralist foreign policy while Democrats have consistently advocated a multilateralist foreign policy.

[darklordoftech]

If slavery never existed, would Southern plantation owners have still been Democratic because of tariffs?

[darklordoftech]

I don’t think the parties switched, but I also hate when people on Atlas say, “If you’re a Democrat and you think Woodrow Wilson is an HP, you’re uninformed”.

[darklordoftech]

This kind of controlling behavior social conservatism was present as recent as the 2000s and had strong support from the same group largely, married women who were highly religious.

What examples do you have in mind from the 2000s?

[darklordoftech]

At the same time Democrats were going for the secular suburban Authoritarian vote by embracing Gun Control and going after things like say video games and movies, which IIRC you mention frequently. This was building off what Clinton had started with his triangulation on crime and culture in 1992 but taking it up to eleven with Gore.

It definitely had started by 1984 with Lautenberg (who isn’t even Christian and donated enough to McGovern’s campaign to be on Nixon’s enemies list) writing the National Minimum Drinking Age Act (which Reaga, Liddy Dole, and the majority of Republicans in Congress opposed until the House passed it with a voice vote) and in 1985 Tipper Gore started the Parents Music Resource Center. I don’t think Clinton’s 1992 campaign mentioned culture at all besides abortion and gays serving in the military. Clinton’s 1996 campaign, on the other hand, pretty much declared teenagers to be the new communists (thanks to Dick Morris’s advice). Republicans learned the wrong lesson from Dole’s defeat and embraced No Child Left Behind. How ironic that in the 21st Century, Gore would become a hero to the youth (and Bush moving in an authoritarian direction after 9/11 pushed young voters away from the GOP).

[darklordoftech]

I find it interesting that we often hear that slavery is “America’s Original Sin” and we hear of “America’s Puritan Roots” whenever there’s a discussion about alcohol or sex, but the Puritans and the slaveowners hated each other. The slaveowners were Cavaliers, the enemies and polar opposite of the Puritans.

[darklordoftech]

When did people starting advocating for the rights of blacks and women with liberal motives?

[darklordoftech]

I would like to echo the opinion that this thread has been full of excellent and informed posts.

I agree that the divisions which arose in the English Civil War were the foundation for English political divisions ever since, and that influence was obviously felt across the Anglosphere. The Tories are the heirs of the Royalists and the Liberals/Lib Dems (and arguably Labour) of the Parliamentarians. Thus Anglo-Saxon liberalism as we know it would probably not exist without the Puritans.

Whether this extends to the US is more debatable. The two main problems with trying to map English Civil War divisions onto American politics are:

a) Different religious composition: the US never had an established Church, and whereas in England Anglicans and Nonconformists were in direct opposition, they were allied in the US against Southerners and Catholics.

b) Only one major political tradition: In Europe, political parties tend to be heirs of traditions representing different groups in 19th century society with radically different views of society: conservatives of monarchists/aristocrats, socialists of the working classes, liberals of the bourgeoisie etc.  In America there was only one tradition: republican liberalism, which all groups in society largely accepted. No competing monarchism, Christian democracy or socialism. This is arguably why America has never developed a major social democratic party. An older, but still important, work on this is Louis Hartz’s The Liberal Tradition in America.

For this reason, I often find it most helpful to think of the pre-1932 parties as fairly non-ideological (not to say they didn’t have ideology, but it was the same (classical liberalism) so it didn’t really matter), and more culturally aligned big tent parties, a little like Fianna Fail and Fine Gael in Ireland. What policy differences did exist (e.g. tariffs) were more expressions of cultural and sectional divisions than ideological statements.

As for trying to compare British 19th century parties to American ones, I have always seen a certain similarity between the Democrats and the Liberals: representing religious and cultural minorities against the dominant establishment and both were staunch free-traders. But then the American equivalent of the nonconformist conscience, inextricably linked to the British Liberals, was largely found within the Republican Party, perhaps showing that such comparisons are messy and mostly futile.

The Southern elite was also Anglican, and there was socialist movement in America before the Palmer Raids.

[darklordoftech]

They often chastised abolitionists as being anti-science, preferring a fluffy fantasy of racial equality where everyone got along, whereas they were an educated and enlightened elite who "got it."  

Today it’s Republicans who say, “People shouldn’t be allowed to have political opinions until their brain is sufficiently developed.”

[darklordoftech]

Did disillusionment with Eisenhower and the 83rd Congress lead William F. Buckley, Jr. to start the National Review?

[darklordoftech]

I find it interesting that whether in the English Civil War or in American politics, Irish Catholics and Cavaliers have tended to see each other as a lesser evil than Puritans. In ~1854-1928, Democrats were Irish Catholics + Cavaliers and Republicans were Puritans and since ~1968, Republicans have been Irish Catholics + Cavaliers and Democrats have been Puritans.