Since when did R lost media and intellectuals?
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  Since when did R lost media and intellectuals?
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David Hume
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« on: April 24, 2021, 03:08:04 PM »

I am very interested in the process how R lost the support of intellectuals and media. Before the early 1900s, R was more of a party of northeastern business and industrial elite and mid class, while D was a party of southern segregist white, western peasantry, Irish large city labors, Catholic, etc. I guess during that time intellectuals and media should lean R in general, although I haven't found rigorous studies.

Wilson and FDR swayed the intellectuals and media towards D, but I am not sure how strong that tendency was, or if they just started the trend.

I guess the 1960s may be the turning point, but am not 100% sure. After all R in general supported civil right, which was strongly opposed by southern segregist D. Nixon's law and order was not that blatantly racist and quite popular among mid class.

Now it seems R totally lost the intellectuals and media, and it's hard to see how they can win back or even stop the trend. But when did it become inevitable?
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« Reply #1 on: April 24, 2021, 07:36:58 PM »

They lost them during the FDR presidency, with the Eisenhower presidency being the exception where they had both and the Reagan presidency being the exception where they had the media as well
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David Hume
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« Reply #2 on: April 24, 2021, 10:25:26 PM »

I am not sure if it was that fast. FDR was highly popular, but that doesn't mean media and intellectuals totally ditched R.
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darklordoftech
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« Reply #3 on: April 25, 2021, 12:23:22 AM »

Al Smith was supported by the movie industry, athletes, and flappers. There was plenty of “we’re real Americans, unlike those flappers” rhetoric from supporters of Prohibition.
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buritobr
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« Reply #4 on: April 25, 2021, 03:23:58 PM »

I made a thread asking which one was the last election in which the university professors and students voted more republican than the average of the country. Most of the people answered 1956.
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buritobr
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« Reply #5 on: April 25, 2021, 03:25:49 PM »

Did R really loose the media? Or the media just prefer the Third Way wing of the D than the Neocon and Altright wing of the R? In a race between Bernie Sanders and John McCain, which one would most of the media endorse?
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #6 on: April 25, 2021, 04:29:46 PM »
« Edited: April 25, 2021, 06:50:57 PM by Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee »

It has to be considered who is in the intellectual class and why.

Prior to a certain point, the only people who got higher education were mostly people who were already rich and this would create a skew of its own. Add to that the dominance sources of employment for higher educated people would have been business or industrial related either directly or as professionals that serviced said industrial economy, so it all ties back both demographically and economically to a pro-Republican stance.

This began to change in the 1930s with greater government support for academia and other similar fields, meaning that finance and industry were not the only game in town and the supporting cast of professionals thus serviced a combination of business and government related industries as well.

Add to that the effects of the GI bill and the gaining of access to higher education by more and more non-WASPs, and over time you get a shift towards the Democrats and the left.
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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #7 on: April 25, 2021, 05:08:49 PM »
« Edited: April 25, 2021, 05:20:23 PM by Skill and Chance »

It has to be considered who is in the intellectual class and why.

Prior to a certain point, the only people who got higher education were mostly people who were already rich and this would create a skew of its own. Add to that the dominance sources of employment for higher educated people would have been business or industrial related either directly or as professionals that serviced said industrial economy, so it all ties back both demographically and economically to a pro-Republican stance.

This began to change in the 1930s with greater government support for academia and other similar fields, meaning that finance and industry were not the only game in game and the supporting cast of professionals thus serviced a combination of business and government related industries as well.

Add to that the effects of the GI bill and the gaining of access to higher education by more and more non-WASPs, and over time you get a shift towards the Democrats and the left.

I don't think this was true back then.  Most of the famous 19th century industrialists and inventors weren't college graduates.  Vanderbilt didn't even learn to read until he was in retirement!  Education in that era was something you did for social status after becoming wealthy, not something that brought wealth.  On a middle class level, it was pursued by people who wanted to be local schoolteachers or professors or lawyers, not by people who wanted to become wealthy in industry. 

It took quite a while for production and management to get complicated enough to make higher education more beneficial than work experience for aspiring business owners, let alone required to become wealthy in industry.  You could say we are only just now seeing the political impact of a world where education is what makes most people rich.
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Paul Weller
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« Reply #8 on: April 25, 2021, 05:28:05 PM »

One of the leading intellectuals of the first half of the 20th century was Columbia President Nicholas Murray Butler, who was a Republican Party man and an avowed liberal. Intellectuals had always tended to be on the liberal side of things, which in the 19th century meant with the Republicans and starting in the 1930s with the Democrats. There were also, however, many Southern intellectuals who promoted Lost Causeism and denounced Reconstruction, but in the liberal North intellectuals like Frederick Douglass and Walt Whitman were among Lincoln’s most important supporters.
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« Reply #9 on: April 25, 2021, 06:57:02 PM »

It has to be considered who is in the intellectual class and why.

Prior to a certain point, the only people who got higher education were mostly people who were already rich and this would create a skew of its own. Add to that the dominance sources of employment for higher educated people would have been business or industrial related either directly or as professionals that serviced said industrial economy, so it all ties back both demographically and economically to a pro-Republican stance.

This began to change in the 1930s with greater government support for academia and other similar fields, meaning that finance and industry were not the only game in game and the supporting cast of professionals thus serviced a combination of business and government related industries as well.

Add to that the effects of the GI bill and the gaining of access to higher education by more and more non-WASPs, and over time you get a shift towards the Democrats and the left.

I don't think this was true back then.  Most of the famous 19th century industrialists and inventors weren't college graduates.  Vanderbilt didn't even learn to read until he was in retirement!  Education in that era was something you did for social status after becoming wealthy, not something that brought wealth.  On a middle class level, it was pursued by people who wanted to be local schoolteachers or professors or lawyers, not by people who wanted to become wealthy in industry. 

It took quite a while for production and management to get complicated enough to make higher education more beneficial than work experience for aspiring business owners, let alone required to become wealthy in industry.  You could say we are only just now seeing the political impact of a world where education is what makes most people rich.

How does one bold a section and then make a counter point that is practically stated in the sentence just prior to where said bolding starts?

Prior to a certain point, the only people who got higher education were mostly people who were already rich and this would create a skew of its own.

The next line starts "add to that" meaning it is an additional supporting point to that.

However, I would challenge the notion that every rich person was an inventor or shed tinkerer who struck it rich.

I also outright stated that as you said few people sought higher education, however those that did were most certainly pulling from a select group that is already wealthy.
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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #10 on: April 25, 2021, 10:52:22 PM »
« Edited: April 25, 2021, 11:34:57 PM by Skill and Chance »

It has to be considered who is in the intellectual class and why.

Prior to a certain point, the only people who got higher education were mostly people who were already rich and this would create a skew of its own. Add to that the dominance sources of employment for higher educated people would have been business or industrial related either directly or as professionals that serviced said industrial economy, so it all ties back both demographically and economically to a pro-Republican stance.

This began to change in the 1930s with greater government support for academia and other similar fields, meaning that finance and industry were not the only game in game and the supporting cast of professionals thus serviced a combination of business and government related industries as well.

Add to that the effects of the GI bill and the gaining of access to higher education by more and more non-WASPs, and over time you get a shift towards the Democrats and the left.

I don't think this was true back then.  Most of the famous 19th century industrialists and inventors weren't college graduates.  Vanderbilt didn't even learn to read until he was in retirement!  Education in that era was something you did for social status after becoming wealthy, not something that brought wealth.  On a middle class level, it was pursued by people who wanted to be local schoolteachers or professors or lawyers, not by people who wanted to become wealthy in industry. 

It took quite a while for production and management to get complicated enough to make higher education more beneficial than work experience for aspiring business owners, let alone required to become wealthy in industry.  You could say we are only just now seeing the political impact of a world where education is what makes most people rich.

How does one bold a section and then make a counter point that is practically stated in the sentence just prior to where said bolding starts?

Prior to a certain point, the only people who got higher education were mostly people who were already rich and this would create a skew of its own.

The next line starts "add to that" meaning it is an additional supporting point to that.

However, I would challenge the notion that every rich person was an inventor or shed tinkerer who struck it rich.

I also outright stated that as you said few people sought higher education, however those that did were most certainly pulling from a select group that is already wealthy.


I think our disagreement comes from the idea that people prior to ~WWII went to/sent their kids to college with the goal of making more money.  I think this explains the divide between business elites (near uniformly conservative until like yesterday) and academic elites (which had a significant left leaning block even in the 19th century).  The latter simply weren't concerned that much about making money and were probably downwardly mobile, albeit from a very high starting point. 

The pre-WWII wealthy weren't primarily inventors, no, but there is compelling data that a majority of the very rich in each generation since roughly the time the US was founded have been people pursuing some kind of successful entrepreneurship.  Since industrialization, there's been enough turnover among the very wealthy that at any given time a majority are self-made.  In modern times, this is true both at the billionaire level and at the $30M level.  Think about just how difficult it is to keep your family elite level wealthy for several generations?  Even if taxes are low and your children and grandchildren care about maintaining the fortune as much as you do and don't blow the money, they had better be only children or what's left is split 32+ ways very quickly!     

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Asenath Waite
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« Reply #11 on: April 28, 2021, 04:09:10 PM »

I think there's always been a segment of the intellectual elite that supported Democrats, read NY Times archives from the early twentieth century for an example of it. Support for the League of Nations was very much an elite cause.
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David Hume
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« Reply #12 on: April 29, 2021, 10:50:02 PM »

One of the leading intellectuals of the first half of the 20th century was Columbia President Nicholas Murray Butler, who was a Republican Party man and an avowed liberal. Intellectuals had always tended to be on the liberal side of things, which in the 19th century meant with the Republicans and starting in the 1930s with the Democrats. There were also, however, many Southern intellectuals who promoted Lost Causeism and denounced Reconstruction, but in the liberal North intellectuals like Frederick Douglass and Walt Whitman were among Lincoln’s most important supporters.

Were Dems more conservative in social issues before 1930? I think the differences back then were mainly economic issues like tariff, free silver coins, etc. While southern Dems were racists against Black, northern large city Dems represents immigrants like Irish. I don't think R and D back then fit in the conservative vs liberal divide today.
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David Hume
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« Reply #13 on: April 29, 2021, 10:51:12 PM »

I made a thread asking which one was the last election in which the university professors and students voted more republican than the average of the country. Most of the people answered 1956.
Are there any statistics or research supporting that?
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« Reply #14 on: May 04, 2021, 01:59:32 PM »

I think there's always been a segment of the intellectual elite that supported Democrats, read NY Times archives from the early twentieth century for an example of it. Support for the League of Nations was very much an elite cause.

Yeah, for an advanced Civil War & Reconstruction class I took as an elective during my senior year of college, we had to read the book Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of the Civil War by Bruce Levine.  I think it is back at my parents' house, but I remember a couple of interesting passages quoting Democratic newspapers describing the Republican Party.  IMHO, the tone and arrogance sounded pretty similar to today, describing a business elite that riled up a base of religious fanatics hungry for war.  This is obviously just one man's words in the quote, but it was a newspaper from New York talking about how dumb and "jingoy" many of the Republicans in Congress sounded with their hyperbole about ~the Union~ and framing their views as God's will. 

This is to say nothing of the many historical primary sources that describe Jefferson and his buddies as practically indistinguishable from how many modern conservatives describe "liberal elites" (i.e., snobby wannabe radicals pretty far up their own asses).  Regardless, by at least the late Nineteenth Century, there was clearly a strong "intellectual" component of the Democratic Party.  People always focus too much on them being the "party of the working class" or whatever, but you could very easily they still are today (at least for minorities, who are disproportionately working class), and that obviously doesn't stop them from also being viewed in a nearly opposite light when it comes to "the media and intellectuals" and their support for the party.
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darklordoftech
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« Reply #15 on: May 04, 2021, 03:18:02 PM »

I think there's always been a segment of the intellectual elite that supported Democrats, read NY Times archives from the early twentieth century for an example of it. Support for the League of Nations was very much an elite cause.

Yeah, for an advanced Civil War & Reconstruction class I took as an elective during my senior year of college, we had to read the book Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of the Civil War by Bruce Levine.  I think it is back at my parents' house, but I remember a couple of interesting passages quoting Democratic newspapers describing the Republican Party.  IMHO, the tone and arrogance sounded pretty similar to today, describing a business elite that riled up a base of religious fanatics hungry for war.  This is obviously just one man's words in the quote, but it was a newspaper from New York talking about how dumb and "jingoy" many of the Republicans in Congress sounded with their hyperbole about ~the Union~ and framing their views as God's will. 

This is to say nothing of the many historical primary sources that describe Jefferson and his buddies as practically indistinguishable from how many modern conservatives describe "liberal elites" (i.e., snobby wannabe radicals pretty far up their own asses).  Regardless, by at least the late Nineteenth Century, there was clearly a strong "intellectual" component of the Democratic Party.  People always focus too much on them being the "party of the working class" or whatever, but you could very easily they still are today (at least for minorities, who are disproportionately working class), and that obviously doesn't stop them from also being viewed in a nearly opposite light when it comes to "the media and intellectuals" and their support for the party.
I wonder what Republican newspapers said.
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« Reply #16 on: May 04, 2021, 10:48:59 PM »

The media's partisan leaning depends on what media you consume. Liberal intellectuals became a cog in the New Deal Coalition in the 1930s while the Republicans' Eastern Establishment gradually got pushed out by rural conservatives, who were later able to totally crowd them out with an influx of Southern segregationists in the 1960s. Technocrats liked the 1930s government expansion, Atlanticists flipped for World War II, and the Southern Strategy sealed the deal in the 1960s. Ironically, the Catholics who liberal Republican intellectuals were having a moral panic over in the Progressive Era started shifting to the Republicans with the rise of the religious right, and those same intellectuals joined the party of Tammany Hall.

I think there's always been a segment of the intellectual elite that supported Democrats, read NY Times archives from the early twentieth century for an example of it. Support for the League of Nations was very much an elite cause.

Theodore Roosevelt also proposed a "League of Peace" in the 1900s.
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Paul Weller
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« Reply #17 on: May 04, 2021, 11:07:58 PM »
« Edited: May 04, 2021, 11:24:50 PM by HenryWallaceVP »

I think there's always been a segment of the intellectual elite that supported Democrats, read NY Times archives from the early twentieth century for an example of it. Support for the League of Nations was very much an elite cause.

Yeah, for an advanced Civil War & Reconstruction class I took as an elective during my senior year of college, we had to read the book Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of the Civil War by Bruce Levine.  I think it is back at my parents' house, but I remember a couple of interesting passages quoting Democratic newspapers describing the Republican Party.  IMHO, the tone and arrogance sounded pretty similar to today, describing a business elite that riled up a base of religious fanatics hungry for war.  This is obviously just one man's words in the quote, but it was a newspaper from New York talking about how dumb and "jingoy" many of the Republicans in Congress sounded with their hyperbole about ~the Union~ and framing their views as God's will. 

This is to say nothing of the many historical primary sources that describe Jefferson and his buddies as practically indistinguishable from how many modern conservatives describe "liberal elites" (i.e., snobby wannabe radicals pretty far up their own asses).  Regardless, by at least the late Nineteenth Century, there was clearly a strong "intellectual" component of the Democratic Party.  People always focus too much on them being the "party of the working class" or whatever, but you could very easily they still are today (at least for minorities, who are disproportionately working class), and that obviously doesn't stop them from also being viewed in a nearly opposite light when it comes to "the media and intellectuals" and their support for the party.
I wonder what Republican newspapers said.

Well, the leading Republican paper of the time was the New York Tribune, which espoused economic leftism alongside abolitionism.

As for the other side, here is what a few leading pro-Buchanan Democratic newspapers had to say during the election of 1856:

Quote from: Muscogee Herald
Free society! We sicken of the name! What is it but a conglomeration of greasy mechanics, filthy operatives, small-fisted farmers, and moon-struck theorists? All the Northern and especially the New England states are devoid of society fitted for well bred gentlemen. The prevailing class one meets is that of mechanics struggling to be genteel, and small farmers who do their own drudgery; and yet are hardly fit for association with a southern gentleman's body servant. This is your free society which the northern hordes are endeavoring to extend to Kansas.

Quote from: Richmond Enquirer
Repeatedly have we asked the North 'has not the experiment of universal liberty failed? Are not the evils of free society insufferable? And do not most thinking men among you propose to subvert and reconstruct it?' Still no answer. This gloomy silence is another conclusive proof added to many other conclusive evidences we have furnished, that free society in the long run, is an impracticable form of society; is everywhere striving, demoralizing and insurrectionary.
We repeat, then, that policy and humanity alike forbid the existence of the evils of free society to new people and coming generations.
Two opposite and conflicting forms of society cannot, among civilized men co-exist and endure. The one must give away and cease to exist, the other become universal.
If free society be unnatural, immoral, unchristian, it must fall, and give way to a slave society—a social system old as the world, universal as man.

Quote from: South Side Democrat
We have got to hating everything with the prefix FREE, from the free negroes down and up, through the whole catalogue— Free farms, Free labor, Free society, Free will, Free thinking, Free children, and Free schools—all belonging to the same brood of damnable isms. But the worst of all those abominations is the modern system of FREE SCHOOLS! The New England system of free schools has been the cause and source of the infidelities and treason that have turned her cities into Sodoms and Gomorrahs, and her land into the common nesting-places of howling Bedlamites. We abominate the system, because the SCHOOLS ARE FREE.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #18 on: May 04, 2021, 11:21:04 PM »

I think there's always been a segment of the intellectual elite that supported Democrats, read NY Times archives from the early twentieth century for an example of it. Support for the League of Nations was very much an elite cause.

Yeah, for an advanced Civil War & Reconstruction class I took as an elective during my senior year of college, we had to read the book Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of the Civil War by Bruce Levine.  I think it is back at my parents' house, but I remember a couple of interesting passages quoting Democratic newspapers describing the Republican Party.  IMHO, the tone and arrogance sounded pretty similar to today, describing a business elite that riled up a base of religious fanatics hungry for war.  This is obviously just one man's words in the quote, but it was a newspaper from New York talking about how dumb and "jingoy" many of the Republicans in Congress sounded with their hyperbole about ~the Union~ and framing their views as God's will.  

This is to say nothing of the many historical primary sources that describe Jefferson and his buddies as practically indistinguishable from how many modern conservatives describe "liberal elites" (i.e., snobby wannabe radicals pretty far up their own asses).  Regardless, by at least the late Nineteenth Century, there was clearly a strong "intellectual" component of the Democratic Party.  People always focus too much on them being the "party of the working class" or whatever, but you could very easily they still are today (at least for minorities, who are disproportionately working class), and that obviously doesn't stop them from also being viewed in a nearly opposite light when it comes to "the media and intellectuals" and their support for the party.
I wonder what Republican newspapers said.

Well, the leading Republican paper of the time was the New York Tribune, which espoused economic leftism alongside abolitionism.

As for the other side, here is what a few leading pro-Buchanan Democratic newspapers had to say during the election of 1856:

Quote from: Muscogee Herald
Free society! We sicken of the name! What is it but a conglomeration of greasy mechanics, filthy operatives, small-fisted farmers, and moon-struck theorists? All the Northern and especially the New England states are devoid of society fitted for well bred gentlemen. The prevailing class one meets is that of mechanics struggling to be genteel, and small farmers who do their own drudgery; and yet are hardly fit for association with a southern gentleman's body servant. This is your free society which the northern hordes are endeavoring to extend to Kansas.

Quote from: Richmond Enquirer
Repeatedly have we asked the North 'has not the experiment of universal liberty failed? Are not the evils of free society insufferable? And do not most thinking men among you propose to subvert and reconstruct it?' Still no answer. This gloomy silence is another conclusive proof added to many other conclusive evidences we have furnished, that free society in the long run, is an impracticable form of society; is is everywhere striving, demoralizing and insurrectionary.
We repeat, then, that policy and humanity alike forbid the existence of the evils of free society to new people and coming generations.
Two opposite and conflicting forms of society cannot, among civilized men co-exist and endure. The one must give away and cease to exist, the other become universal.
If free society be unnatural, immoral, unchristian, it must fall, and give way to a slave society—a social system old as the world, universal as man.

Quote from: South Side Democrat
We have got to hating everything with the prefix FREE, from the free negroes down and up, through the whole catalogue— Free farms, Free labor, Free society, Free will, Free thinking, Free children, and Free schools—all belonging to the same brood of damnable isms. But the worst of all those abominations is the modern system of FREE SCHOOLS! The New England system of free schools has been the cause and source of the infidelities and treason that have turned her cities into Sodoms and Gomorrahs, and her land into the common nesting-places of howling Bedlamites. We abominate the system, because the SCHOOLS ARE FREE.

I am glad we live in more civilized times where the concept of tribalism driving one side to oppose everything that the other side supports right down to the color of the sky and the grass is completely lost.

It helps me sleep so much better at night, I am always asleep by 10.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #19 on: May 04, 2021, 11:37:59 PM »
« Edited: May 04, 2021, 11:41:32 PM by Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee »

No one in their right mind is going to claim that the Democrats were faithful adherents to the "founders" will in the 1850s and afterwards. That is the whole point and why Republicans sought so hard to claim to be fighting to preserve the legacy of Jefferson, in the face of the corrupting influence of the slave power, these things are well established.

Slavery consumed all aspects of the political sphere and defined many of the arguments in the 1850s and 1860s, but the problem comes when there is a presumption that this extends back prior to this period and extends long after this decade as well even as the issues shift extensively beginning in the 1870s.
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« Reply #20 on: May 04, 2021, 11:39:28 PM »

I think there's always been a segment of the intellectual elite that supported Democrats, read NY Times archives from the early twentieth century for an example of it. Support for the League of Nations was very much an elite cause.

The East Coast Atlanticists must have loved the League of Nations.
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« Reply #21 on: May 04, 2021, 11:56:37 PM »

No one in their right mind is going to claim that the Democrats were faithful adherents to the "founders" will in the 1850s and afterwards. That is the whole point and why Republicans sought so hard to claim to be fighting to preserve the legacy of Jefferson, in the face of the corrupting influence of the slave power, these things are well established.

Slavery consumed all aspects of the political sphere and defined many of the arguments in the 1850s and 1860s, but the problem comes when there is a presumption that this extends back prior to this period and extends long after this decade as well even as the issues shift extensively beginning in the 1870s.

So you’re willing to admit then that the Republican Party was founded in liberalism, whereas the Democrats of the same time were conservatives?
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« Reply #22 on: May 05, 2021, 12:27:05 AM »

No one in their right mind is going to claim that the Democrats were faithful adherents to the "founders" will in the 1850s and afterwards. That is the whole point and why Republicans sought so hard to claim to be fighting to preserve the legacy of Jefferson, in the face of the corrupting influence of the slave power, these things are well established.

Slavery consumed all aspects of the political sphere and defined many of the arguments in the 1850s and 1860s, but the problem comes when there is a presumption that this extends back prior to this period and extends long after this decade as well even as the issues shift extensively beginning in the 1870s.

So you’re willing to admit then that the Republican Party was founded in liberalism, whereas the Democrats of the same time were conservatives?

Henry, I will never condone any simplistic endorsement of a party flip its just too superficial and frankly insulting the complexities of the time to try and reduce everything down to what are essentially two very charged buzz words.

America was founded on the basis of a doctrine of liberalism, but even within that underlying framework there existed a right-left divide that extended from 1792 until about 1850. Just as a two party system redeveloped after the Glorious Revolution and again after the Hanoverian Succession/Jacobite Risings/Proscription (though it took most of the century). Slavery scrambled the deck chairs and to the extent that Republicans were fighting to preserve traditions of the founding while Democrats let themselves be corrupted of slave power, if you want to assign labels situationally based on that, fine.

However, nobody flipped a switch here and Northern Democrats (Lewis Cass and Stephen Douglas) bumbled their way into this still claiming to adhere to their "liberal principles" ie Popular Sovereignty. Very fitting that a Democratic party would condone the ability of localities to vote away the rights of a minority, very literal interpretation of majoritarian fiat.

The Republican Party was founded by radicals, egalitarians and yes liberals who were sick of this situation from both parties but notably skewing more from the Democrats at first (Van, Van he's a used up man. Then of course the situation of the Whigs is way too complex to reduce to a single sentence here), but it is worth noting that it was not this Republican Party that won and led the Civil War. Its defeat let to a broadening of the platform (Clay's economic policies) and welcoming in a number of more conservative minded people "halting the spread as opposed to outright abolition" and thus created a broad based big tent anti-slavery party that Northerners right to left could embrace for the sake of the country.

I have been saying the same thing here that I have for years Henry.

You mentioned the New York Tribune, the same paper that repeatedly attacked Lincoln, pushed for his replacement and whose editor led the Liberal Republican revolt against Grant. Prominent yes, but certainly not the only voice in town obviously. Clearly over the period of the 1860s into the 1870s, the people in the driver's seat were in flux and we know who won out.

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Paul Weller
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« Reply #23 on: May 05, 2021, 02:33:23 PM »
« Edited: May 05, 2021, 02:43:28 PM by HenryWallaceVP »

No one in their right mind is going to claim that the Democrats were faithful adherents to the "founders" will in the 1850s and afterwards. That is the whole point and why Republicans sought so hard to claim to be fighting to preserve the legacy of Jefferson, in the face of the corrupting influence of the slave power, these things are well established.

Slavery consumed all aspects of the political sphere and defined many of the arguments in the 1850s and 1860s, but the problem comes when there is a presumption that this extends back prior to this period and extends long after this decade as well even as the issues shift extensively beginning in the 1870s.

So you’re willing to admit then that the Republican Party was founded in liberalism, whereas the Democrats of the same time were conservatives?

Henry, I will never condone any simplistic endorsement of a party flip its just too superficial and frankly insulting the complexities of the time to try and reduce everything down to what are essentially two very charged buzz words.

America was founded on the basis of a doctrine of liberalism, but even within that underlying framework there existed a right-left divide that extended from 1792 until about 1850. Just as a two party system redeveloped after the Glorious Revolution and again after the Hanoverian Succession/Jacobite Risings/Proscription (though it took most of the century). Slavery scrambled the deck chairs and to the extent that Republicans were fighting to preserve traditions of the founding while Democrats let themselves be corrupted of slave power, if you want to assign labels situationally based on that, fine.

However, nobody flipped a switch here and Northern Democrats (Lewis Cass and Stephen Douglas) bumbled their way into this still claiming to adhere to their "liberal principles" ie Popular Sovereignty. Very fitting that a Democratic party would condone the ability of localities to vote away the rights of a minority, very literal interpretation of majoritarian fiat.

The Republican Party was founded by radicals, egalitarians and yes liberals who were sick of this situation from both parties but notably skewing more from the Democrats at first (Van, Van he's a used up man. Then of course the situation of the Whigs is way too complex to reduce to a single sentence here), but it is worth noting that it was not this Republican Party that won and led the Civil War. Its defeat let to a broadening of the platform (Clay's economic policies) and welcoming in a number of more conservative minded people "halting the spread as opposed to outright abolition" and thus created a broad based big tent anti-slavery party that Northerners right to left could embrace for the sake of the country.

I have been saying the same thing here that I have for years Henry.

You mentioned the New York Tribune, the same paper that repeatedly attacked Lincoln, pushed for his replacement and whose editor led the Liberal Republican revolt against Grant. Prominent yes, but certainly not the only voice in town obviously. Clearly over the period of the 1860s into the 1870s, the people in the driver's seat were in flux and we know who won out.

In a party system in which slavery is the great dividing line, I think it is completely fair to say that the Republicans were on the left while the Democrats were on the right, even if the Republicans included conservatives amongst their ranks. I agree that the sort of conservatives Southern planters were was very different from the antebellum Northern Whigs or the McKinley Republicans, but that's because they were so much further right than either. In a sense, they were like the old Federalists, if you're inclined to view the Federalists as monarchists or noble types, which I might disagree with but was how a lot of people thought. When Southerners changed their defense of slavery from "necessary evil" to "positive good", and therefore either implicitly or explicitly repudiated Jeffersonian equality, it became evident that only the most ardent reactionaries could support such a system, which as you said drew Northern conservatives to the Republicans, who, while conservatives in the liberal climate of the North, were liberals relative to the Southern slave power. Even if the deck was scrambled, there was still a clear left and right in the fight. I find this quote from Wendell Phillips illuminating:

Quote
Virginia slaveholders, making theoretical democracy their passion, conquered the Federal Government, and emancipated the working classes of New England. Bitter was the cup to honest Federalism and the Essex Junto. Today, Massachusetts only holds to the lips of Carolina a beaker of the same beverage.

According to Phillips, the war against the slave power is the same fight that Jefferson fought, only the Democrats have taken the place of the Federalists. To the extent that they were both fights which pitted individual liberty men against wealth and privilege, I think he is objectively correct, and evidently so did liberal opinion.

I would contend that Stephen Douglas was a very conservative man, one who put "the dollar before the man", but regardless, for every pro-slavery Northern Democrat claiming to care about "popular sovereignty", you had a James Henry Hammond clamoring against the "mudsills of society". Those Southern newspaper excerpts I quoted earlier are indicative of this commonly-held latter attitude.

As for the Republicans, it is true that the radical wing of the party lost control after the defeat in 1856, so that the party which nominated Lincoln was much more of a big tent than that of four years earlier. Accordingly they became less radical on abolition, but I would disagree that their economic positions saw a change. It is important to remember that for many Americans, slavery was as much an economic issue as it was a moral one. The monopolization of western lands by wealthy slave owners prevented small farmers from moving west and having a piece of their own land to work on. This was the main anti-slavery argument of the Free Soilers, and it was wholly adopted by the Republicans, who believed in equal economic opportunity for all Americans. They also believed in the economic harmony of all classes, distinguishing them from class warriors on both sides. While on the one hand Southern planters envisaged a society in which the rich would hold down a permanent underclass, and on the other socialists imagined a dictatorship of the proletariat, Republicans held that the prosperity of each class depended on the others' well-being. Accordingly, they put into effect economic policies designed to benefit all segments of the population. I know you like to focus on how their tariffs benefited businessmen, but that's only one part of the picture. During the war the government experimented with printing greenbacks and implemented a progressive income tax, both of which helped the poor and hit wealthy men. They passed the Morrill Acts, drastically expanding the system of free schools which Southerners so hated, in order that any American could get an education and rise in the world according to his or her own talent. Perhaps most important of all was the Homestead Act, which allowed vast numbers of small farmers to obtain pieces of western land that previously had been monopolized by rich slavers. It was the ultimate expression of Republican and Free Soil principles.

It should be no surprise, then, that the economically left-wing New York Tribune stood solidly behind all of these policies. It may not have been the only voice in town, but surely it says something about the ideological leanings of the Republican Party that this radical paper run by a quasi-socialist was by far the main organ of that party. When Greeley went after Lincoln it was because he did not go far enough and was too moderate for the man. But yes, I would agree that the driver's seat of the party certainly changed under Grant, as men like Charles Sumner were pushed aside to make room for the Roscoe Conklings of the world. The Republicans abandoned their original emphasis on equality to become the party of big business, and it would not be until Theodore Roosevelt that the original liberal spirit of the party would see a revival. So with that, perhaps it would be best to end here with a quote from Roosevelt, describing Lincoln:

Quote
To-day many well-meaning men who have permitted themselves to fossilize, to become ultra-conservative reactionaries, to reject and oppose all progress, but who still pay a conventional and perfunctory homage to Lincoln's memory, will do well to remember exactly what it was for which this great conservative leader of radicalism actually stood.
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Alben Barkley
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« Reply #24 on: May 05, 2021, 04:08:11 PM »
« Edited: May 05, 2021, 06:16:07 PM by Alben Barkley »

The media didn't like FDR for the most part. Remember the infamous Reader's Digest poll suggesting that Landon would win in a landslide? That's because the magazine and its readership was overwhelmingly Republican and anti-FDR. They didn't like Truman either. The Chicago Tribune was eager to declare Dewey the winner for a reason, and NBC only had graphics prepared for a Republican victory. It wasn't just that they expected it; they wanted it.

"Intellectuals" might be a slightly different story, but while these candidates did have the backing of some (though not all) "intellectuals," they also were still very much populist candidates whose core base was the working class. I'd actually argue it was Ike who started to turn that around, with Stevenson being more of the "thinking man's candidate" and Ike more of a "man of the people." He still had the media too though; it was JFK who changed that more than anybody, and LBJ solidified that.

Oh and it didn’t hurt that the media hated Nixon. Always did, hence his infamous “Checkers” speech and “You don’t have Nixon to kick around anymore” outburst. And of course they ultimately helped bring him down. “Intellectuals” by and large didn’t care for him much either, and the feeling was mutual.

So I’d argue that was the turning point: The 60s with JFK, the “Camelot” superstar beloved by the media, vs. the sweaty, creepy Tricky Dick. Ford and even Reagan might not have gotten quite the same treatment, but by that time the media already had a “liberal” reputation. Watching some archival election night footage, you can even hear the newsroom groan when MA is called for Reagan in 1984. Although there was that horrible death penalty question given to Dukakis in 1988, and Tom Brokaw sounded upset when Dole lost in 1996... Still, overall I’d say the turning point was 1960 if I had to place it at any particular time.
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