Basically the South didnt change, the parties did.
Let the Progressive roosevelt republicans win out in their party and the Newdeal roosevelt democrats fail, and the sout stays democrat.
No way is the above scenario of a more leftish democrat taking the south plausible. Imo.
Basically the South didnt change, the parties did.
Let the Progressive roosevelt republicans win out in their party and the Newdeal roosevelt democrats fail, and the sout stays democrat.
No way is the above scenario of a more leftish democrat taking the south plausible. Imo.
That's too simple. The parties did not change wholly, just partially. Parties used to be big tents; they say they still are, but in the past, they really used to be. And you'd get conservatives, liberals, and whatever in between all united by some idea or common cause or characteristic.
By the mid 20th century, the thing was blue collar and white collar. The GOP was generally more white collar focus, and the Democrats more blue collar focused.
The South left the Democratic party for a few reason. One was race. The South was bigoted, and even the Liberal Southerners played the race card. The Democrats also started to go for what I myself call a Carter vibe in the 70s, and tried to bring blacks and women into the convention set up right away which probably didn't help matters. But there is another reason, and one which isn't well enough discussed: the South was getting more and more white collar. Blue collar Southerners were more apt to vote Democrat, because farmers and the poor need help and like people who will help them, so they'll support the guy who will get them subsidies, and make programs to help them, and bring a damn to the local lake to supply electricity and all that, and the average blue collar laboring man likes a nice social security net set up so he feels secure. In the post-war period, though, the Southerners were becoming increasingly white collar, urbanizing, moving to cities, and coming into the modern 20th century. And, as stated previously, the white collar people were more inclined to vote Republican.
It is important to also note, however, that the transformation of the South to the GOP was very gradual. The GOP voting Republican Presidentially took hold quickly, but for decades and decades (I think till perhaps 1994) locally and in the state, people still voted Democratic, and you had all those New South governors (Democrats, by the way) elected in the years immediately after Civil Rights.
So it is not impossible, and possibly not even difficult, to keep the South Democratic if you take the seeds of what I mentioned and properly groom that. I honestly can't remember the tipping point for the south going GOP right now but with what I've just mentioned, I think you can find a way to soften or curtail it.
In my experience farmers vote Republican. In Wisconsin the cities of Milwaukee, Madison, Racine and Kenosha go Democrat but the rest of the state (Which is mostly rural and small cities) tends to go Republican. In Washington State the Seatle area goes Democrat but the eastern and more rural part of the state tends to go more Republican.
That has to do with cultural perceptions in the modern age, among those people at least, which holds that the Republicans are the party of traditionalism and cultural conservatism, and often holds that the Democrats are not or cannot be either (though they can be, even if one is Liberal on social or economic issues) and perhaps even threatens them.
Mostly because the Republicans are for the most part the party of traditionalism and conservatism. There are exceptions here and there but that is an accurate statement.
But Democrats can also be that, and I fear the way I wrote this sentence because I don't want it to seem like its some aberration for a Democratic person to be traditionalist or that the GOP is the group that is understood to be that where we should even need to pay special attention to the Democratic party in relation to traditionalism. It's all a matter of modern perception, and is also a modern occurrence for that matter. I think it began when the Evangelical right wing took over the discussion and involved itself in politics in the late 70s, which it has continued to do since. Broader Conservatism has no natural hold on either of those because traditionalism and even cultural conservatism are not intertwined by their nature to either economic or Social Conservatism or Liberalism.
It's all a matter of modern perceptions, that when you think something that is traditionalist or culturally more conservative (small c, not big C), the Republicans are the ones fighting for that, are the ones who represent that, and the Democratic party is either alien to it or actively against it (and it seems the selling point is more the idea that the Democrats are actively against it). The Republicans have taken hold, in marketing, of those two ideas. And then the next step is that you should be a Social and Economic Conservative.
It was not like that before. It used to be that even if you were the biggest Klansman out there (not to say that traditionalists are Klansman, but I'm using the most extreme example), you could still support Mr Roosevelt on his New Deal and all these programs. An idea of Traditionalism was free flowing. And now its a buzz word locked in by the GOP. And its not because anything changed really; it's because perception was changed. It's all about marketing. That's all any of this stuff has been since the 80s.
And this is part of the Southern story as well, because the concept was marketed very well that the Democrats were not for traditionalism, and were actually enemies of it, and that the Republicans were in favor of it and were the warriors for it. So they changed the perception, and that got them support. And once those people joined and were in the tent, they also adopted Social and Economic Conservatism. Things that do not serve their interests, like cutting regulations on corporations on businesses or cutting taxes for the rich, they support because its part of the tent.
The reason the Democrats lost the South, in a heavy part, could be said to be because they sucked at marketing themselves after the changes that happened in America in that period of the 60s and 70s and properly getting themselves across. And the Republicans managed to aggressively market against them, saying they and their changes were all these nasty things, and the Republicans managed to successfully market for themselves as being this and that that would appeal to the Southerners.
By the way, I'm very sleep deprived so forgive me for rambling in trying to get the core ideas out there and properly expressed in relation to what they pertain. It is especially difficult given that the post-80s/90s/2000s period has been all about buzz words and all this sort of creepily Orwellian stuff about changing perceptions of a fact to a grave and often convoluted degree (if not as an outright lie) when a fact itself has not changed. Its way too complex and doublethink.
In my experience farmers vote Republican. In Wisconsin the cities of Milwaukee, Madison, Racine and Kenosha go Democrat but the rest of the state (Which is mostly rural and small cities) tends to go Republican. In Washington State the Seatle area goes Democrat but the eastern and more rural part of the state tends to go more Republican.
Well the democrats have some rural blocks, the drift less area up to Lacrosse and the old iron counties also go democratic.
It's not double-think for the most part it is true. Was it true in the past? No Can it change in the future? Yes Are there exceptions to the rule? Of course. But right here and now the Republicans are clearly the more traditionalist of the two parties.
When I was born I believe the South was solidly Democratic. Now it is often regarded as solidly Republican.
Your challenge is to keep the South Democratic at least until 2012.