Keep Solid South

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.
 
In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson cruised to a second term defeating Republican Nelson Rockefeller and State's Rights Democratic Party candidate George Wallace, with 54% of the popular vote. The election of 1964 was hailed as the 'high point of American liberalism' by later historians.

In 1968, Johnson was re-elected over Republican Governor George Romney of Michigan. Southern states, who'd run from the Democratic ticket in '64, returned to the fold with Johnson in '68, largely as a result of an influx of black voters coming into the Democratic Party, the nonexistent Republican infrastructure in the South, and the Republican nominee's Mormonism. Conservative activists unhappy with both choices supported candidates with no real chance of winning; Wallace did not mount a second third party campaign, and the State's Rights Democrats dropped the 'Democrats' part of their title and moseyed on with an unremarkable third party candidate that didn't even attract 1% of the vote (the same was true for the more extreme National State's Rights Party, which did even worse and was under constant investigation by the FBI during the period)

As the economy turned sour in the early 1970s thanks to a series of oil shocks, the Republicans finally got back in the White House after twelve years in the political wilderness. The Republican nominee, William Miliken, won the election of 1972 in a landslide, carrying all but a few states, most of them in the South. As the economy picked up, Miliken won re-election in 1976, winning more in the South, but not managing to carry the solidly Democratic states of Mississippi and Alabama. The Republicans would lose in 1980 to a strong Democratic challenger, Bob Kennedy, who would carry the South by a decent margin. Kennedy's successor, Jimmy Carter, would also do well in the South in 1988, but by 1992, the old Southern Democratic dominance was finally starting to crumble. General Colin Powell did relatively well in the South, helped out a lot by crossover votes from black voters. He won bigger in the South in 1996, yet the states he did lose were overwhelmingly Southern.

Paul Wellstone carried the South in 2000, but the Republicans managed to win the deep South for the first time in the 2004 election with the nomination of Rick Santorum. In 2008, the South gave Meg Whitman a majority of the vote, and in 2012, she looks to win a landslide there. The long dominance of the Democratic Party in the south is soon to come to an end.
 
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.

Not necessarily ASB. A completely different political course could result in higher minority turn out and lower White turn out than what exists today in those regions.
 
Have the Democratic Party remain very racist. Maybe the George Wallace wing of the party take over. You would then have to cripple the Civil Rights movement so it has little influence to this day. That is near ASB 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.
 
Last edited:
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.
 
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.
 
Democrats can win the South, you just have to have the national Democratic Party not completely abandon it. You also can't have the Democratic Party look like a 'blacks only' party in the South; black and white voters have to be represented and brought into the same coalition, a coalition that is colorblind. That likely means no affirmative action, ever. If there's AA, you won't be able to keep working class white Southerners in the Democratic Party. The Democrats need to take a class warfare angle that is colorblind to unite working class whites and working class blacks with the white/black middle class to win in the South.

Basically, Clinton had it wrong. You don't moderate on economics while holding your social views, you moderate your social views while moving leftward on economics, if you want to win the South as a Democrat.
 
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.
 
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.
 
Last edited:
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.

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.
 
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.

For the most part, no one cares what anyone else does (so long as it doesn't hurt anyone). No one is trying to prevent anyone from going to church on Sunday or celebrate Christmas or any of that. Whatever morals you were taught about hard work or treating people well (so long as they are good) and so on, that's perfectly fine. Let's call it the "Cracker Barrel Principle" (could also call it the Old Country Buffet principle, but I prefer Cracker Barrel since Old Country Buffet got too expensive). "Traditional values" just means values you learned from tradition.

The Republicans are traditionalist in the sense where generally the idea is to enforce Christian values and principles, and very Conservative interpretations of them at that. There's also the persecution culture, which is troubling, which is where the idea of it is that there is an active culture war against Christianity (even though 90% of the country is Christian), as well as a battle where they're trying to enforce promiscuity and wickedness. And generally it is with the idea of a past that didn't really exist, whether with the Founding Fathers wanting to set up a Christian nation, in spite of their lack of mentioning any specific god, actively separating Church and State because of what they had seen, and generally being Deists who often times were very critical of Christianity, or with the idea of the pre-1960s as this "Leave it to Beaver" time and the post 1960s as this horrid time of sinfulness.

I would say it's often times the difference, between the parties, of being active and passive. The Democratic party doesn't make it an issue, and the Republicans do, but what the Republicans do is not basic traditionalism, it's a Christian Right concept of traditionalism which they try to actively enforce.

For it's part, the extremes of the New Left in their day went too far in trying to break away from those traditional values; something that was part of the whole idea of changing and altering society for the better, but which ended up throwing the baby out with the bath water. And sometimes, I think it was just to be contrarian and shocking (which is what happened with the Yippies). This lead to things like giving your children LSD because "acid is good for everyone", and orgies where wives were swapped, and all that sort of thing. Some of this stuff, like the orgies, got mainstream in the 70s (see Key Parties).
Most people weren't doing that, and I dare say most Hippies weren't doing that either, but what it lead to was a counter reaction against whatever it was perceived to be. And the GOP also managed to capitalize on that, promote themselves, and condemn the Democrats.

It's very dangerous to talk about this, because herein lies the core of politics today. This isn't talking about ideas that are a decade old or that most people disagree with or agree with. This is stuff we're still in the thick of.
 
Last edited:
Republicans nominate Nelson Rockefeller in 1964. He does horribly in Dixie, and Lyndon Johnson manages to carry most of the South Anyway, with a minor party or independent candidate taking a state or two and splitting the anti-Johnsonvote in others.

William Scranton is elected in 1968 in part due to a divided Democratic Party that ultimately nominates George Smathers for President. Smathers sweeps the South, but Scranton wins anyway. In 1972, George Wallace secures the Democratic nomination and the White House. Wallace is reelected over California Governor Ronald Reagan in 1976, and the Republicans win two southern states with the successful Bush/Baker ticket in 1980. Bush and Baker are reelected, but then Bentsen and Nunn, Democrats, are elected in 1988.
 
How Solid was the South?

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.

This is difficult, because the "Solid South" was an unnatural condition; the result of peculiar circumstances unlikely to persist.

In fact the Solid South began to crumble in the 1920s. The Lost Cause nostalgia was starting to fade out.

Florida was starting to become demographically diverse. Texas elected a Republican to the House in 1920 and for the next five terms.

Republicans had always been competitive in the Upper South (except Arkansas); Republicans won the governorship of Tennessee in 1910, 1912, and 1920.

All this was crushed by the Democrat landslide of 1932. Republicans had been strongest in the mountain country, which had been anti-secession. Now many impoverished hill folk were won over by the New Deal. Republicans did not regain any position in the Upper South until the 1960s.

One way for the South to remain solid Democrat is for the New Deal majorities to morph into a dominant political machine, which uses its state authority (illegally) to reduce political opposition to impotence.

Otherwise, the South is bound to break up.
 
Top