"why did the entire south change from democrat (Dixicrats they used to be calle) to republican overnight?
It didn't.
Why did LBJ say the dems would lose the south for 50 years by forcing the 1964 civil rights act on the south.
The Democratic party was mixed at the time. Most Republicans supported civil rights, as did most Dems from the North. The Dems from the South not so much. The tradition of the South being the "solid south" for the Dems goes back to the civil war era, when the "damn Yankee", Republican, Lincoln, invaded the South, defeated it, and freed the slaves. The anti-civil rights movement among the south in the mid 20th century was less extreme than in the 19th, but it remained, as did the simple tradition that "my father was a Democrat, his father was a Democrat...". Other than that by the 50s and 60s many southern Democrats had more in common than Republicans than with the Northern Democrats, but the tradition kept them with the south. The fight over the civil rights disrupted that tradition (maybe it wouldn't have if it was a Republican president, and gave them a Republican to focus their resentment on), and so many southern Democrats drifted to the Republicans.
The south blames the dems and liberals for the 1964 civil rights act forcing integration. They do not blame the republicans!
To the extent that your statement is true, they should blame the Republicans as well. Maybe they blame the Dems because the Dems where the majority power in congress, but Republicans where more likely to vote for the Civil Rights Act that Democrats. Maybe its because you had a Democratic president at the time, but Ike sent soldiers to forcibly desegregate schools.
Robert Byrd once belonged to the Klu Klux Klan. He di change over the years, but he was very conservative at one time.
There is no particular connection to the Klu Klux Klan, and the Republican party (to the extent its connected to either party its more to the Democrats) or to the modern political meaning of conservatism.
Are you really searching for the truth or defending a position?
The two aren't mutually exclusive. I'm defending my position because I believe it to be true, your doing the same. However should there be sufficient reason to reconsider my position I would do so. Hopefully you would as well. You haven't provided any reason for me to do so, but I'll keep reading, you might come up with something new. |
