Why Was America Ready for a Republican Again During the 1950s
How Republicans and Democrats switched on civil rights
Ted Cruz' Dixiecrat ramblings are one-half-truths
Senator Ted Cruz recently defended his political party's racism past substantially proverb, Well, Democrats are racist, also!
His prove: Dixiecrats, the keepers of Jim Crow. Just the Dixiecrats largely left the Democrats to become Republicans.
Hither's why that happened.
1. Republicans and Democrats afterward the Ceremonious War
It'south true that many of the first Ku Klux Klan members were Democrats. It'due south also true that the early Democratic Party opposed ceremonious rights. Simply there'due south more to information technology.
The Civil War-era GOP wasn't that into ceremonious rights. They were more interested in punishing the Due south for seceding, and monopolizing the new blackness vote. (More on this in a future post.)
In any effect, by the 1890s, Republicans had begun to distance themselves from ceremonious rights.
2. Democrats v Republicans on Jim Crow
Segregation and Jim Crow lasted for 100 years subsequently the end of the Civil War.
During this time, African Americans were largely disenfranchised. There was no African-American voting bloc. Neither party pursued civil rights policies — it wasn't worth their while.
Democrats dominated Southern politics throughout the Jim Crow Era. It's fair to say that Democratic governors and legislatures are responsible for creating and upholding white supremacist policies.
Southern Democrats were truly awful.
iii. President Truman Integrates the Troops: 1948
Fast forward about sixty shitty years. Black people are still living in segregation nether Jim Crow. Even so, African Americans agree to serve in Earth War Two.
At war'south finish, President Harry Truman, a Democrat, used an Executive Order to integrate the troops. (That order was non executed until 1963, however because: racism.)
These racist Southern Democrats got so mad that their chief goblin, Senator Strom Thurmond, decided to run for President confronting Truman. They called themselves the Dixiecrats.
Of course, he lost. Thurmond remained a Democrat until 1964. He continued to oppose ceremonious rights as a Democrat. He gave the longest filibuster in Senate history — speaking for 24 hours against the 1957 Civil Rights Human activity.
4. The Political party of Kennedy v the Party of Nixon in the Ceremonious Rights Era
Two things started happening at the aforementioned time:
- Racist Democrats were getting antsy
- Neither political party could afford to ignore ceremonious rights anymore
In 1960 Kennedy defeated Nixon. At the time of his election, the both parties unevenly supported civil rights. But President Kennedy decided to move forrard.
Afterward Kennedy's assassination in 1963, Johnson continued Kennedy's civil rights focus.
As you can imagine, that did not sit down particularly well with virtually Southern Democrats. This is when Strom Thurmond flew the coop for good.
In fact, a greater percentage of Congressional Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than did Democrats. Support for the Act followed geographic, non political party, lines.
Soon after, the Republicans came up with their Southern Strategy — a plan to woo white Southern voters to the party for the 1968 election.
The Kennedy and Johnson administrations had advanced civil rights, largely through national legislation and direct executive actions. So, the Southern Strategy was the opposite — states' rights and no integration.
Every bit in the Civil War, the concepts of "states' rights" and "tradition," were codes for "maintaining white supremacy."
Starting with Thurmond in 1964, and continuing throughout the Johnson and Nixon administrations, Dixiecrats left the Democrats for the Republicans.
five. Those Racist Dixiecrats Create Mainstream Republican Policy
By the time they left the Democrats, Dixiecrats Thurmond and Representative (after Senator) Jesse Helms were on the fringes of their party.
But their ideas formed modern GOP's core platform.
In a campaign ad, Democrat-turned-Republican Jesse Helms said "racial quotas" prevented white people from getting jobs. The lie of racial quotas persists in the GOP'southward rejection of affirmative action. Racial quotas are illegal.
Have the thought of "special interests." Hither'due south Helms' view, equally a Republican:
"Are civil rights simply for Negroes? While women in Washington who take been raped and mugged on the streets in broad daylight have experienced the most revolting sort of violation of their civil rights. The hundreds of others who have had their purses snatched by Negro hoodlums may understandably insist that their correct to walk the street unmolested was violated." — Television commentary, 1963, quoted in The Charlotte Observer.
But you lot would call up that Ted Cruz would have a clearer understanding of the connections between the Dixiecrats and the Republican Party.
He loves Jesse Helms.
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Source: https://medium.com/everyvote/how-the-republicans-and-democrats-switched-on-civil-rights-in-5-racist-steps-92c1b41480b
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