kraftiekortie wrote:
Historical processes.
The Democrats were the bigots of the 19th century. They were for "free money," usually---not the gold standard.
The Republicans were the progressives of the 19th century. But they were for strict money policies and high tariffs. They were always conservative in a fiscal sense.
Until, basically, the 1960s, the southern Democrats were the party of bigotry. In the 20th century, the Republicans became the "conservative" party---especially after Theodore Roosevelt and his run on the Bull Moose ticket in 1912. Then the Republicans split into the "progressive" (Teddy Roosevelt) wing and the more conservative wing (Taft). They were conservative because, again, they were fiscally conservative. Basically, after this election, the conservative element tended to dominate the Party.
Both parties were as bigoted as each other--but the Republicans still supported civil rights a bit more than the Democrats did---especially Southern Democrats. The "party of Lincoln" thing only applied to the South.
After the 1960s, basically, the Southern Democrats became like the Northern Democrats----more or less "liberal" in ideology for the most part. The conservative Republicans started to hold sway in the South. Historically, because of civil rights, the Southern Democrats were an anachronism.
The Republicans started to veer more to the "right" as time went on. The Democrats, especially from the time of Roosevelt, became the "liberal" party.
I've met republicans who still think the democrats are still the same as they used to be while denying the reality that those democrats of then became the republicans of today.
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