Reversing the Political Roles

[In My Memory]

I've always been fascinated by the roles of Democrats and Republicans virtually flipped 180 degrees (several times) in the last few years. A few examples I've been pondering without really putting the effort into to flesh out in greater detail:

 

- Racism: Consider a chief complaint that liberals have about Republicans, that they are nationalistic, hateful, bigoted, and racist. But that hasnt always been the case, in fact the pre-1967 the Democrats held the Solid South, and in fact many pre-1967 Democrats were members of the KKK. Now, the previously solidly Democratic South is solidly Republican, and the previously bigoted Democrats are now solidly pro-minority rights.

 

- Role of Government: The catch phrase to describe the bloated role of government Democrats used to ensdorse is "cradle-to-grave assistance", however the Republicans have recieved much criticism for attempting to micromanage peoples lives (especially where sex and right to life is concerned).

 

- Civil liberties: Where the Republicans chastised FDR for relocating Japanese-Americans into internment camps, only 50 years later the Democrats would chastise Bush for relocating Arab-Americans into Gitmo Bay.

 

- Free market: Traditionally, the Democrats have been economic left-wingers and until the 1940s Democrats strongly supported an isolationist economic policy. However, that has sense switched, notably in the comparing how Clinton did so much more for unbridled free trade than his tariff loving antecedents. (I'm not so sure isolationism is partisan, there are prominent isolationists from all spectrums including Ralph Nader, Justin Raimondo and Pat Buchanon.)

 

- War: Democrats were the subject of stark criticism for their unilateralist / interventionist foreign policy, especially in the Vietnam War (<-- huge can of worms opened). Now, the Republicans have taken that role.

 

- Unity: Pre-1967 Democratic Party was rife with disunity, factions, internal disagreement, disorganized, it came to the point where the party was so violent and unpredictable that the party was about to implode on itself. However, today, while the Democrats really dont stand for anything except to oppose the Republicans, there is relative consistency. Republicans on the other hand have seen increasing disunity, especially as the Radical Right has hijacked the Republican party, the party will continue to lose support of its fiscally conservative members (in fact, the intense social conservativism of the Reagon Administration drove me to switch parties from a card-carrying Republican to a registered Green, which is a Libertarian who likes the environment and doesnt come off as a shrill as Randroids).

 

I'm not sure where the parties are going to go in the future. Maybe in 50 years, the Democrats will be staunchly anti-abortion and the Republicans will be advocates socialized medicine?

[Mokele]

I'm not sure where the parties are going to go in the future. Maybe in 50 years, the Democrats will be staunchly anti-abortion and the Republicans will be advocates socialized medicine?

 

Or it's entirely possible that one or another might not even exist anymore; after all, parties have risen and died before in US history. It'd be quite interesting to watch the process firsthand.

 

Mokele

[Pangloss]

Yup, it's an interesting subject. I thought Zell Miller had some interesting points along these lines in his fascinating book "A National Party No More". He talks about how the Democratic party used to be portrayed as a "big tent", but now it seems to be more and more controlled by the far-left, politically-correct agenda. I didn't entirely agree with that conclusion, but his perspective on the subject is very real, very personal, and well-substantiated. (I highly recommend that book for its unique personal view of politics, even if you're not a Zell Miller fan.)

 

I grew up in Georgia in the 1970s, and I think the subject of how Georgia "switched" from voting mostly Democrat to voting mostly (but not as overwhelmingly) Republican is fascinating. Earle and Merle Black (two Harvard scholars) wrote two books on the subject ("The Vital South" and "The Rise of Southern Republicans") that are also fascinating (but not casual reading -- more of a statistical analysis), and make an excellent case study of this subject, because the state's conservative base hasn't changed at all. It's the parties and their content and message that changed.

 

When I was growing up, people voted between Conservative Democrats and Liberal Democrats. The "real" race was in the primaries. Republican were an afterthought -- you always knew there were a few around, but they were like a dirty little secret that you didn't really talk about (and always recent immigrants from some other state, kinda like that quote from Gone With the Wind: "Yankees in Georgia?! Who let them IN?!" -- I know "Yankees" doesn't really go with "Republicans", but that's how we looked at it at the time).

 

The first thing that smashed that tradition was, of course, desegregation. Conservative Democrats supported segregation. As the political wind changed direction, many Democrats who tried to ride out that storm lost not only their jobs, but their personal reputations, becoming branded with the "racist" brush, whether they were or not. Other politicians (Jimmy Carter being the prime example -- he was a conservative democrat in those early days) adapted and changed. Some VERY few managed to adapt while retaining their conservative roots (like Zell Miller).

 

(A lot of these guys are still around, by the way. I believe I read something the other day about Senator Robert Byrd being a former Ku Klux Klan member.)

[ku]

Members within political parties change over time, so this is expected. Democrats may also find it useful to try send their kids into the Republican party to change it from the inside so that it resembles the Democrats party. The Republicans may be doing the same.

 

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[-Demosthenes-]

Or it's entirely possible that one or another might not even exist anymore; after all, parties have risen and died before in US history. It'd be quite interesting to watch the process firsthand.

I would tend to doubt this. Parties have died before, but that was largely in the first 60 70 years of the country, and for the last 150 years there have the same old two parties, and people are probaly too used to it for it to change.