Some Democrats claim that Republicans and Democrats switched on racism
The true history of U.S. racism and Civil Rights is well documented. Beginning in 1854, the Republican Party has been the single, most powerful activist group against racism and for civil rights in America. This is not an opinion, it is historical fact. What is also historical fact is that the Democratic Party opposed virtually all Republican civil rights legislation from 1854 onward. Even worse, their opposition manifested in some of the most vicious, evil, pro-slavery, anti-Black, anti-women, and anti-Native American behavior imaginable.
Yet when confronted with their horrendous civil rights history some Democrats now claim that Republicans and Democrats switched on racism and civil rights—that the Democratic Party shed their 100+ year history of anti-Black, anti-women, pro-White policies and that Republicans decided to completely reject their core pro-civil rights principles to suddenly become racist, anti-women bigots. In other words, regarding civil rights, they say the two parties flipped.
Is this true?
Of course, the answer is an emphatic no! Take a look at the Democrat’s most popular argument. It goes something like this:
The civil rights struggle of the 1960s caused a demographic shift in parts of the South from Democrat to Republican. Democrats tell us that this shift was motivated by racism. They argue that when Democrat President Lyndon Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, racist Southern Democrats became disenchanted with their party and moved their allegiance to the Republican Party. Further, they contend that at the same time, Southern Republicans put on the cloak of the racist Southern Democrats—and, voila, the parties flipped.
Of course, that is fantastically absurd on its face and there are some gaping holes in their argument—not to mention the questionable motivation behind Johnson’s and the Democrats’ sudden “love” for African Americans, i.e., Johnson’s infamous statement to two Southern Democratic Governors.
“I’ll have those n*ggers voting Democrat for the next two hundred years.” Democrat President Lyndon Johnson
It’s true that racism played a part in the Southern demographic shift because many Southern racists abandoned the Democratic Party over Johnson’s support for racial equality. But the notion that these same racists flocked to the Republican Party is preposterous. After all, they left the Democratic Party over a couple of pieces of civil rights legislation so why would they go to a party with over a century of civil rights legislation and a party that was created specifically to end slavery in America?
Yet to this day, as false and irrational as their argument is, some Democrats continue to say that the parties switched in the 1960s and that most racist Democrats became Republicans! With this fallacious political sleight-of-hand, some have actually come to believe it, and that with the “switch” all of the past sins of the Democratic Party were transferred to the Republican Party and all of the noble accomplishments of the Republican Party were magically transferred to the Democrats. But most of them know the truth and, when pressed, they will tell you that it’s all about perception, that is what really matters. In other words, truth be damned. Tell the lie often enough and in time many people will believe it.
The Republican Party was founded on anti-slavery, pro-civil rights principles and their entire history was devoted to upholding those principles. So, for Democrat Southern racists, switching to the Republican Party would have been like leaving their beloved Confederacy to join Lincoln’s Union Army. It is an irrational argument and is nothing more than an attempt to rewrite history for the most impure political reasons, i.e., to get Black votes.
“Democrats never fell in love with Blacks; they fell in love with the Black vote.” Reverend Wayne Perryman, lifelong African American Democrat and author of Unfounded Loyalty
Inside the story
In the early 1960s, Democratic President Lyndon Johnson began advocating for a new civil rights bill. As a senator, he had opposed other civil rights initiatives but for reasons still debated, he announced that he wanted to create new civil rights legislation.
In 1964 Democrats held more than a two-thirds majority in the Senate. They controlled it. Johnson was able to bring along some of his fellow Democrats but even though his party held 67 Senate seats out of 100 he could not persuade enough of his fellow Democrats to vote for the civil rights bill. Worse, many of them actually filibustered against it. The truth is, it was the longest filibuster in Senate history. Historically, this was a very strange situation; a Democrat President was trying to enact a new civil rights bill—which was in itself a US political anomaly—but he could not muster enough votes from his own party to pass it. Of course, this was standard procedure for the Democrats. They were always against meaningful civil rights legislation.
So what happened? It’s simple, he turned to the Republicans for help! And as always when it came to civil rights, they were more than willing. Republican Senate Minority Leader, Everett Dirksen, condemned the Democrat filibuster against the bill and called on Democrats to stop opposing racial equality. With the majority of Republicans voting for it, the bill passed, and Johnson signed it into law. To be clear, a majority of Northern Democrats backed the Civil Rights Act—albeit a smaller majority than Republicans—while Southern Democrats strongly opposed it. However, this has no bearing on the argument that Republicans and Democrats switched on racism.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 produced essentially the same results.
Try and lie as they may, Democrats cannot erase their history.
Take a look at Bill Whittle’s video “The Democrats Horrible Racist Past.”
With the help of Liberal educators and the Liberal media, Democrats have been rewriting history for decades.
Our public schools as well as our colleges and universities have either stopped teaching U.S. Civil Rights History entirely or they teach a revised version in which they chronologically report the good and the bad without attribution. For example, they may report the horrors of the KKK but will not mention that it was the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party or that the KKK often hung Blacks and Republicans together of which many were Black Republicans. Our history books may cover the history of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, without revealing the party associations of those who voted for and against it. In other words, they fail to teach their students the truth.
For the record, the 13nth Amendment banning slavery was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on January 31, 1865 with unanimous Republican support against intense Democrat opposition
And the media? In MSNBC’s coverage of the 50th anniversary of Democratic Governor and segregationist George Wallace’s attempt to prevent the integration of the University of Alabama, the network identified Wallace as “R., Alabama.” Yes, they identified him as a Republican instead of the rabid racist Democrat that he actually was. And, yes, they really are that dishonest.
The Democrat lies just keep on coming
While speaking to a mostly Black audience Hillary Clinton once said “What is happening is a sweeping effort to dis-empower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people and young people from one end of our country to another. . . . Today Republicans are systematically and deliberately trying to stop millions of American citizens from voting.” She was talking about voter-ID laws. Yet, by a large margin most Americans support voter ID laws, including a majority of Black voters. Why? Because a vast majority of Americans want their votes to be protected. They want to know that there is no cheating going on and that their vote counts. Also, it is an insult to Black voters to think that they are not capable of having appropriate identification like everyone else.
It is a matter of fact that racism and the Democrat Party share an ugly past. However, they have never apologized for or acknowledged their egregious racist history of crimes against humanity. Instead, with the help of a corrupt media and educational institutions, they have perpetrated one of the most insidious and harmful hoaxes in US history by convincing millions of Americans that they are the party of civil rights and that the Republicans are the racists.
The more Republican the South gets, the less racist it becomes.
The true history of US Civil Rights is just that—the true history. Nowhere in the 1960s or at any other time in US History can one find evidence to support the idea that Republicans and Democrats switched on racism or civil rights. It never happened. The truth is, the less racist the South gets, the more Republican it becomes.
In their attempt to deceive the world by concocting such a fallacious and insidious lie, Democrats have compounded their sins against the American people in general and especially African Americans, women, and others by falsely accusing Republicans of that which they and only they are guilty. The truth is that the Republican Party has a courageous and noble civil rights history while the Democratic Party has a horrendous and sometimes evil civil rights history.
Does any of this matter now? It certainly does! Polls tell us that the American people are disgusted with our leadership in Washington, that they are sick and tired of the deception and polarization that we see in the news every day. So, yes, it matters. If we really want to change things, then we have to pay attention and find out who is telling us the truth and who is lying to us. We have to know our history—not what the politicians tell us—but our actual history. Finally, we have to put our country first and choose honest, smart, competent leaders. If we don’t do these things, then nothing will change, and we will have only ourselves to blame.
Further reading:
The Myth of ‘the Southern Strategy’ NY Times
The less racist the South gets, the more Republican it becomes. National Review
The Myth of Republican Racism National Review