Myth of the Big Switch in Politics

Dinesh D'Souza's latest movie Death of a Nation has been universally panned by the critics.  In fact, it has a Zero percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  Yet, the same site reveals that 90% of the audience liked the film.  As for me, I already knew that actual fascism has very little in common with mainstream conservatism as well as the fact that most Republican voters are not anti-Civil Rights.  However, I did not know that Mussolini spoke very highly of FDR until the outbreak of WW2 and many of today's so-called alt-right actually believe in big government state-ism, not Reagan or Trump style conservatism.

If you buy into the liberal narrative, Trump and his supporters are "literally Hitler" and while the Democratic party may have been the party of slavery and Jim Crow, there was a "big switch" in the 1960s after the Civil Rights Act in which the Democrats became the good guys and the Republicans became the party of racism.  In the words of Mike Gundy, THAT AIN'T TRUE!  Strom Thurmond was the only prominent racist Southern Democrat who switched to the Republicans.  The rest remained Democrats.

Nixon actually campaigned AGAINST segregationist George Wallace.  His message of law and order had strong popular appeal nationwide, not just in the South.  While in office, Nixon supported Civil Rights and actually implemented the first affirmative action program.  He did start the War on Drugs however, which has had a disproportionate effect on blacks.  While I personally believe that low level drug offenses ought to be decriminalized, there is a simple way to avoid imprisonment.  Just say NO!  Overall, I don't think Nixon was a very good president notwithstanding Watergate but he was certainly not a racist. By contrast, LBJ allegedly said that his Great Society welfare programs would have "those n_______ voting Democrat for the next 200 years"  and was caught on tape many times using the n-word.  You can look it up on YouTube.

The black vote actually began going Democratic at a rate of 70% in the 1930s because of the promises of the New Deal.  It was not 90+% because many were hesitant to vote against the party of Lincoln and embrace the party of the KKK and Jim Crow.  It is well known that Jesse Owens was snubbed by Adolf Hitler but most people don't know that he was also snubbed by FDR, who only invited white medalists to the White House.  Republican Dwight Eisenhower won 3 states in the peripheral South in 1952 then added 3 more in 1956 AFTER sending troops to enforce school de-segregation.  I will concede that opposition to Civil Rights was a major factor in 1964 but The South was already trending Republican before that.

 Let's take a look at Alabama in the 1976 election, just 12 years after the landmark Civil Rights bill.  Statewide, it was a 13 point win for Democrat Jimmy Carter, who pretty much swept the rural counties with very few exceptions.  However, metropolitan counties of Mobile, Montgomery and Birmingham went to Republican Gerald Ford, who ran very well in the more affluent suburban areas.  This tells me that higher income and most educated Southerners, who were the least racist, were the FIRST to go Republican.

 I want to focus on 1 Alabama county to demonstrate the evolution of voting patterns.  Jackson County is between Huntsville and Chattanooga.  It is a predominantly white working class area with lots of jobs in the manufacturing sector.  I know it well because I've had job interviews there in the mid 2000s.  In 1976, Jackson County was 72-26 for Carter.  It was economics that explained the difference.  Higher income suburban voters went Republican because of lower taxes and limited government while lower income workers wanted bigger government. 

Now, let's move ahead to 1988.  Statewide, it was a 20 point win for Republican Bush-41 over Democrat Michael Dukakis.  By this time, almost all white majority rural counties had also gone Republican but racism was not a factor.  From 1980 onward, every social survey indicated that white southerners overwhelmingly accepted integration and felt that it had a POSITIVE impact on society.   Don't give me that crap about how the Republicans want to bring back Jim Crow because that's garbage and offensive to me as a Southerner.

 Social issues became a greater factor with the rise of the Moral Majority.  Unrestricted abortion on demand doesn't sell here.  Voters want candidates who are pro-life, pro-family, pro-gun, lower taxes and limited government.  Still in spite of the contrast in values, economic issues kept working class whites loyal to Democrats.  Jackson County was 54-45 Dukakis.  Again, this was a state that went +20 Republican so it seems pretty close but it's WAY more D than the rest of the state.

Even as recently as 2000, Jackson County went for Gore over Bush-43 by 3 points.  It wasn't until 2004 that Republicans really started picking up working class voters and things changed in a hurry.  In 2004, Jackson County swung Red by 17 points in 4 years as it was carried by Bush-43 over Kerry 56-42.  I believe the War on Terror was a big factor as support for the military is very strong.   By 2016, the once Democratic stronghold went to Trump in a 79-17 blowout.  Again, if this was a backlash against Civil Rights, what took so long for it to flip?  They say things move slower in the South but not that slowly.  If you look at West Virginia and Kentucky, the story is similar.  The most economically depressed areas of Appalachia actually voted for Obama in 2008 and did not go Republican until 2012.
Election Atlas
Prager University Video on the Subject