Since several members have responded to my previous post at the same time, I've chosen to "Reply to All."
The two major political parties (namely, the Democrats and the Republicans) have not remained static ever since they were founded. Today the two parties differ from the way they were during the 1950s and the early 1960s. Unlike today, there have been times in this country's history when the labels "Democrat" and "Republican" were often meaningless.
During the time period I've cited (as well as many years before),
both parties had a right wing and a left wing (i.e., conservative and liberal). Yes, there once were liberal Republicans! With the exception of two years my family spent in New York State, I grew up in Texas. I soon became acquainted with the political realities in that state. A particular commentator whose name I don't remember once commented that there were
three political parties in Texas: the conservative Democrats, the liberal Democrats, and the Republicans.
Just to show you how greatly the two parties have changed since the early 1950s: In 1952 when my parents were living in College Station, Texas, they attended the local precinct convention to support the nomination of Eisenhower (who was opposed in the Republican presidential primaries). My parents were the only whites present! All of the other people who had chosen to attend the local Republican precinct convention were blacks.
I'm trying to keep my post as brief as I can, but I need to point out certain facts. In the 19th century, the last friend black Americans had in the White House was Ulysses Grant. When Grant left office, black Americans were betrayed and forgotten; and Jim Crow became firmly ensconced. Black Americans did not have a friend in the White House until Harry Truman became President.
My mother-in-law (now deceased) was a Herbert Hoover Republican who as a white Texan rejected Jim Crow when she was a teenager and even participated in a civil rights demonstration in Austin shortly after the war. But the fact remains that the leadership of the political conservative movement was opposed to the civil rights movement. That certainly was true of William Buckley, Phylis Schafly, and many others. The record simply cannot be denied. For many years the passing of civil rights legislation was thwarted by a congressional coalition of Southern conservative Democrats and Northern conservative Republicans. Note the key word:
conservative.
In the early 1960s certain Republican leaders decided that since black Americans were outnumbered by white Southern segregationists and their Northern sympathizers, they would veer to the right (especially on the issue of civil rights) with the expectation that their strategy would prove to be successful in the long run. The "Southern strategy" of the Nixon administration was representative of this strategy.
In the mid-1960s, both parties began to undergo a process of polarization. White Southern conservative Democrats began moving in droves to the Republican Party, who eagerly welcomed them into their ranks. I would dare say they were recruited by the leadership of the Republican Party. Of course, other issues such as abortion also became prominent. The result is that both the conservative wing of the Democratic Party and the liberal wing of the Republican party shriveled, resulting in the political polarization that we have today.
My wife, bless her sweet heart, was a Republican until a year or so ago, when she became an independent. As a white Texan, she had been repelled by the segregationists of her youth. Finally, she got sick and tired of the "Southern Democrats" who had taken over her party. However, since she is opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage (as I am), she will never become a Democrat; but the Republicans have lost her for good. She used to contribute financially to the Republican Party with constant regularity. No longer.
By the way, David, although I am a Christian, I share in your opposition to the theocrats. I find them to be repellant. In fact, they scare me!
Most of the Republican congressmen who voted for civil rights legislation were
liberal or
moderate Republicans,
not conservatives. They would not be welcomed by today's Republicans. They would be denounced as RINOs by the conservatives. Individuals such as Rush Limbaugh claim that the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed with conservative support. That is an unmitigated lie. Limbaugh is being intellectually dishonest, and he knows it! He's especially counting on the ignorance of recent history, perhaps especially on the part of young people who weren't around at the time. I would not be the least surprised if Limbaugh himself was opposed to the civil rights movement. During that period of time, I attended public schools in the Congressional District that was represented by George Herbert Walker Bush for two years. Racial bigotry was rife in that district. When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in the spring of 1968, I never saw so much glee among my high-school classmates, most of whom were Republicans.
Incidentally, almost all of the Democratic U.S. Senators who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act were
conservatives. If Robert Byrd and George Wallace had joined the Republican Party (as the odious Strom Thurmond did in 1964), most of the Republican leadership would have been all over themselves with glee.
The point is that one needs to remember that the two major parties have changed in the last 50 years or so. Engaging in Limbaugh's intellectual dishonesty on this particular historical issue will fail eventually (but not before it possibly succeeds as an exercise of the "Big Lie" technique and does a lot of damage).
(Hmmm . . . I've avoided losing my temper and have written with restraint. At least so far.
)
Real life responsibilites beckon to me presently; so, I must take leave of my laptop. Enjoy the afternoon!
I will admit that if I didn't believe in the Bible, we'd be a lot more in agreement on these two issues. Please understand that some of the beliefs of "people of faith" are not something they would believe anyway, but are beliefs they have to uphold because they believe them to be the truth, whether they like it or not. (Don't know if that was clear or not.)