Supporting the Civil Rights Act of 1964
TIL that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was supported by 80% of the Republican House members, and 82% of the Republican Senate members.
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level 1
Starting in the 60's there was a major shift in the ideology of the two parties, and they both basically ended up switching sides.
level 2
It's not so much that the two parties switched sides. The parties were less about socially liberal or conservative back then, so both parties had liberal and conservative wings. However, the liberal wing shrank in the Republican Party and the conservative wing shrank in the Democratic Party.
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Why do people always say this? All my liberal friends hold pre 1960's democrats like Woodrow Wilson and FDR in very high regard.
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Comment deleted by user · 6y
level 2
That's a gross oversimplification of things (e.g., the South was strongly Democrat even up to the 1992 election.)
See this map (Note that the now traditional red=GOP, blue=democrat is reversed in this map).
level 2
Democrats didn't really shift leftward. FDR was pretty far to the left of most modern Democrats. On social issues, however, they did shift left in general when all the racist southern Democrats left the party and became Republicans in direct response to the national Democratic Party pushing civil rights.
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I tried to explain this to my very conservative roommate. A lot of those republican presidents wouldn't get the time of day in a GOP race for how liberal they were. I gave him this example; if slavery was going on today, which party would be the ones fighting for their freedom and which ones would be fighting to keep it? Back then it was the GOP fighting for freedom, but can you honesty say they would be the ones doing it today while the dems fight to keep it? The party that wants to keep minimum wage low and keep certain people from marrying are the ones that'll get rid of free labor? He was convinced the GOP would be the freedom party...
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The American South left the democratic party for the republican party because of this vote, and the republican party has been carrying water for racists and religious zealots ever since so that they can push taxes for the wealthy down.
level 2
The GOP in the 70s was vastly different from today. Hell, it was vastly different from the GOP of the 80s. Nixon created the EPA, if you can believe that. Today, every fuckwit GOP candidate talks about dismantling the EPA or seriously crippling it in the name of unfettered free-market capitalism with a giant side of "fuck you!" to the planet and all its inhabitants. The downward spiral all started with Reagan, that insufferable halfwit.
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Comment deleted by user · 6y
level 2
No. By the 1960's Republicans were Republicans.
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Also don't forget the color switch. Dems used to be red pre 1980's and GOP blue..
level 2
It's funny how many GOPers don't know this or at least feign ignorance. I've literally gotten in arguments with half a dozen or so who will say things like "The Republicans freed the slaves/ supported civil rights", completely ignorant of the ideological switch that happened. This is usually a follow up to their claims that the Dems are the racist ones.
level 2
Eh, You could argue that this actually started for the repubs with WM. Howard Taft and his rift with Teddy Roosevelt.
level 2
Comment deleted by user · 6y
level 1
Then it passed and LBJ signed it, triggering the Southern Strategy which has led directly to our current political climate.
Supporting the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/3l6y3d/til_that_the_civil_rights_act_of_1964_was/
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