U.S. "Party-switch" myth

The alleged U.S. "party switch" claim made by liberals and progressives over decades is a political hoax and conspiracy theory that attempts to smear the Republican Party. The narrative, which has been crafted with the help of Communists (who infiltrated the Democrat Party over the decades and who are known to lie, deceive and engage in historical revisionism for the sake of being contrarian), typically assumes that the Democrat and Republican parties "switched sides" during the 1960s, where the Republican Party somehow became the party of "racists" and the Democrats suddenly becoming the "champions of civil rights". Many reputable historians and political scientists such as Carol Swain (see this video) and political commentators such as Bob Parks strongly agree that the parties did not switch sides, the Democrats only switched strategies with Communist help.

Civil Rights Act

For a more detailed treatment, see Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Map of electoral votes

One of the most important aspects of perpetuating this myth is the faux talking point surrounding the response by Southern Dixiecrats to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights act. The myth involves looking at a map of the 1960 Electoral map and comparing it to the 1964 Electoral map, all while ignoring the results of the 1968 Presidential Electoral map. Aided by leftist historians, you are supposed to see democrats winning the South in 1960, losing it in 1964, and concluding that this must be where the "party switch" took place.

For this myth to hold, Republicans should have won the south in as large of numbers in 1968 as in 1964. But they didn't. In the 1968 Presidential Election, United States presidential election of 1968 Republicans lost almost the entirety of the south. Democrat George Wallace, running on a third party ticket, took a bulk of the Deep South and Republicans even lost Texas to Humphrey.

Additionally, as noted by Dinesh D'Souza the passage of the Civil Rights Act had greater Republican support than it did Democrat support.

So if there may have been some Southerners upset that the Civil Rights Act passed while blaming Democrats along the way, they would not have chosen as their home the Republican Party, who were the Act's greatest supporters. Of the 171 Republicans in the House in 1964, 136 of them voted for it. Of the 33 Republicans in the Senate, 27 of them voted for it. This is 79% of House Republicans, and 82% of Senate Republicans.

On the Democrat side, 153 of 244 House and 46 of 67 Senate members voted yes. That is 63% of Democrat house members and 69% of Democrat Senate members. These numbers become even more bleak for the "party myth" idea when you compare the yes and no votes from Northern and Southern democrats. Virtually every Southern Democrat voted against the Civil Rights Act, meaning that Southern voters had no reason to punish them. Additionally, while the bill was on the Senate floor it was the subject of filibustering from Southern Democrats for 57 days, the longest filibuster in U.S. history. It was a Northern Republican, Everett Dirksen, who broke the filibuster.

Southern strategy

(See also: Southern strategy)

Since the end of Reconstruction in 1874 and 1967, Arkansas had no Republican governors; in the 53 years after 1967, Republicans have only occupied the governorship for 17 years. In fact, since the founding of the GOP until 2020, Republicans have only occupied the governors office in Arkansas for 21 out of 152 years. During the 93 years of an unbroken string of Democrat governors from 1874 until 1967, Democrat terrorists committed at least 237 known lynchings.

In certain districts it should be noted that the mountainous areas of eastern Tennessee and the Ozark Mountain region of Arkansas, during the Democrat "Solid South" days, have voted reliably Republican since before the Civil War (as an example, the 2nd Congressional District of Tennessee has voted Republican in every Congressional election since before the Civil War; the neighboring 1st District has only voted Democrat twice in this same period, both times in the 1870s). This is because both areas were not suited to plantation farming and the accompanying Democrat slave power. Even with the shift in party support in the South, these areas remain solid Republican.

Inconsistencies

See also: Liberal logic

The myth of the parties "switching" is very inconsistent with actual U.S. history. The Republican Party only became much more right-wing during the 1910s, after Theodore Roosevelt and his Republican progressives at the time split with the Taft-supporting conservatives. The Democrat Party arguably (according to some) became much more left-wing during the 1930s during the New Deal coalition era.

With respect to the 1960s and the era when the parties are rumored to have "switched sides" en masse, a review of the senators at the time tells a completely different story.

Below is a table of Southern Democrat senators who voted against the Civil Rights Act, many of whom served for years both before and after the Act. Only one switched parties, and did so due to disenchantment toward the Democrats over its racially-motivated Great Society program and its preference toward big government. Moreover, where Democrats did have their terms in office come to an end, for any number of reasons, their successors were also largely Democrats.

It was not until the Republican Revolution of 1994 that for the first time in modern American History the Republicans held a majority of Southern congressional seats, a full three decades after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As the South became less racist, it became more Republican.

Southern Democrat senators

State	Name	First elected	Left office	Joined Republicans	Successor party
Alabama	J. Lister Hill	April 26, 1938	January 3, 1969	Never	Democrat
Alabama	John Sparkman	November 6, 1946	January 3, 1979	Never	Democrat
Arkansas	J. William Fulbright	January 3, 1945	December 31, 1974	Never	Democrat
Arkansas	John McClellan	January 3, 1943	November 28, 1977	Never	Democrat
Florida	Spessard Holland	September 25, 1946	January 3, 1971	Never	Democrat
Florida	George Smathers	January 3, 1967	January 3, 1969	Never	Democrat
Georgia	Richard Russell	January 12, 1933	January 21, 1971	Never	Democrat
Georgia	Herman Talmadge	January 3, 1957	January 3, 1981	Never	Republican
Louisiana	Allen Ellender	January 3, 1937	July 27, 1972	Never	Democrat
Louisiana	Russell Long	January 10, 1966	January 3, 1981	Never	Democrat
Mississippi	James Eastland	January 3, 1943	December 27, 1978	Never	Republican
Mississippi	John Stennis	November 5, 1947	January 3, 1989	Never	Republican
North Carolina	Samuel Ervin	June 5, 1954	December 31, 1974	Never	Democrat
North Carolina	Benjamin Jordan	April 19, 1958	January 3, 1973	Never	Republican
South Carolina	Olin Johnston	January 3, 1945	April 18, 1965	Never	Democrat
South Carolina	Strom Thurmond	November 7, 1956	January 3, 2003	September 16, 1964	Republican
Tennessee	Albert Gore, Sr.	January 3, 1953	January 3, 1971	Never	Republican
Tennessee	Herbert Walters	August 20, 1963	November 3, 1964	Never	Democrat
Texas	Ralph Yarborough	April 29, 1957	January 3, 1971	Never	Democrat
Virginia	Harry F. Byrd	March 4, 1933	November 10, 1965	Never	Democrat
Virginia	Absalom Robertson	November 6, 1946	December 30, 1966	Never	Democrat
West Virginia	Robert Byrd	January 3, 1959	June 28, 2010	Never	Democrat

Many progressive revisionist historians try to point to Senator Strom Thurmond as proof to their claim of some mass "party switch". However, because Thurmond was the only one he is an outlier. Conversely, several notable Senators remained as Democrats well into the 1970s. Two notable were Albert Gore Sr., and J. William Fulbright, who was a mentor to future President Bill Clinton.

Party platforms

Despite sleazy left-wing smears, it is important to note that the first Republican Party platform in 1856 advocated "inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" in the idea that it applied to everyone and not just some. In addition, it stressed the violations of due process, the right to bear arms, the right to freedom of speech, all that were "done with the knowledge, sanction, and procurement of the present National Administration". It also rejected rule by the sheer mighty, scoffing it as shameful and dishonoring.

Important notes to mention about the similarities between the Republican Party at the time of its foundation and in its present day are more numerous than many liberal Democrats would like to admit. Founded as a party opposed to slavery on the basis of universal human rights regardless of certain physical traits and characteristics, Republicans continue using the argument in the present day against abortion (see: Slavery and abortion). In addition, many early Republicans had recognized the right to bear arms as being vital, including black anti-lynching advocates such as Ida B. Wells, who said:

“

The lesson this teaches and which every Afro-American should ponder well, is that a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give.

”

On the issue of trade, Republicans then supported economic protectionist measures and higher tariffs on foreign goods, as similar to the current economic nationalist wing of the Republican Party today led by Donald Trump.

See also

• Southern Manifesto