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Why Did the Democratic South Become Republican? | 5 Minute Video

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The south used to vote Democrat. Now it votes Republican. Why the switch? Was it, as some people say, because the GOP decided to appeal to racist whites? Carol Swain, Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University, explains.

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Correction: President Eisenhower ordered 101st Airborne to Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957; that is, after the 1956 Presidential election, not as stated in the video, before the election.

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Script:

Once upon a time, every student of history – and that meant pretty much everyone with a high school education – knew this: The Democratic Party was the party of slavery and Jim Crow, and the Republican Party was the party of emancipation and racial integration.

Democrats were the Confederacy and Republicans were the Union. Jim Crow Democrats were dominant in the South and socially tolerant Republicans were dominant in the North.

But then, in the 1960s and 70s, everything supposedly flipped: suddenly the Republicans became the racists and the Democrats became the champions of civil rights.

Fabricated by left-leaning academic elites and journalists, the story went like this: Republicans couldn’t win a national election by appealing to the better nature of the country; they could only win by appealing to the worst. Attributed to Richard Nixon, the media’s all-purpose bad guy, this came to be known as “The Southern Strategy.”

It was very simple. Win elections by winning the South. And to win the South, appeal to racists. So, the Republicans, the party of Lincoln, were to now be labeled the party of rednecks.

But this story of the two parties switching identities is a myth. In fact, it’s three myths wrapped into one false narrative.

Let’s take a brief look at each myth in turn.

Myth Number One: In order to be competitive in the South, Republicans started to pander to white racists in the 1960s.

Fact: Republicans actually became competitive in the South as early as 1928, when Republican Herbert Hoover won over 47 percent of the South’s popular vote against Democrat Al Smith. In 1952, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower won the southern states of Tennessee, Florida and Virginia. And in 1956, he picked up Louisiana, Kentucky and West Virginia, too. And that was after he supported the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education that desegregated public schools; and after he sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock Central High School to enforce integration.

* Correction: President Eisenhower ordered 101st Airborne to Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957; that is, after the 1956 Presidential election, not as stated in the video, before the election.

Myth Number Two: Southern Democrats, angry with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, switched parties.

Fact: Of the 21 Democratic senators who opposed the Civil Rights Act, just one became a Republican. The other 20 continued to be elected as Democrats, or were replaced by other Democrats. On average, those 20 seats didn’t go Republican for another two-and-a-half decades.

Myth Number Three: Since the implementation of the Southern Strategy, the Republicans have dominated the South.

Fact: Richard Nixon, the man who is often credited with creating the Southern Strategy, lost the Deep South in 1968. In contrast, Democrat Jimmy Carter nearly swept the region in 1976 – 12 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And in 1992, over 28 years later, Democrat Bill Clinton won Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia. The truth is, Republicans didn’t hold a majority of southern congressional seats until 1994, 30 years after the Civil Rights Act.

For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/videos/why-did-democratic-south-become-republican

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36 Comments

  1. My grandfather was a Democrat in Florida during that time. He got so fed up with how far Left the party was moving that he tore up his registration card.

    I suspect that classic liberals were starting to understand that their party was drifting so far away that the Republican party more closely resembled their own beliefs and values. It was not southern culture that changed, it was the party that changed.

  2. Well,
    Thank you, Prager "University," for once again attempting to re-write history by only telling half the story.
    Here's the rest – you know – the part they like to leave out in order to deceive and mislead…
    It was under the Democratic administration of LBJ in the 1960's when the Democratic party pulled a major "mea culpa" and passed both the Civil Rights and Voting Acts. When he was about to sign the Civil Rights Act into law, LBJ said, "we're going to lose the south over this."
    And, he was correct!
    Racist Democrats in the south – everywhere – jumped ship and joined the Republican party in droves.
    By the time of the Reagan administration, there had been a complete turnaround.
    The south – formerly predominantly a Democratic stronghold – became the "red zone" as we know it today.
    Cheers!

  11. I can always count on Prager U to give me their unique conservative version of history as well fooling their viewers into believing they are a legitimate college university and are not biased at all with their "educational videos".
    Prager U taught me how important it was to do my own research. That's how I know that Prager U is a sneaky conservative platform for spreading conservative "values". At least I learned how important it is to do my own research from credible sources to see if I'm being lied to. Republicans should try it.

  13. NEITHER party can rightfully claim to have clean hands regarding our country's ugly racial history. If a member of either party attempts to make the claim that their party has always been on the right side of this issue, that person is either misled or willfully lying.

  15. It's 2024. 1) Why are white supremacists and white nationalists REPUBLICANS and not Democrats? 2) Why are gains made by the 1965 Voting Rights Act being rolled back by REPUBLICANS? 3) Why is teaching the ugly truth about our country's racist history opposed by REPUBLICANS? 4) Why are efforts to fight racial injustice automatically opposed by REPUBLICANS?
    Neither Carol Swain, PragerU nor their fans will answer these questions.

  19. At 4:40 when she said that white racist are more likely to vote for black conservative Tim Scott and Liberal white man does NOT mean that the south is not racist or that more republicans don’t lean anti-black. All it means is that they are willing to vote for the policies that they know are conservative Or racists no matter the color of the person. For example if a black personal is going to help pass anti-black laws, or laws that don’t provide services for kids/poor/middle class like housing laws, voting laws, free lunch, government assistance, no student loan forgiveness, no help for black farmers, no child tax credit, and yes to tax cuts for the rich then the racist WYT person is going to vote for that black Republican who will help to pass those laws. Don’t forget that Graham is North Carolina Told Jaime Harrison during the 2020 debate that people in his state don’t care if he is black as long as “you have conservative values”. Period. It doesn’t mean that they are not racist because racism is not just about not liking someone’s color. It’s the ability to hold people down and limit them financially and in other ways and the laws are how you do that. It’s no different from a man who loves blonde women pretending to like this brunette women because she will help him pay his rent for the month. The fact that she is a professor and skipped that reality is a shame and intentional in my opinion.

  23. Wowwwww the way they presented this is so conniving it should be criminal! Lol, this is sad and hilarious at the same time. They are literally lying to your face. They so conveniently left out the history leading up to the THIRD civil rights act, the one that everyone knows about in 1964, and the fact that even though southern Democrats were slow to switch their party officially, they very quickly started to VOTE Republicans in support of States rights, Republicans who opposed integration 😂

    The way they just used this black lady as a pawn for their lies is worthy of investigation.

  26. How can Republicans claim nothing changed?
    -TODAY IN 2024, white supremacists and white nationalists are overwhelmingly loyal Republicans.
    -TODAY IN 2024, people who honor and revere Confederate heritage are overwhelmingly Republicans.
    -TODAY IN 2024, the lawmakers attempting to roll back gains made in the 1965 Voting Rights Act are overwhelmingly Republicans.
    This is right-wing propaganda.

  28. The video portrays incorrect info. The Dem-Rep flip occurred around 1895-1905, or so. It was for economic reasons—the Rs broke with Teddy Roosevelt (R) over his policies that challenged corporate America, at the time. Once Teddy was out of office, Rs started to align more and more with the gilded, upper class and not the working class. The first D that fully demonstrated the full flip in party policy was FDR. There was only one D President (Wilson) between the two Roosevelt’s. The policies were similar between the two Roosevelt’s but one was R and the other D. You can google this stuff, folks.🕊️

  32. Galatians 3:26-29 says it all!!
    26For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.