To clarify what happened for the unawares:
After the 1860s the Republican Party rose to power as the party who freed the slaves and (to a lesser extent) supported reconstruction.
Later, both parties had a lot more centrists and it was a time of great social progress around the world after the fall of right-wing fascist Nazi Germany in 1946, but there were also fears about the USSR and the Cold War becoming hot.
During the Civil Rights Movement which sought equal rights for its citizens and protections for segregated racial minorities to live and work freely a bipartisan bill (mostly Republicans of the time) passed congress called the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and later the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and to a lesser extent the Food Stamps program and several other welfare bills, but credit for it was mostly given to then Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson aka “El Big Johnson”.
There were a lot of reasons for this, perhaps racist conservatives are just easily misinformed or perhaps Republicans thought to muddy the waters of the discourse of their opponents, but more civil rights activists started to shift to the Democrats side. Still, it was a time of little polarization and great centrism until over time political polarization made politicians vote along party lines more and more every year. You could still see widespread examples of Republicans being pro-union in the 70s and 80s, and Democrats still supporting bad crime bills into the early 2000s.
Ronald Reagan being the man to gut regulations and cut taxes for corporations from under 90% to under 20% was a huge instigator of the Republican Party’s shift towards conservatism.
So thats why Republicans then supported nearly opposite stances from Republicans now. Both Sides voting base hardly shifted at all, it’s just the banner they chose did.
If anyone ever wondered what “made America great”, it was the government provided social services in the 40’s and 50’s that silent generation set up for their children which led to the economic growth that the boomers enjoyed which they then turned around killed so their children and children’s children could not have the same advantages.
Don’t forget his Chance for Peace speech.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat.I mean, don’t forget these people were homophobic and racist AF among many other issues, but socially regarding labor and actually giving a fuck about the middle class they are pretty much the peak of it as far as the republican party goes.
Great speech, for sure.
Check out our local podcast “A Peoples History of Kansas City” it is done by KCUR’s Suzanne Hogan. (I’m a big NPR fan and love my city!) One of the most recent episodes explains how this happened at the 1976 Republican Convention.
Thanks!
Asylum For thousands of refugees, expellees and displaces person
Correct if I’m wrong but didn’t Operation Wetback (actual name, no joke) happen under the Eisenhower administration?
You’re correct.
Make America Great Again?
…and then came Reagan
