Reply #10: The current Democratic Party

[dwckabal]

probably got started with FDR in the 1930's, but it took the party adopting a civil rights plank in 1948 to force the racist element out (Dixiecrats) and into the Republican Party. I agree crony capitalism really got rolling under Grant, although in his defense he was not Presidential material and had no idea of what was going on around him. After Grant abandoned Reconstruction, the Republican party became the party of white rich men. So for a period of about 80 years, neither party really cared about African Americans, which led to the rise of Jim Crow laws.