As the South got wealthier, it became more Republican...

[Ardent15]

I don't believe this is a coincidence.

Didn't FDR have a quote that was like, "We lifted people out of poverty enough so that can vote Republican?"

The poorest states (Arkansas, West Virginia, etc.) are still Democratic, even though they're conservative. And there are plenty of Blue Dogs in the South representing poorer areas.

[BlooInBloo]

1. Uh... when did the south get wealthier. Did I miss a century somewhere?

[Ardent15]

2. Relatively speaking. There are suburbs in Southern cities that...

..are comfortably middle-class.

[LuvNewcastle]

3. That's what I want to know.

I sure as hell ain't getting any love.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[madeline_con]

20. There's a typo you can gritch about in post #11. n/t

[BlooInBloo]

27. Hell - I'm shocked there isn't one in *my* post.

[Kalyke]

48. Does that take into account that the cost of living is cheaper in

many of these states?

$42,367 is comfortable in most of Tennessee, for example. Not rich, not poor - just kind of middle.

[rpannier]

6. When companies moved to the south to avoid Unions the south got wealthier

nt

[Blue_Tires]

50. the international commerce of Atlanta, N.C. Research Triangle,

Miami, Orlando, Birmingham and Nashville would be a start...

[virgogal]

4. Uuummmm--- what about the Northeast? Lots of money there.

[Ardent15]

21. Multicultural society

The Northeast is also a major connecting point to the rest of the world.

[virgogal]

22. Multicultural? I don't know about that,especially outside the

cities.

Maine and Vermont are the two whitest states in the US.

[Ardent15]

23. Vermont has seen an influx of highly educated liberals...

..who grew up in multicultural areas of America.

As for Maine, it has two Republican senators (I know they're liberal compared to other Republicans but still), and one of its counties voted for McCain. Plus, the major population centers of Maine are more in the southern part of the state, are they not? Closer to Boston...

[virgogal]

26. Vermont has always been full of liberal ex New Yorkers. It's been

that way for quite a few years.

You are right about Maine----the northern part of the state is very sparsely populated because of the land that the lumber companies owned or still own.

[JI7]

42. Education

[NutmegYankee]

24. A tolerant society, but the whitest place outside of Utah.

Multiculturalism here is Italian, Irish, French, or a true New England minority German like myself.

[Ardent15]

25. Still multiple cutures mixing together

Those are all different cultures, even if they're all "White."

[NutmegYankee]

29. This is true. This German-American loves Portuguese cooking! nt

[anonymous171]

30. How many states there have a progressive income tax?

A lot of "blue" states are only that way because of their social beliefs. In WA state (west coast, but similar) our government will bend over backwards for gay rights and transgender rights (which is good), but won't even consider a progressive income tax.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. No, when Democrats gave black people civil rights, then it became Republican.

Like throwing a switch.

[BlooInBloo]

8. Yah - presumably the OP is just trying to slide another "it's not race, it's class" on for size.

[Ardent15]

17. It's both

I'm saying that this is one of many aspects of the South becoming more Republican.

[rurallib]

12. bingo!

[anonymous171]

34. Don't forget about the democrats then wrote them all off as hicks and such

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

41. After getting all upset because black people were given rights?

Golly gee whiz, how unfair.

[Kalyke]

49. Really?

Then why did the South vote for Carter the first time and for Clinton both times?

There was no switch. The Johnson Civil Rights and Nixon Southern Strategy are myths - or the worst strategies to ever evolve - because the South didn't vote as a Republican block until 2000 - that's 30 to 35 years later!!

[DefenseLawyer]

9. Wrong.

Lyndon Johnson started it, Nixon ran with it, Lee Atwater finished it.

[Kalyke]

51. Again, I ask: why did the South continue to vote for many Dems

up until 2000?

My senators growing up were Al Gore and Jim Sasser - both Dems - that was in the 1980s.

I didn't start seeing a swing until the 1990s.

The Southern Strategy is a joke. Or the slowest evolving strategy since pouring molasses.

[Art_from_Ark]

10. The South started going Republican

once the Democratic Party started championing civil rights. You can see that becoming quite noticeable between 1964 (the Johnson landslide) and 1968 (when 5 Southern states, including Arkansas, voted for the segregationist 3rd party presidential candidate and some others, like Virginia, voted for the Republican), and then by 1972 it had really taken hold when Richard Nixon used it to his advantage as part of his "Southern strategy" and carried most, if not all, of the region.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

11. Voting Rights Act

Is all you need to now about the rise of the Republican Party in the South.

[MellowDem]

13. Actually...

it's the parts of the South that have seen recent growth in terms of population and wealth (NOVA, the research triangle in North Carolina) that have made those states more Democratic and actually delivered them to Obama in this last election.

[Art_from_Ark]

15. Well, it's true for some growth areas in the South

but it's just the opposite in Northwest Arkansas, which is now the fastest-growing and wealthiest part of the state and overwhelmingly Republican, but was relatively wealthy but solidly Democratic up until about 1966 or so.

[MellowDem]

46. Well, I guess I'm talking about really massive growth...

The growth in northwest Arkansas is primarily driven by one, very conservative corporation, WalMart. And it just doesn't match the very diverse rate of growth of cities like Charlotte, NOVA, etc. A lot of the reason Texas is becoming bluer is because of its massive urban population growth. Cities almost always go Democratic. Same with Georgia. All the places in the South that are still very Republican are the places where the economy and the population seem to be the most stagnant. A lot of the coastal states especially are becoming more cosmopolitan in a short amount of time. Even South Carolina is now starting to draw a lot of people from northern states. It's only a matter of time before the demographic shift takes its toll. And that's why Republicans are so apocolyptic.

My guess is that the whole Atlantic seaboard will be blue before any of the interior states are.

[Ardent15]

16. Those parts are being settled mainly by Northerners...

..and the Northerners are bringing their liberalism with them.

[MellowDem]

47. Exactly...

And their kids are generally just as liberal if not more so. Indeed, it also puts pressure on native conservatives whose own children will be growing up in a much more liberal, diverse environment. It all points towards Democrats slowly "converting" the entire populace.

[Island Blue]

14. The South also started getting more Republican

as more and more northerners moved down here. Twenty + years ago when I moved to the area where I live now (a tourist area on the NC coast) people would have laughed their asses off if you were said you were going to run for office as a Republican. As more and more Yankees moved down overtaking the native population, Republicans are the norm. Of course this doesn't account for the entire party switch, but I believe that it does account for a greater percentage of the switch than most people realize.

[Ardent15]

18. George H. W. Bush...

...is a good example of that.

[Art_from_Ark]

19. What you said goes for Benton and Baxter counties in Arkansas

Ironically, Baxter County is named for the last Republican governor of Arkansas during the Reconstruction era, who won the governorship amidst a very heated controversy that came to be known as the "Brooks-Baxter War"

[ddeclue]

35. Actually NOT so - the more Northerners who move to the South

the more liberal and Democratic it has become.

This has been very obvious in Atlanta, Charlotte, most larger Southern cities and in Florida as a whole.

[QC]

52. Yeah, most of the carpetbaggers in my neck of the woods are freepers.

Teabaggers with bad manners and chainsaw voices.

So much for the popular DU theory that Yankee transplants will cure the South of its reactionary politics.

[Kalyke]

53. I agree with you.

Hell, the Tennessee state general assembly is still primarily Democratic (the Republicans just took over the Senate for the first time in 40 + years).

[doc03]

28. The south became more Republican

after LBJ pushed the Civil Rights Legislation through.

[Hannah Bell]

31. Nah; they started turning pub in response to dems support of the civil rights movement.

"Southern Democrat" bloc was pretty much republican on most issues before the switch anyway.

[nadinbrzezinski]

32. No the South started voting Republican

when the Civil Rights Act was signed

LBJ famously quipped, we have lost the South for at least a Generation.

And I hate to say it, because I know many who will deny it, but this is a caste base society. where people should know their place.

So the civil rights act was a direct attack. Why do you think that famous democrat switched parties after they let the blacks into the party? (Storm Thurmond, yes he started his career as a genteel DEMOCRAT, and was already quite wealthy thank you... something about the civil war, and reconstruction)

[ddeclue]

33. WRONG: When LBJ passed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act it became more Republican

Learn some history! PLEASE! It has nothing to do with money.

Prior to 1964, the south was solidly Democratic because Lincoln was a Republican and had crushed the Confederacy in the Civil War. They hated Republicans.

When Johnson became President and got the CRA and VRA passed over the objections of Southern Democrats, all the racists and bigots who hid out in the Southern Democratic wing of the party first lined up with George Wallace in 1968 and then migrated to the Republican Party thereafter along with the Religinuts.

The Republican party used to have moderate guys like Nelson Rockefeller and Gerald Ford in charge - that changed, especially with Reagan who announced his candidacy for President in Philadelphia Mississippi, home of one of the most notorious racially motivated killings in the Civil Rights movement era as something of a code-word type statement to those Southern Dems who were unhappy with the Democratic Party of Johnson that they had a home in the Republican party of Reagan. It's been downhill ever since for the sanity of the Republican Party - Lincoln must be spinning in his grave.

[anonymous171]

36. That is correct. LBJ was the first democrat to win the wealthy vote.

Incidentally, the party has gone downhill ever since (in power, size, and in their ideological drive.) The moral of the story is: Never shack up with rich folks for too long or they will steall your assets and sell you for everything you are worth.

[nadinbrzezinski]

38. LBJ was a Democrat, what the hell am I missing here?

scratches head.

[nadinbrzezinski]

37. Now you see why I said that

about swimming against the current.

Though there are many here on DU that do know that history.

Somehow I doubt we are the norm.

[ddeclue]

39. This kind of explains it...

[SoCalDem]

40. Civil Rights in the '60s turned them republican

Johnson knew it, and said we'd lose the south for at least a generation.. and we have..and we will..for maybe another generation now.

[Are_grits_groceries]

43. The South got wealthier???

I'm sure that is news to a lot of people. I don't doubt that certain areas have increased. However, when you don't have a pot to piss in to begin with, wealthier may mean being able to feed your family decently or buy a car.

When the South was written off, the Dems made a big mistake by just ceding the field. The South was going to go Republican after LBJ signed all the Civil Rights legislation.

However, the Rethugs came up with a concerted Southern Strategy which is still in play. If the Dems had still made a decent fight of it over the years, it wouldn't be as hard now to fight for change. It would still be a challenge, but by giving Rethugs free run for so long, it will take longer to move anything.

[Luminous Animal]

44. It's pretty cool that all those not-poor Republicans

in the South got not-poor because of FDR's socialist government programs. Too bad they became assholes (i.e., Republicans) and don't favor the same kind of government programs that lifted them out of poverty.

By the way, FDR said no such thing.

[slackmaster]

45. I think what really happened is the Democrats stopped supporting slavery

Honestly.

It took the South several generations to forgive the Republicans for the Emancipation and the Civil War.