How Democrats and Republicans switched beliefs

[LBM20]

4. But here is the rest of the story:

Actually, the "liberal" Republicans were moderate in their social beliefs (less so with the "Radical Republicans" of Lincoln's time, but they were a faction). Lincoln himself was for stopping the spread of slavery, not abolishing it outright, at least not until the end of the Civil War. His Emancipation Proclamation did not include the border states, and it was done largely to pressure England to stay off the South's side because they were anti-slavery by that time.

Republicans continued be social MODERATES and fiscal conservatives for the most part and largely aligned with big business, WASPS, Christianity, traditional gender roles, God, flag, and apple pie.

In fact, in the early 1900's, during their "liberal" phase, Republicans shunned immigrants, so the northern Dems welcomed them, especially in their urban political machine operations. This was huge in causing the Dems to become more progressive and R's to hunker down with the old order and big business. It also led the D's to become very much the party of urban areas.

In the South, the D's down there were always much more conservative and would not officially become R's for many years because Lincoln was an R and they were mad about the Civil War. But with time, the R's became the right wing party and the old DixieCrats all became R's, especially after JFK and LBJ with what they did for African Americans in the South. So then Nixon and Reagan picked up with the "Southern Strategy" which solidified the DixieCrats as R's.

So today we have the D's as the more progressive party largely in cities and the R's in more rural areas. The interesting trend we are seeing now is former R-leaners in the suburbs, moderate types of higher education and income, becoming D's while working class small towners have been becoming R's.

We need to keep the suburbanites and re-capture many of the blue collar folks, and we can by tailoring the message and being strong champions of the working folks on jobs, income, healthcare, etc. Progressive populism.