Reply #22: QC gives me credit for far more subtlety than I deserve....

[mike_c]

I meant it explicitly. The dixiecrats were democrats of precisely the old stripe you describe who opposed racial integration so deeply that they considered it unpatriotic-- they used language similar to much of that we hear today describing immigrants, particularly latino immigrants. After Strom Thurmond's failed presidential candidacy they were progressively recruited into the GOP, which played on racial tensions to appeal to them. That's largely the reason the southern states are mostly GOP strongholds today. They were once solid democratic party strongholds, but they left the party shouting Strom Thurmond's campaign slogan "Segregation forever!"

Much of the furor over hispanic immigrants is xenophobic and racist masquerading as patriotism. Patriots "put America first," but xenophobes "put americans first."