So what did I forget to include in the story? For folks wondering why there were already comments before Friday, those were my Patreon supporters, who often get access to my videos a few days early. Also, don't forget about your hair. If you're ready to take action and prevent hair loss, go to keeps.com/MrBeat to receive 50% off your first order.
The whole concept of a political party switch is actually false, the Democrats and Republicans are literally the same party from a policy perspective(which should be obvious to everyone since they both split from the Democratic Republican party) the only difference between the two parties is superficial stuff primarily culture war based topics, if we completely ignored the culture war everyone would realize how completely trash these two parties are and would find a "third party" to support instead
I think one other thing that would be worth mentioning would be that even as the South started voting more Republican on the national level, it took a lot longer for them to start voting Republican on the local level. Most southern state legislatures didn't flip to the Republican party until 2010, coincidentally right after the election of Barack Obama.
One thing you failed to mention is that politics was more regional before, so the politician from both parties tended to look the same in the same region. For example, the Republican Party has always been strong in New England (look at how many GOP governors and senators they've had even recently), but New England Republicans tended to be liberal, like their Democratic counterparts. Similarly, Democrats from the Deep South tended to be conservative, like their Republican counterparts. In general, until about 1994, Republican politicians from New England were much more liberal than Democratic politicians from the Deep South.
Thanks for saying, that makes sense in the manner or style of an explanation I've heard before. One thing I've heard before is that the Civil Rights determined especially, "defined after so many years", the way Republicans held black rights - generally speaking - above the belt while Democrats formed the KKK... there was a way of interpreting the questions, bringing about these results... let me think or remember
This is still going on to an extent in New England, with Republican governors such as Phil Scott in Vermont and Chris Sununu in New Hampshire. One could also argue politicians such as Senators Joe Manchin and John Tester from West Virginia and Montana respectively are also a part of this trend.
@@brandonbenson6804 in 1860s the South voted Democrat and the North had a new party called the Republican party, which was for big government and civil rights. Now the South votes Republican and the North is Democrat and votes for big government and civil rights. Don't let facts get in the way of your ignorance!
I was confused by this since Lincoln was a republican. So I did a study of our history and saw that Mr. Beat is correct. The democratic presidents in the 20th century did more for civil rights, and for Americans in general, than the republican presidents.
@@CadaltosCorner Understand how people think that that prop was racist but not really. Let me use a school analogy. If it was harder for single parent children to get good grades and it would hurt their chances at getting into collage. The solution to this was to make it easier to have single parent student to get into collage. Now in reality African Americans are generally poorer that white Americans.The solution that came up was affirmative action, Now most people would say this is unfair because students should get there based on work. But the way we measure this SAT scores and grades have been proven that AA students have a harder time achieving the same grade. So without any intervention we would have white students who work less get into collage based on those scores that African Americans would find hard to achieve. that is the point of affirmative action
Just admit you’re pro federal overreach and oppression and support minimizing regional differences in order to put everyone under one totalitarian boot.
I would add that many people forget how much of a state's vote is influenced by what each candidate will do for their state. When the south was uber racist, guys like Wallace won states, despite being fairly unpopular elsewhere. Carter won the south in 76 because he was a fellow southerner, with southerner values, and was southern baptist. Goldwater won many southern states because the feeling of betrayal felt around Johnson. We also have to understand that back in the day, the political party meant less.
Political parties still don't mean much but people assume more from the label. That happens with lots of things these days. People on both sides see groups more than individuals.
I know this is late but thank you Mr. Beat. I’ve heard “do you know which party actually ended slavery?” far too many times and having to explain that ideas change is so trivial it’s exhausting.
It's insane anyone tries to argue against the switch. I mean, who flies Confederate flag? Protects Confederate statues? Who does the KKK vote for? The Confederate states are almost all Red today and teach the "silver lining" of slavery. Willful ignorance is the only explanation.
Neither party really resembles what they were in their origins. It’s almost entirely redundant to argue that Lincoln’s policies better represent democratic policies. The main constant is that republicans are more independent and for individual or local government and that democrats are more for government control
@@TheGymBroSkiiIf that's the case, why are republicans currently pushing Project 2025, legislation that will essentially turn the US into an authoritarian state with control over most aspects of citizens' personal lives? Why are they consistently against LGBTQ+ rights and access to reproductive healthcare? There are certainly rational people who consider themselves republican who do believe in small government, but it's most certainly not the party ideal. Footnote: Lincoln was one of the best presidents this nation has had in my opinion, but he wasn't exactly the small government type either. He frequently censored the press.
@@TheGymBroSkii and that unregulated "individual freedom" leads to the govt and corporations doing whatever they want to those same individuals. Govt regulation of air, water, weather service, education keeps standards in place. You privatize all of that aka leave it to "individual freedom" and we're all massive headaches and eventual collateral damage for any person or corporation on their quest to become a billionaire.
Obviously I haven’t seen the video yet, but from my understanding, it wasn’t simply a “party switch.” I call it party evolution. There were always conservative and liberal factions of both parties that slowly won out over time. Let’s see if I’m right.
Also the integration of non-white males into the parties (Mr. Beat didn’t include how this changed the fundamentals of each party) that aided on the changes. The modern Democratic Party have a massive number of African American elected officials in it. That’s obviously going to change the core values of the party, in a way that the Republican’s large white elected membership does as well. That’s how you know the right is lying that the switch didn’t happened.
I like this a lot! I definitely think we should shift to use this more accurate way of understanding the two parties. A switch is stupid and didn’t happen. I just see it as a weird way of understanding how policies and people change. People don’t just wake up one day and have totally different ideology. Don’t see how a switch benefits or hurts parties in the modern day but whatever lol
@SuperDuck64 That’s what happened over time. Today, there are very few “political machines.” Liberals took over the Democratic Party, and moved to the left. Conservatives took over the Republican Party, and moved to the right.
Thanks Mr. Beat for making me enjoy learning about history outside of school! Despite being in college, it feels like reading a book that’s not for a class… you don’t realize how cool history is when you’re not required to throw info back up on a test.
Often times I see on the internet "but the parties switched platforms!" used as a response for, let's say, criticizing Democratic policies from long ago. It's way too simple to just say the two parties flipped and did a 180. I agree there was a realignment in the South specifically, and I agree with you that it wasn't like some people say - just happened all of a sudden. Democrats still held a majority of Southern congressional seats until the 90s. I think the best idea is to look at it like this - both Democrats and Republicans were massive coalitions of diverse ideologies. They still are coalitions, but they ditched, at least partially, some of their wings. Everyone knows conservative Democrats, and to a lesser extent liberal Republicans still exist; they haven't gone away, they just lost a lot of influence. Yes, the Democratic Party moved more to the left and the Republican Party moved more to the right, but saying that today's Democrats are the Republicans from the 1950s (or the other way around), just feels very dishonest. Like you said "party evolution" sounds much, much more accurate than "party switch". Obviously there was a shift and a realignment but those always happen. Just not on as large of a scale.
I would disagree the Republican party and the democratic party have both shifted much more liberal especially on social issues. Democrats just shifted so extremely compared to Republicans it make them look far right. But in actuality trump would be liberal back in the 80's or 90's while biden would have been extremely leftist.
@@survivalsuiters5982 ..... check the Overton windows of the U.S. compared to all the other Western Democracies of the world . Biden's policy platforms are considered centre right anywhere else in the developed world !
@@andrewbrady6154 i dont care about politics in foreign nations every nation has unique values and what is considered conservative and liberal. Right and Left are non sense terms anyways i just used it because those are phrases people understand.
@@wesleyflowers5267 Whatever you want to call it, the main point is that it's evidence of the fact that southern conservatives who were bitter about the end of segregation switched to the GOP from the democratic party after the 1964 civil rights act was passed under LBJ
When my father, from a small southern county in northern Florida, registered to vote in the state in the mid 80s, he was automatically registered as Democrat by the old fart behind the counter. When he asked what if he had wanted to be a Republican, the old guy just old him “But then you can’t vote in the election” My dad was uber confused, until my grandpa explained the old guy meant the Democratic primary, because the Dems were so assumed to just automatically win any election where they were, your vote in the vote in the primary was seen as more valuable than the vote in the general election.
@@Thobeian if you live in a partisan district that leans left your statement is correct. Or are you trying to push the progressives conspiracy theory that there are millions of far-left people who don't vote because no candidate is far left enough. If people paid more attention to local politics there would probably be more moderates. However both parties seem to believe in federal supremacy.
The system of "registering" to vote is corrupt and frankly un-American. We should emulate Canada and permit people to vote as their conscience dictates for any fielded candidate, without regard to "party" affiliation. One person, one vote, for whomever you choose. So simple, so democratic. The Founders would agree.
I've seen so many people say it didn't happen, but also seen so many people sum it up as "Richard Nixon used the Southern strategy so the parties flipped immediately afterwards", when both are so blatantly missing the entire story
@@night6724 The major significance is that while Nixon worked slowly behind the scenes to enforce desegregation, he did not vocally support it. Instead he favored socially conservative racial dogwhistles such as appeals to "Law and Order."
Fun fact: Regardless of wether or not the switch happened, it's of no consequence for the party colors. A lot of people say that the reason why, unlike in european countries, the conservatives are red and the liberals are blue, is this switch, however, the association of party colors actually goes back to i believe 1980, and it wasn't even inspired by the parties themselves. Basically, in that years electoral period, NBC decided to cover the election live, featuring a map of each state that would be colored in as the vote is decided. Notably, however, this map featured the republicans in blue and the democrats in red, and there is no specific reason why they did this, other than blue and red being colors that are easy to tell apart. When a competitor did the same thing 4 years later, they decided to color the republicans red and the democrats blue, to set themselves apart, and when other competitors also decided to do the same thing, over time, red republicans and blue democrats won out over the original coloring that NBC used.
The republican red/ Democrat blue really solidified in 2000 when news media all adopted that use and it entered popular imagination of "red" and "blue" states.
It's interesting because here in Australia the conservatives are called the liberal party and are blue. And the progressives are called the Labor party and are red. Confusing? Yes it is
It’s interesting that the switch was very slow on the state and local level. Alabama’s state legislature was controlled by conservative democrats till Obama’s term.
The funny thing is southern democrats still had a voice in local govts until 2010. In 2008, democrats had 3/4 of the Mississippi house delegation, with similar trends being seen in other southern states like Arkansas which had 2 D senators and a trifecta in the local govt. That domination only ended in 2010
Obama was the first Democrat ever to win the presidency without Missouri (which he only lost by a few thousand votes). I think he might've been the first not to win Arkansas, at least since Arkansas became a state.
Part of the issue is traditionally *each* party had both a liberal wing (with people we would recognize as liberals) and a conservative wing (with people we would recognize as conservatives). The parties themselves were not more conservative or liberal than each other by today's values. They were less defined by the left/right political spectrum especially regarding social values, but even to some degree regarding economics. It's only in the 21st century that that they really fell into line into 2 completely different tribes. But in a way that was bound to eventually happen in a 2 party system.
No that's not true. This is just another case of Americans thinking they're so special and unique and the rest of the world doesn't deal with the same problems they do.
@@biggibbs4678 two things can be right at the same time. But to tell the truth it isn't because "we are American" it's because our voting system is first past the post, which many other countries have. We aren't that special ;)
Well yes and no. What we call Conservative are Conservative Liberals and NeoConservatives vs the Paleoconservatives that we traditionally had as they mostly died out. Meanwhile The Modern Liberal are Progressive Liberals who merged Clasical Liberalism and Progressivism vs traditional Classical Liberals of the past. The terms has stayed the same but not the definition.
Regardless of the truth of any 'party switch' it has little or no bearing on the state of the parties and voters today. 99% of Southerners are racially equalitarian, and so are both parties.
Mr. Beat, I've been watching your videos since I was in the tenth grade and needed to find some info on the election of 1876 for my APUSH class, I'm almost 20 now and I haven't regretted subscribing for one day. This has honestly been the best video I have seen on the subject and all I can say is, *Mr. Beat voice* See you in the next video buddy!
The South is still racist. My brother from Omaha was driving through Alabama and stopped to get gas. A black woman was ahead of him in line to pay for gas, but the cashier skipped her and tried to help my brother first. When my brother said, "She was here first," the cashier said, "So?"
I live in Georgia but someone called me racist since I live here so I guess I'm racist now. Gee I wish I lived in the North where there's no racism at all!
10:09 I'm literally listening to this at work, and I flipped over my phone the moment you said "Are you listening and not watching?.." What terrifying timing
This is a good video about an often misunderstood topic. One thing I would add is that not every issue or constituency switched. The republicans remained the party of business.
Both parties had big business factions. The Democrats used to be the Party of Big Agriculture or only white property owning southern landlords until 1896.
@@nicolaseito5172 Define "Party of Business". Because there is a difference between the support of Laissez--Faire Free Market Capitalism and businessmen running for office or allying with and cooperating with politicians (the latter is found among factions of both parties, whereas support for Laissez-Faire Free Market Capitalism is a feature of only the Republican Party and is not liked by the aforementioned fascistic public-private partnership factions).
@@theperfectmix2 yeah but sadly in the rest of the world, two parties still (de facto) are the only ones who can control a country, like in UK, Spain or Germany
That sugar coats what's happening by playing the 'both sides-ism' bullsh!t. The Democratic party pushed for changes through the Civil Rights Acts but the Republican seized upon that as an opportunity to expand their power AT THE EXPENSE of blacks. There is no both sides-ism there, it was a one way street that resulted in the disenfranchisement of blacks.
Dude you totally friggen got me with that “you’re only listening put the dishes down” I was literally doing just that at that exact moments. Subscribed
@@Dom-vo9ni Man gave a detailed example of what happened. There are literally videos on youtube from that era where people on both sides are talking about this who were in politics. You have historians conforming this, newspaper articles but since it does not align with the regurgitated lies you filled you dense head with , all of a sudden it " never happened". Lmao. The fact that this eats at you so bad you have to lie to yourself makes me smile so freaking hard. It's hilarious and so so so sad at the same. I'm actually embarrassed for you. Cause no matter what, I know in your head you know it's the truth and it's eating you Lmmaaoo. This is great man.
The party switch could also be said to have started in the 1920's when Herbert Hoover cracked the Solid South & won a few traditionally Democratic southern states.
@@sickzappybeef9209 Yeah that was also a factor, but Hoover did actively court Southern whites with his lily-white strategy which alienated many black voters.
@@GreyWolfLeaderTW I'm not saying that Herbert Hoover performed poorly with black voters, but that the GOP's lily-white movement which Hoover did court started the alienation of black voters from the GOP. As this video points out, it wasn't any one event that caused the parties to immediately switch, but a long evolutionary process that I'd argue started in 1920's with Hoover if not the late 19th century with the birth of the lily-white Republicans.
Thank you MrBeat, it’s great that you can give a very good history lesson while not trying to get to semi-political. Thanks so much your like a second history class for me 😊
How can this be covered in any way without it being inherently political? it is quite literally about politics, and MrBeat covers almost exclusively the history of Politics. Do you mean to say that he remained objective without divulging his own personal opinion? ps sorry if it is a misunderstanding english is not my first language so it may be a dialect thing
This wasn't like a single lightning strike; the realignment was more gradual. When JFK was killed in 63 and LBJ became the President who pushed through the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, Nixon and John Mitchell realized it was their time to approach the Southern States to tell them that Democrats had abandoned them; this was the Southern Strategy. Republicans who hated the GOP as the party of the Union Army now had permission to embrace the GOP for upholding Southern values, while the Democrats took the side of the Black Man. And that's where we've been since then.
@@patrickdrazen8411 Problem with that claim is Nixon lost the Deep South to "Segregation Today, Segregation Tomorrow, & Segregation Forever" George Wallace, a Dixiecrat running as an independent in 1968. Also, blacks joined the Democrat Party back in the 1930s, voting overwhelmingly for FDR for his first term. The blacks did not switch in the 1960s/70s.
@@GreyWolfLeaderTW Nixon of course wanted and hoped to win the Wallace voters next time in '72 (although he managed to win most of the whole country then).
@@GreyWolfLeaderTW (a) Yes, Wallace ran an overtly racist effort in 1968 and may have drained votes from both parties; the final margin of Nixon's win was very tight. History did not repeat itself in 1972; that spring, Wallace was shot on the campaign trail and had to drop out of the race. It was an easy re-elect for Nixon, which meant he probably didn't need to have his people bug the Democratic office at the Watergate... (b) Black voters didn't switch, because the GOP made it clear that they weren't interested in the Black vote as far back as the 30s; Truman reaffirmed the commitment to Black voters after the war.
@Dr SalTeeNeutsMD This video proves that it all did happen, my friend. Those who are rewriting history are those insisting that it didn't happen, despite all impartially sourced evidence.
I can't wait until the party system collapses and we start looking at politicians as individuals. Did you ever buy a variety pack of something and go, "I want those 3 flavors, but I don't like the other 2"? That's how I view the party system. Pre-packaged politics 🙄
The collapse of the party system is intriguing, and I agree with you on "pre packaged politics," but I'm not sure a collapse is going to happen. For so many people, their political party is like a team sport with fanatical backing regardless of what the party is doing. I think most independents vote one or two issues at most--and that also leads to the party system getting by as is. As long as either is true, the party system is going nowhere--sadly.
The real key in terms of the racism aspect is in the Dixiecrats, the Democrats were factionalized. If it was as some claim, Nixon would have won the deep south in 1968 but Wallace did, with support of Dixiecrats. Then the next election as shown Nixon got 49 states, so not even just the South. I do like how you pointed out the other issues, such as how ab abortion was not something that was split along party lines like it is today. It is often portrayed as a 180 switch but it was an intricate shifting of policies, that didn't all happen at once. As for dog whistles, I hear it thrown around but when asked for specific examples, about all I hear is state's rights, a concept that has a much longer and deeper history than merely being supportive of racism, being supported in the North prior to the confederacy.
"Southern Strategy" of course racism and trying to appeal to it was part of the Republican strategy but trying to making it sound as if that was the core of Republicans or their success crudely ignores that Nixon in '72 and then Reagan won landslides, had and were successful with 40-49 state strategies.
Dog whistles are whistles that only dogs can hear. I'm not being literal, that's the definition of the term in politics. This nonsense about using coded words to make normal people support racism is just left-wing bs. Actual dog whistles can only be recognized by members of the group they're addressing. They serve as a signal that someone is like-minded, and it's safe to privately discuss controversial beliefs.
This is the most important part, especially when people bring up "democrats were the party of slavery". The pro slavery people didn't change, the label they went by did.
@@casteanpreswyn7528 What are you getting at? The Democratic Party did tolerate and support slavery in the past, until a divide emerged between Northern Democrats and Southern Democrats, eventually shifting the party platform. It is also happens to be the oldest existing political party in the US.
@@nte5 the label changed that those people use. It's straightforward, idk why you needed to ask "what are you getting at", when I said something straightforward and impossible to misinterpret.
@@casteanpreswyn7528 Sorry if I wasn't clear, we both know political parties shift over time. I just wanted you to clarify your statement, but since it was impossible to misinterpret, it seemed like you were saying that the Democratic Party wasn't really the party of slavery, even though it was in the 19th century to early 20th century.
What I find odd is that since the Southern Strategy began, Republicans have run few Prez/VP candidates from the South. W. I guess you might count Romney, McCain and Dole, but they’re not from the traditional South and they lost. Maybe Agnew? But none of them were who you’d pick to appeal to segregationists. Dems, however, had Carter, Clinton, Gore from the traditional South. Of course, they were considered progressive on race but they had their moments when they needed to appeal to conservatives.
I love that you base most of your videos on facts not just opinion it's mostly facts. I love it, it helps for people to actual learn and it's great. Thank you
Mr. Beat always keeping it real. He's human and flawed to personal biases as we all are and with that said I think he really is more focused on th3 truth then any allegiance to a political party or ideology. Besides the Bill of rights and the pursuit of liberty and happiness.
From what I can tell in these comments, it already has! Of course, they are exactly what this video says they are: straw-man arguments and political rhetoric!
what most mean by "the switch" is claiming that the Republicans are now the racist party and the democrats are the heroes. Its a propaganda piece used to point the finger and ignore anything you say with the accusation "you're racist". Its literally the song and dance done constantly
@@oblitusunum6979 It goes both ways. Most Republican responses I hear aren't like your comment. It's more along the lines of "the switch never happened, you guys are the actual racists. We're Lincolns party." Everyone just talks over each other.
Thank you! Literally other than myself, you are the only person who doesn't teach it, "Johnson signed the Civil rights bill, he said he lost the south forever, and he did" Literally every history class I had was them saying it, me going, "what about Carter in 76" and their response is just something vague like, "it was different then"
I know this is coming to you third hand, but I've always wondered if there isn't more to the story about Carter. I worked with an older man maybe 15 years ago who was absolutely disgusted with Carter. When I asked why, he said that he had had a friend who was African American and who had worked on the Carter peanut farm. His friend told him that the Carters had treated him and his fellow African Americans pretty poorly on account of their race. Now, I've no doubt that Carter doesn't hold racist views (at least, not anymore), but could it be that part of the reason why many in the South voted for Carter was because they believed Carter was on their side when it came to race relations? That seems to make a lot more sense than simply saying, "Well, Carter was from the South. So, people from the South voted for him." Doesn't it make more sense to say, "Carter was from the South. So, a majority of Southerners believed that he would represent their interests, possibly even their perceived interests when it came to race-relations." As I've said, ever since that conversation 15 years ago, I've wanted to delve into this deeper.
As a non American I have always been confused by the colours of the American Parties, because where I'm from the Conservative Party, or the right wing Parties usually are shown in blue and the social democratic or as I think you would call them liberal Parties are always in red. But if the US-Parties kinda switched over time it makes sense that they would keep their associated colour.
Neither party had any particular color officially attached to them for most of their history and ultimately didn't really pick the ones that they have now either. But the first electoral television news coverage to feature one of the color-coded maps which wound up popularizing the practice was done by CBS in 1972 and actually used blue for the Republican Richard Nixon and red for the Democrat George McGovern. NBC followed suit during the next election cycle in 1976 by giving blue to Gerald Ford and red to Jimmy Carter. They cited the color scheme that had been adopted by the British parties, blue for the Conservatives and red for Labour, as the reason for assigning them the way they did. Though if you want to go back further, there was a printed electoral college map for the election of 1888 approved of by both candidates that also used blue for the Republican Benjamin Harrison and red for the Democrat Grover Cleveland. They were inconsistently applied across all the various news stations following the 1972 CBS broadcast, with the modern color associations only being uniformly agreed upon by the major networks in 1996 for the sake of not confusing audience members who switched between them and finally solidified in the public consciousness by the long-drawn-out process Bush vs. Gore turned into in 2000. If one needs some kind of an explanation beyond pure chance for why the red for Republican and blue for Democrat motif was even considered in the first place, there are two commonly-held theories. One is that the media as a whole simply likes the alliteration of the words red and Republican. The other is that they were playing defense for the Democrats by helping to distance them from the color traditionally linked to radicalism when the looming fear of communism remained ever-present. However, I still tend to believe it was just an accident of circumstances at the end of the day.
"I will gladly point out when both the Republican party and the Democratic party suck. In fact, they both suck all the time!" Based Mr Beat. Thanks for being one of the more objective voices in American historical analysis.
I don't see how it's even possible to argue otherwise. If you compare the original platform of the GOP to the original platform of the Democratic Party, it's quite obvious that the GOP was originally the more progressive one.
The Whigs were the more Progressive Party at the time. The Republican Party was more liberal leaning. (hence Lincoln was a moderate whig when he was in the House)
George Washington was the first president learn more if you need to click it on it the fund up and read more and I got while history in my sleeve😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎
@Louis XIV: But they did switch, or evolve. It’s pretty obvious that they switched. The Dixiecrats moved to the Republicans on the argument of “states’ rights,” and it cannot be denied. And before you ask, until about 2012, I was fairly conservative.
I also really appreciated your nuanced telling of Goldwater. We always simplify Goldwaters decision as a matter of racism when it was devoid of that, looking at his history. I would actually push back on your characterization of him as leading the push for civil rights. He was always supportive of them, as seen in his push for desegregated schools in Nevada. But in my opinion, was never extremely devote or fierce in his pro civil rights stances, at least when compared to his other policies, and other civil rights advocates.
I remember thinking for a while that the reason Reagan switched parties was because of racism based solely on the timing only to find he really did only do it because he hated FDR's New Deal.
@blackjacknight that is incorrect. Reagan switched parties for three reasons. Number 1 Reagan didn’t like that he was be investigated in 1961 by democrats RFK and the justice department while being a Union president for violating anti-trust laws. #2 the people that paid for Reagan to run for political office Holmes Tuttle, Alfred Bloomingdale, joesph coors, etc were staunch anti-labor and anti -union and saw what Reagan was able to do while spokesman for GE. The “kitchen cabinet” as his donors were called hoped Reagan being a union president could convince workers to relinquish their rights and and remove regulations like OSHA. #3 Reagan’s wife Nancy and her family were republicans and she had a major influence on him.
Interestingly, Goldwater distanced himself from the Reagan Republicans because he supported abortion and gay people openly serving in the military, toward the end of his life he even told Republicans "Do not associate my name with anything you do. You are extremists, and you've hurt the Republican party much more than the Democrats have.", despite being regarded as the founder of modern conservatism.
Eh, it's a bit more nuanced but he was no civil rights hero. A big tip for anyone: any time you ever hear someone bring up 'state's rights', remind them and let them know that that was literally the same argument people used 150 years ago when supporting slavery. It's a pretty lame dog-whistle now.
Indeed, except I think that Wilson gets way too much hate online. Everyone would agree that Wilson’s racism is a bad thing about Wilson. Conservatives and libertarians would oppose his liberal economic policies and his liberal internationalist foreign policy. I mostly agree with Wilson’s economic policies and I partially agree with his foreign policy. Wilson is a C tier president in my opinion.
@@night6724 We already had a conversation about Wilson in the comments on Mr. Beat’s presidential tier list video with Vlogging through History. I know that you are very conservative and even though I disagree with you I understand why you hate Wilson. Apparently Theodore Roosevelt was also a supporter of the Lilly White movement.
@@night6724 I mean he did keep us out of the war for as long as he could. although I definitely do think it was justified that we joined in 1917. other than that I hate him
I would love to see a vid on the shift in Appalachia. It’s been fairly quick and recent. The role labor played, racism, etc. is very interesting. The extremely effective messaging by the GOP in Appalachia, with my area of SW VA being a prime example on every level or the eastern KY local and state level...is wild. Out of the 9 races I’ve professionally worked on, 5 have been in Appalachia and it’s puzzling (to a degree) what’s happened even as a lifelong Appalachian.
Maybe it had to do with the party switch from a New-Deal style coalition to the coalition of the ascendant that the Democrats underwent after the 1960s. The Democratic Party went from being an econ-focused party to a socially-focused party that working class voters did not approve of(traditionally more econ left and soc con). As social issues are increasingly matter more than economic issues, the Democrats heavily regressed in Appalachia, which is clearly a working class area. It is the same reason why Northern Virginia gone blue, but for the opposite reason.
@@Tukmo5 There's also the general weakening of labor movements due to things like the outsourcing of jobs, advances in automation, and crippling right-to-work laws. Joe Manchin himself is a pretty good example of the change in West Virginia politics: previous Democrats would have won due to the support of labor unions, whereas Manchin was pro-business and funded heavily by the fossil fuel industry.
@@leifconnor7146 That surprisingly would help the Democrats, but not in the way you think. The Democratic advantage for labor unions is almost zero in 2020. However, strong labor unions would be a counter-balance to the really wealthy white progressive donors. Quite literally any counter-balance to them would help the Democrats as it would help them win more of the working class vote.
On this topic, I would also like to see a video talking about labor and unions and how they relate to political affiliation. To me it always seemed like back in the day union members tended to gravitate toward Republican, but red states also seem to be the ones with the highest loss of unions and union membership as well as pushing "right to work" laws, meanwhile I think the members still lean red in rural areas and red states, yet the Republican party is the party trying to eliminate their unions. Could be interesting to do a more in depth look.
Great video Mr. Beat. Though, I have a couple of things to say. 1-The way people vote has changed significantly throughout US history. Americans before the Great Depression more along the lines of economic policies and Americans afterwards voted more along the lines of social policies. This is due to the U:nited States getting richer. 2-The civil rights movement was aided by a lot of the same strategic thinking similar to the Southern strategy. The black vote was the key swing vote group that both parties tried to win from the 1930s-1964. It was apparent when Democratic strategists in 1948 weighed that Truman making a pro-civil rights speech helped him gain 0.5-1% in key swing states due to black voters and lose 2-3% in the solid south(due to winner take all, this was a good trade) 3-Quite literally, a bunch of non-voting evangelicals started to vote heavily in the 1970s and sped up the Southern realignment. They suddenly became active in politics due to Roe vs Wade and the unique candidacy of Jimmy Carter. It is similar to how Prop 187 caused California to trend heavily blue because a bunch of non-voting Latinos went from rarely voting to actively voting. 4-I completely agree with the younger Southerners not having ties to the Democratic Party, who trended Republican.(lines up with the data) It is similar to how younger Hispanic and black voters are trending Republican due to not having the same historic ties as the earlier generations of today. This was a well-researched video and bravo for doing so.
@@ferddoesweirdthingsinlife1040 Actually, they are actually trending hard Republican. Trump got 41% of the under 30 Latino group and 38% of the 31-49 Latino group while getting 36% of the Latino vote(it is actually really close to 2004 Bush 40% Latino vote mark) Trump also got roughly 19% of the 25-49 black voter group which is significantly higher than the over 50 age group. Even if you look at Biden’s approval or favorability numbers and break them down by race and age, Biden’s decline came from the collapse of the younger black and Latino support.
I've seen from AP, Biden got from 85-90% of the black vote in 2020. Sure Trump got 10-15% of the black vote, but it's still an overwhelmingly large margin. Black families had an average income of $24,100 in 2019, favoring Democrats favorably with the democrats policy. If we as a society were to implement some more policies favoring equity, the vote could swing again later in time. It would be welcome, if we strengthen our lower class and namely African Americans in the lower end of the income bracket in this country. Not to mention BLM, and The Latino thing is mainly in Florida, with Cubans immigrating to the country. Trump played south Florida really well. Biden won about 75% of the Latino vote in California, especially with anti immigration rhetoric from the GOP. Democrats really do well with Latinos in other parts of the country. Trump and Cuba really helped turn Flordia into a red state for the foreseeable future.
Those who argue against the existence of the party switch and the Southern Strategy generally categorize everything as good and evil, so "the good guys and bad guys did not switch." The switch is easier to see objectively when looking at conservative vs. liberal/progressive without branding either as good or bad. Making the switch focus only on racism, while it certainly played a part, puts conservatives on the defensive and leads to those denials.
Wrong the switch did not happen at all the racist did not switch the well fare proponents did not switch and the people looking out for working Americans did not switch those that say other wise can neither read nor do math
Amazing, two responses from exactly opposite ends of the pendulum. It's simple to see that when the Republican party started out, it was the party of progressives while the Democrats were the conservatives, and today the Republicans are the party of conservatives while the Democrats are the party of progressives. That is a switch. However, it is incorrect to think that the switch was quick or based on only one issue. Think of it as one of those puzzles where one word changes to a completely different word with entirely different letters through steps where in each step it changes only one letter at a time. Were some of those steps about racist policies? Yes, particularly at the end. Were all the steps about racism? Not necessarily. Are there still individual issues that did not move along with the general conservative vs. liberal divide? Yes. We have a diverse country with a multitude of hot issues, and the party switch reflects that.
@@h_in_oh That is NOT even true. The Democrat created the KKK, Jim Crow Laws, and tried at every turn to NOT free salves and to keep them "on the plantation". The Republican Party was the party which wanted freedom for ALL! The Republican party was the party of BLACKS. You aren't very good at true history, are yah?
@@RottenInDenmarkOrginal Yes, the Republican party started out as the party for freedom for slaves. At the time, you could not get more radical progressive than that. At the same time, the Democrats were the conservative party with the hot issue of preserving slavery and segregation. When did I indicate otherwise? The point is that the parties eventually flipped which was conservative and which was progressive though a series of phases, not one big flip. Some of those shifts were focused on race and some were not.
I appreciate this video more now than ever. This is the first time I can vote this year and my dad keeps trying to push me to be republican when my stances and issues lay more with the democratic side. While signing up to vote I listed as democrat just not really thinking about it, and he was furious. He told me many things about how bad the democrats lie, and how the democrats used to be heavily related to the KKK. I was surprised to hear that but everytime I looked it up I had a hard time figuring this out. Thank you for explaining about party switching and I now know exactly what I can do to rebuttle if I ever get questioned on my stances, or the democrats relating to the KKK
I’m surprised you weren’t taught about the party switch in school. I went to school in texas, a very conservative state yet we still learned about it (at least our teacher taught us about it, idk about the curriculum). I hope you stand up to your dad, just as long as your relationship isn’t ruined by politics
Most of the rural and small business Democrats of the baby boomer generation I've spoken with, in my extended family, said they vowed never to vote Democrat again after voting Carter and getting the results. Economic issues were the huge factor for that generation, and the results of the big change were evident in Reagan's landslide elections. Obviously some of the switch voters went back to voting Democrat again, but many didn't. It was enough to make a permanent change in voting habits on a large scale.
"After voting Carter and getting the results". Carter inherited Inflation from Nixon & Ford...and it was his policies that ended inflation, they just took until 1983 to make a difference...and the Republicans stole credit. We now know the Right coordinated a false memory field in this era, including folks like pundit George Will. They had no Fox News, but most reporters were very naive about partisanship in their ranks.
Yeah this just seems to play down the role the southern strategy and roe v wade had. Reagan had a huge economic down during his first term and he only got better results.
Reagan never had full control of Congress despite two landslide wins even taking a massive beating in the 1982 midterm election. Now contrast that to Bidens midterm election where he didn't lose a single seat in the Senate, only lost the House because Florida governor DeSantis redrew the Congressional districts himself to give his party 20 of the 28 districts despite Biden losing the state to Trump by only 3% in 2020. Perhaps the most blatant gerrymandering of any state. A more representative redistricting would have been 15 Republican and 13 Democrat. That would have resulted in Republicans falling short of 5 house seat needed retake the House. Biden also held every Democrat controlled state legislature. This was the first time in 70 years where the incumbent didn't take a midterm beating like Reagan, Clinton, Obama and Trump. Sometimes the country are more into the person than the party like Reagan in 84 and sometimes they agree more with the party than the person like Biden in 2022 midterm.
Mr. Beat thank you for all of your great content over the years. I appreciate your well researched and presented videos and especially your dry sense of humor. You cutting straight to "I'm losing my hair" after finishing the discussion about race based politics had me legitimately laughing out loud. I've heard you're from Lawrence, and I'm only about 25 minutes east in Lenexa! If you have any events coming up I'd love to meet you in person, you've really kept history interesting for me in the last couple of years.
Amazing video as always Mr. Beat! This felt very unbiased and covered a lot of political history that people are not always comfortable recognizing. Also, around the 8 minute mark I started falling asleep and listening instead of watching. So when you said that thing about paying attention it definitely freaked me out. Thought I was dreaming for a second!
Its such an interesting cultural phenomenon we have going on in our time to see people deny the party switch: Acknowledging that the ideology of the Democratic party was conservatism is too embarrassing for conservatives, so they deny the party switch and just say "Democrats", ignoring the conservative thing.
Actually, the Democrat Party had two wings, the Northern and Southern. The Southern was always more conservative and racist in nature. Republicans and the modern Right always leave out that fact.
Its such an interesting cultural phenomenon we have going on in our time to see people deny social evolution. Acknowledging that a modern liberal or conservative is not the same as one from 80 years ago is just too embarrassing for liberals, so they deny social evolution and just say "conservatives", ignoring the fact that nobody today would've supported segregation or slavery despite how the only critique of modern conservatism is that tHeY aRe rAciSts.
Party Politics used to have more to do with regionality than any ideological divide. -There used to be liberals and conservatives in the Democratic Party. Typically southern conservative democrats shared a party with northern liberal democrats (George Wallace and Bobby Kennedy shared a political party while having polar opposite beliefs on almost every issue.) -There used to liberals and conservatives in the Republican Party as well. Barry Goldwater was an Arizona conservative Republican who shared a party with Jacob Javits, a liberal New York Republican. (The modern conservative movement won control of the GOP through the 50s, 60s, and 70s and cemented their grasp on total control of the party with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.) Issues like The Civil Rights Act and the Vietnam War polarized Americans. The political polarization of the 1960s was the genesis of America being split in half into two national parties split along ideological lines. It is important to make the distinction that for much of this time from the 60s to as far as Obama, both parties were aligned within somewhat of a liberal consensus, which eventually turned into a neoliberal consensus under the likes of Reagan and Clinton etc.. The more partisan divide centered around cultural issues.
More accurately it is an ethnic, cultural, and ideological divide, not specifically "regional" as in geographic, because Politics is a feature of human beings and not geography. My religion, the Latter-Day Saints, historically were split pretty evenly between Democrats and Republicans, but were and are Puritan Classical Liberals who favored conservative Democrats and Republicans up until the 1960s (our split between the two parties was in fact completely arbitrary and the result of two halves of wards (congregations) being assigned membership in one party or the other when Utah was adopted as a state in 1896). In the 1960s however, things changed as a result of the rise of the New Left. The Democrat Party's platform was fundamentally altered by them, and so pretty rapidly the Church's members changed party affiliation to the Republican Party. Today, Latter-Day Saints are one of the ethno-religious groups that are most lopsided in party membership affiliation, being over 70% Republican and over 80% Republican + Lean Independent.
@@GreyWolfLeaderTW You are confused. You are using the word "is" when I'm clearly talking about the past, specifically 1850-1950. It sounds like you are attempting to make a point about the *current* ideological divide in America. Even still, you are wrong in saying geography is not a factor in deterring someone's likelihood for certain party affiliations, even in the present day. The importance of geography as a determining factor of someone's party affiliation can be seen in the Urban/Rural divide. You are dramatically more likely to be a conservative republican if you live in a. rural area. There are a number of factors that determine an individual's party affiliation, (geography being one of many).. If you wrote a paper and claimed "politics is a feature of human beings not geography", you would get an F+.. because that statement is meaningless while at the same time being factually incorrect. In other words, it's hard to say nothing and be wrong at the same time, but you've managed to do just that.
Wayne.. “You are dramatically more likely to be a conservative republican if you live in a. rural area.” That’s because ideologies, big cities versus farmland, align with economic policy differences.
@@amaramzk I’d say that the polarization between the big cities and small towns has more to do with American politics shifting from emphasizing class conflict to focusing on culture war than anything else.
The big takeaway is that the people largely stayed the same. Social conservatives supported whichever party promoted their values. It used to be the Democratic party but overtime new generations of social conservatives supported the Republicans
Thank you for being transparent about why Goldwater didn't support the civil rights act. But you glossed over the role Republicans played in Congress to help pass the act. With a little research, the actual voting record for both Houses of Congress shows that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed the Senate on a 73-to-27 vote. The Democratic supermajority in the Senate split their vote 46 (69%) for and 21 (31%) against. The Republicans, on the other hand, split their vote 27 for (82%) and 6 against (18%). Thus, the no vote consisted of 78% Democrats. Further, the infamous 74-day filibuster was led by the Southern Democrats, who overwhelmingly voted against the act. An examination of the House vote shows a similar pattern. The House voted 290 to 130 in favor. Democrats split their vote 152 (61%) to 96 (39%) while Republicans split theirs 138 (80%) to 34 (20%). The no vote consisted of 74% Democrats. Clearly, the 1964 Civil Rights Act could not have been passed without the leadership of Republicans. Keep in mind the Republicans who voted against were likely opposed to issues that granted the federal government too much power and Democrats who opposed likely had some connection to the KKK.
They don't care about history they care about pushing their narrative and looking like an intellectual. The more I studied history the more I realized what a lie it is. It's also ridiculous they would think that Lincoln would be supporting BLM today.
I think either party using the "Southern Switch" or the "Southern Strategy" as talking points against the opposing party is just not called for. Neither one identifies with what their own party supported one hundred years ago by and large. So why bring it up? It means nothing! It just mucks up political discourse.
As a historian I find it fascinating to see how things evolve over time, and seeing how history repeats itself so much. The Southern Strategy is more than just a talking point though as it is something that actually happened. One thing I think the US needs to learn from Germany is that we can't whitewash or ignore history. We hear "white guilt" a lot as an argument for why we shouldn't talk about History (particularly with the way indigenous groups were treated) in the US. Germany really embraced their country's role in the Nazis and make sure that their citizens understand the country's role. A large swath of the US is still engaging in "The Lost Cause" rewriting the history of the Confederacy and the Civil War. We can't learn from the past by trying to ignore it because it makes people uncomfortable.
@@Mzee1084This is the importance of history. We are doomed to repeat mistakes made in the past if we ignore history and their consequences. Like everything we learn through experience, shared or lived.
A few things: 1. Republicans embraced “state’s rights” to counter the New Deal. FDR had embraced the idea of Herbert Croly for using Hamiltonian means to achieve Jeffersonian ends. Republicans flipped their means as well. 2. There is a competing narrative surrounding the 1968 election called “The Surburban Strategy”. Many of the areas Nixon won in ‘68 were ones that Ike had won twice, so he focused on the peripheral South where there were more suburbs and Republican transplants from the North. 3. The regions rather than the ideologies of the parties switched. To believe otherwise you’d have to think some really strange things about Presidents McKinley, Taft, Harding, and Coolidge as well as party leaders like Senators Aldrich and Lodge Sr. and Speaker Cannon.
@@GreyWolfLeaderTW I would call it State authority or State powers. "States rights" is a bad term because under our constitution, State don't have "rights", they have "powers".
@@GreyWolfLeaderTW The Supremacy Clause of the constitution, which states that the federal government has the ultimate authority over the states, was hotly debated by the founders and has frequently come up, particularly in regards to civil rights for African Americans.
"I'll have those blacks voting Democrat for 200 years." That quote is attributed to LBJ, but it's not verified and most likely made up. However it's something I believe he would've said, or something else to that effect. It just wasn't recorded or written down.
Truman and LBJ both said racist things and yet Truman integrated the military and LBJ signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
@@night6724 wow, yeah that's the take from that.... "and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites." This in the context of comparing 1954 to 1968 makes it point well. It trades disparate intent for disparate impact since being out in the open was no longer acceptable
Great video Mr. Beat, I’m now a fan of your channel, I honestly don’t understand why your videos don’t have millions of views & why you don’t have millions of subscribers, keep up the great work man! 👍 Also I just remembered I have a second account so I used it to subscribe to you a SECOND time!
@@jakefromstatefarm6969 There is indeed a global dimension to this being missed. Specifically, that the professional class which used to be the base of support for right-wing parties has been moving Left while the working class which used to be the base of support for left-wing parties has been moving Right. It's expressing itself in various ways in different countries due to how their unique systems are set-up, but it is observable in some form across many if not most Western nations.
Very informative video. I've seen many claims that the switch happened without any evidence beyond people saying 'google the Southern Strategy'. I've done a lot of digging into election results and dominant policies supported at the time and while your take is very informative, I still think it's better to say there was a 'shift' in the parties, rather than a switch. For example, FDR who was president throughout most of the 30s and 40s introduced a great many policies that could be considered 'leftist' today, while the Republican administrations of the 1920s share many parallels with modern Republican rhetoric of small government and states' rights. If somebody walked up to me and suggested that the Democrat party is the party of Coolidge, and the Republican party is the party of FDR, I'd look at them like they're insane, yet this narrative is constantly pushed that it was a complete switch that happened, that the parties completely flipped on every single one of their positions to the position the other one held. Seems to me more that the Republican party shifted over time to be more socially conservative, while the Democrats shied away from social conservatism a bit. Could say they swapped in terms of that, but that's not the entire picture.
The nomenclature of using "switch," even if unintended, is purposed for the suggestion of Republicans supporting segregation. Nothing more nothing less.
How are the Republicans more socially conservative. Absolutely no Republican of the past would have supported gay marriage, but now there's LGBT Republicans.
If you did not grow up in the South, it is difficult to understand just how much the Civil War was integrated into the Southern identity. I was in the third grade when I realized that the South had lost the war. I always heard that “we” had never lost a war and “we” were the South! Southerners were Democrats only because the Republicans were that Yankee party. It was the Democratic Party’s move to support civil rights instead of just workers rights that alienated Southerners. For many Southerners they simply could not accommodate the concept of Blacks being equal. This concept was even part of religion. It took a long time still for many Southerners to identify with that Yankee Party and drop the emphasis of it being that Yankee Party. As far as the Southern Strategy I would argue that even though some or many 1860’s Republicans supported the abolition of slavery the real issue was more related to Northern economic interest. Notice how the Republicans softened on supporting Black people after they had finished looting the South. Side Note: I would argue that Nixon won because Nixon promised to end the Vietnam War with Honor (Not Lose it)
Thanks for tackling this. I looked at this years ago informally and came to the same realization. It's great that finally someone is giving this subject the closer look that it deserves in the public eye.
@@Dom-vo9ni that's weird, because no one has ever mentioned that at all. There's people saying the switch never happened and now apparently it did happen, but it switched back? Where did you even get this info from?
I feel like there were two times that the parties “switched” although I think switch is the incorrect term here. Perhaps “drastic changes” is a better phrase. First was in the 1890s when the populist movement started to define Democratic policies rather than the Classical Liberal policies that defined it previously- though some ideas such as low tariffs stayed the same. Those Classical Liberal ideas seemed to gain less traction as years move on, yet many of these policies were adapted by the Republicans. The Republicans in the 1800s were pro-protectionism and pro-business, not very liberal policies. In the early 1900s the Republican and Democratic Parties were dominated by Progressive policies but in the 1920s the Republicans adopted more of those Limited Government, Classical Liberal ideals. This was the first party switch. The second being what you spoke about in the video. I think you should make a video (if you have not already) on what I referred to as the “first party switch”.
Glad to see someone else point this out - both parties didn’t completely abandon their entire ideology in the post-Civil Rights movement switch, it was mostly just social positions. Democrats have been the economically left party and Republicans the economically right one since the 1930s.
That’s what a lot of people tend to miss. Democrats have pretty much always been powerful in cities, back to the days of Jackson they were the party of laborers and immigrants, and those would grow substantially following the Second Industrial Revolution. The Republicans would lose the brunt of their competitiveness there, aside from the odd victory on a lawn and order platform, when the established Anglo-Saxon Protestant demographic that has served as their political lineage's base back to the Federalist Party was overtaken in numbers. And perhaps even more so after major industry started leaving the cities behind which puts the party traditionally associated with business at a major disadvantage. 1920 would give us the first census that showed that more people were living in urban than rural communities. Gradually, major cities would start to swamp out the other districts of their states in elections. I’d argue that what really happened was that as the South industrialized and modernized it slowly but surely converged with those broader national voting patterns. The states there just don’t have the same number of large cities that can dominate elections. Though that’s not even getting into how people in the late 1970’s started moving into likeminded community en masse to the point we now have more landslide counties than ever before which naturally further solidifies those lines.
@@johnweber4577 the democrats were powerful in some cities but the republicans were powerful in others. Take Philadelphia for example. It was so Republican that it even supported Hoover in 1932. Then in 1936, FDR won it and it never went Republican again. Saint Louis city was also Republican in the early 1900s and New York City would swing between the parties.
Just a couple of points of clarification. First, Nixon's strategy wasn't simply the southern strategy. His chief of staff gave an interview where he specifically said he knew they couldn't win all the states in the south because racism was still to strong there but they could win some of them. He was proven correct by Wallace being in the race and winning those states with Nixon winning the others. Also, Al Gore Sr. wasn't a civil rights champion as you seem to portray him. Go look at the Congressional Quarterly for 1964 and you'll see that Al Gore Jr wasn't the only one who suffered an inconvenient truth. In the end you are right, both parties suck and stopped representing the people they are supposed to long ago.
This is the first video of yours that I have watched, and I am very impressed. You don’t resort to oversimplification and you are easy to listen to. I’m going to check out your other videos now.
Weirdly enough I actually was loading the dishwasher when you said put those dishes down and watch the video. And this video was posted two years ago. Now I’m deeply unsettled but also have several questions about the future
Mr. Beat, I’ve been watching your videos for a few years now. Don’t comment much, but I have to truly commend you for providing accurate historical videos with context. Context matters so much and it’s a shame that professional media outlets lack it
@Dr SalTeeNeutsMD The southern strategy was a myth pushed by Democrats and the media to discourage African Americans and other racial minorities from voting for republicans by Libeling theme as racists. Democrats Today are following the same strategy with voter suppression. They keep telling Black Americans that photo ID is voter suppression and that Republicans are a bunch of racists trying to suppress their votes and discourage theme from voting for republican candidates and fish for their votes For 60years 90% of African Americans kept voting for democrats. Not because they liked their policies but because they believed the Media's lies about republicans being racist people
One of the things that I think needs to be made clear when talking about this is: What the Republican Party of the past did with the Southern strategy, does not mean the Republican Party of today has to use the same principles. Political entities (and politicians) change and adapt, as well as trying to influence the populace in their favor. That's exactly what happened with the switch.
I agree with you that it would not necessarily be the case that the Republican Party of today has the same values and principles as the Republican Party of 1970. That said, it clearly does where racism is concerned. We see the same attempts to disenfranchise Black voters (both by removing polling stations and other forms of access to voting as well as gerrymandering so exact that it will cut streets in half to "crack" Black neighborhoods). We see the same arguments against CRT that were previously used too counter integration. It's very plain that the Republican Party believes that covert racism is a successful political strategy.
@@oremfrien I'm saying arguing from the Republican standpoint to at least acknowledge that the switch happened. Especially with the points in this video, conservative doesn't mean wrong.
@@aaronkuhlman1392 1. the only switch that happen is location as the democrats still view the world in skin color. 2. while the republican is dealing with a rino infection which we are dealing with that.
@@themerchantinblack6157 Just to be clear here... you're arguing that the Democrats are the conservatives, and that those in the deeo south for example, are the true liberals... And that the Republican Party has people that are Republican in name only? Just so we're clear here.
@@aaronkuhlman1392 somewhat but allow me to explain with the confusion parts 1. the democrats are not conservatives they got rid of that when they lost control of the south. They adopted the whole end justify the mean mindset in which they turn their support into a cult who will always vote blue no matter what and the whole projecting their racism onto the republican which is know as the party switch conspiracy theory. 2. correct for the republican in name only it just most people like you only know the surface level while people like me are on a deeper level.
This was covered very well. If could have written a piece on this subject it would be “I Don’t Know This to be True, I just Know It’s True. The two groups switched places, but I couldn’t prove it. Thank you.
It’s interesting for example, how the party of farm communities switched from Democrat to Republican. Some things that haven’t changed about the parties are the Republican support of protective tariffs and being more pro-business, and the Democrats being the party of NYC Catholics These things haven’t changed since the 1860s.
Another interesting one is how the idea of Democrats in big cities being corrupt may be the result of lingering suspicion due to things like Tammany hall in addition to the dog whistle racism aspect.
@@historystuff2215 nah it's just that there's no Opposition as Republican Idealogy isn't strong in cities and for some reason alternative parties aren't organized
My favorite thing about Republicans is when they claim they can’t be racist because Lincoln was a Republican. Amazing how quickly people can help inform on whether or not you should take anything they say seriously.
oh oh oh... now do affirmative action. You can't be racist because you alleviate your white guilt by helping people you think you are superior have a better life because you don't think they can actually do better if they were asked to meet the challenge of standards.
literally no republican says that ever. Amazing how I can figure out that you care more about "owning the conservatives" than having an actual discussion and recognizing that the truth isnt black and white
So what did I forget to include in the story?
For folks wondering why there were already comments before Friday, those were my Patreon supporters, who often get access to my videos a few days early.
Also, don't forget about your hair. If you're ready to take action and prevent hair loss, go to keeps.com/MrBeat to receive 50% off your first order.
legend
the Democrats are the bad guys and the Republicans are the good guys
Video came out 35 minutes ago. Mr. Beat wrote this comment 8 hours ago. Time Travel confirmed.
The whole concept of a political party switch is actually false, the Democrats and Republicans are literally the same party from a policy perspective(which should be obvious to everyone since they both split from the Democratic Republican party) the only difference between the two parties is superficial stuff primarily culture war based topics, if we completely ignored the culture war everyone would realize how completely trash these two parties are and would find a "third party" to support instead
I think one other thing that would be worth mentioning would be that even as the South started voting more Republican on the national level, it took a lot longer for them to start voting Republican on the local level. Most southern state legislatures didn't flip to the Republican party until 2010, coincidentally right after the election of Barack Obama.
Dude you actually got me with the perfectly-timed "are you not watching just listening?" as soon as I looked away
Got me too ahahaha. I was cooking and I jumped a bit I must confess.
Same! 😂
I was elbow deep in dishes and got freaked out when he said “are you not watching” and then screamed when he said “put those dishes down”
I had to stop doing dishes to reply to this 😅
Me too...Apparently Mr. Beat never misses a beat. (Sorry, I am a compulsive pun-user.)
One thing you failed to mention is that politics was more regional before, so the politician from both parties tended to look the same in the same region. For example, the Republican Party has always been strong in New England (look at how many GOP governors and senators they've had even recently), but New England Republicans tended to be liberal, like their Democratic counterparts. Similarly, Democrats from the Deep South tended to be conservative, like their Republican counterparts. In general, until about 1994, Republican politicians from New England were much more liberal than Democratic politicians from the Deep South.
Thanks for saying, that makes sense in the manner or style of an explanation I've heard before.
One thing I've heard before is that the Civil Rights determined especially, "defined after so many years", the way Republicans held black rights - generally speaking - above the belt while Democrats formed the KKK... there was a way of interpreting the questions, bringing about these results... let me think or remember
got in reading recs where i can learn more?
@@dsxa918 and
This is still going on to an extent in New England, with Republican governors such as Phil Scott in Vermont and Chris Sununu in New Hampshire. One could also argue politicians such as Senators Joe Manchin and John Tester from West Virginia and Montana respectively are also a part of this trend.
@@highgrounder Tester no, but Gov Andy Beshear in KY and until recently AG Jim Hood in MS. Manchin is probably the last southern Democrat.
What the actual fuck, I was multi tasking man. Didn't have to call me out doing the dishes like that
@@writingwyvern6065 He knows!!
Same!
Samz
As an ex-History teacher I really appreciate the clarity of your stories, and your presentation. Wish I had been as good!
really lol
Former student?
To bad it’s full of crap
@@brandonbenson6804 in 1860s the South voted Democrat and the North had a new party called the Republican party, which was for big government and civil rights. Now the South votes Republican and the North is Democrat and votes for big government and civil rights. Don't let facts get in the way of your ignorance!
I was confused by this since Lincoln was a republican. So I did a study of our history and saw that Mr. Beat is correct.
The democratic presidents in the 20th century did more for civil rights, and for Americans in general, than the republican presidents.
Mr. Beat totally nailed me at 10:00. I was cleaning the dishes, it made me nervous laugh. 😂 How did he know!?!
I was listening at work, because, you know, I'm at work. He got me too!
@@dustinpetersen7730 same lol
@@CadaltosCorner You copy-pasted your talking points on the wrong comment, bruh
@@CadaltosCorner Understand how people think that that prop was racist but not really. Let me use a school analogy. If it was harder for single parent children to get good grades and it would hurt their chances at getting into collage. The solution to this was to make it easier to have single parent student to get into collage. Now in reality African Americans are generally poorer that white Americans.The solution that came up was affirmative action, Now most people would say this is unfair because students should get there based on work. But the way we measure this SAT scores and grades have been proven that AA students have a harder time achieving the same grade. So without any intervention we would have white students who work less get into collage based on those scores that African Americans would find hard to achieve. that is the point of affirmative action
i was washing my hands
Remember friends whenever you hear someone mention "states' rights" always be sure to ask them "states' rights to what?"
@@tauntingeveryone7208
Does your State own you?
I've never heard of a State owning someone.
Unless I'm missing something?
@@tauntingeveryone7208
We fought a war to prevent State's rights to owning people??
Bahahahahahaha
@@tauntingeveryone7208
Read your own comments bro.
You aren't making a lot of sense.
I don't know what to tell ya.
@@Dougie1969 I don’t know what to tell you racist pro-slavery bigot.
Just admit you’re pro federal overreach and oppression and support minimizing regional differences in order to put everyone under one totalitarian boot.
I would add that many people forget how much of a state's vote is influenced by what each candidate will do for their state. When the south was uber racist, guys like Wallace won states, despite being fairly unpopular elsewhere. Carter won the south in 76 because he was a fellow southerner, with southerner values, and was southern baptist. Goldwater won many southern states because the feeling of betrayal felt around Johnson.
We also have to understand that back in the day, the political party meant less.
Political parties still don't mean much but people assume more from the label. That happens with lots of things these days. People on both sides see groups more than individuals.
"Southern values" like segregation.
@@tonyetzu you'd be surprised how many people in the south aren't actually racist and how many people outside the south actually are.
@@The.One.True.B Wouldn't surprise me.
@@tonyetzu so why are you trying to label all (or most) southerners as segregationists?
I know this is late but thank you Mr. Beat. I’ve heard “do you know which party actually ended slavery?” far too many times and having to explain that ideas change is so trivial it’s exhausting.
It's insane anyone tries to argue against the switch. I mean, who flies Confederate flag? Protects Confederate statues? Who does the KKK vote for? The Confederate states are almost all Red today and teach the "silver lining" of slavery. Willful ignorance is the only explanation.
Neither party really resembles what they were in their origins. It’s almost entirely redundant to argue that Lincoln’s policies better represent democratic policies. The main constant is that republicans are more independent and for individual or local government and that democrats are more for government control
@@TheGymBroSkiiIf that's the case, why are republicans currently pushing Project 2025, legislation that will essentially turn the US into an authoritarian state with control over most aspects of citizens' personal lives? Why are they consistently against LGBTQ+ rights and access to reproductive healthcare? There are certainly rational people who consider themselves republican who do believe in small government, but it's most certainly not the party ideal.
Footnote: Lincoln was one of the best presidents this nation has had in my opinion, but he wasn't exactly the small government type either. He frequently censored the press.
@@TheGymBroSkii and that unregulated "individual freedom" leads to the govt and corporations doing whatever they want to those same individuals. Govt regulation of air, water, weather service, education keeps standards in place. You privatize all of that aka leave it to "individual freedom" and we're all massive headaches and eventual collateral damage for any person or corporation on their quest to become a billionaire.
@@Muzikrazy213 ok cool 👍🏻
Obviously I haven’t seen the video yet, but from my understanding, it wasn’t simply a “party switch.” I call it party evolution. There were always conservative and liberal factions of both parties that slowly won out over time. Let’s see if I’m right.
Party evolution is probably a more accurate way to put it.
Also the integration of non-white males into the parties (Mr. Beat didn’t include how this changed the fundamentals of each party) that aided on the changes. The modern Democratic Party have a massive number of African American elected officials in it. That’s obviously going to change the core values of the party, in a way that the Republican’s large white elected membership does as well. That’s how you know the right is lying that the switch didn’t happened.
I like this a lot! I definitely think we should shift to use this more accurate way of understanding the two parties. A switch is stupid and didn’t happen. I just see it as a weird way of understanding how policies and people change. People don’t just wake up one day and have totally different ideology. Don’t see how a switch benefits or hurts parties in the modern day but whatever lol
@SuperDuck64 That’s what happened over time. Today, there are very few “political machines.” Liberals took over the Democratic Party, and moved to the left. Conservatives took over the Republican Party, and moved to the right.
@@pictureperfect3211 :|
Thanks Mr. Beat for making me enjoy learning about history outside of school! Despite being in college, it feels like reading a book that’s not for a class… you don’t realize how cool history is when you’re not required to throw info back up on a test.
I'm so glad you think learning history is cool. This always makes my day.
Mr. Beat is so cool learn more they click on the funds up and I'll tell you more history
@@iammrbeat you are a joke
@@ryanchristopher8848 if you dont have anything nice to say dont say anything at all
@@ryanchristopher8848 don’t insult my god!
Often times I see on the internet "but the parties switched platforms!" used as a response for, let's say, criticizing Democratic policies from long ago.
It's way too simple to just say the two parties flipped and did a 180.
I agree there was a realignment in the South specifically, and I agree with you that it wasn't like some people say - just happened all of a sudden. Democrats still held a majority of Southern congressional seats until the 90s.
I think the best idea is to look at it like this - both Democrats and Republicans were massive coalitions of diverse ideologies. They still are coalitions, but they ditched, at least partially, some of their wings. Everyone knows conservative Democrats, and to a lesser extent liberal Republicans still exist; they haven't gone away, they just lost a lot of influence. Yes, the Democratic Party moved more to the left and the Republican Party moved more to the right, but saying that today's Democrats are the Republicans from the 1950s (or the other way around), just feels very dishonest.
Like you said "party evolution" sounds much, much more accurate than "party switch". Obviously there was a shift and a realignment but those always happen. Just not on as large of a scale.
I would disagree the Republican party and the democratic party have both shifted much more liberal especially on social issues. Democrats just shifted so extremely compared to Republicans it make them look far right. But in actuality trump would be liberal back in the 80's or 90's while biden would have been extremely leftist.
@@survivalsuiters5982 What you just wrote is nonsense !
@@survivalsuiters5982 ..... check the Overton windows of the U.S. compared to all the other Western Democracies of the world . Biden's policy platforms are considered centre right anywhere else in the developed world !
@@andrewbrady6154 i dont care about politics in foreign nations every nation has unique values and what is considered conservative and liberal. Right and Left are non sense terms anyways i just used it because those are phrases people understand.
@@survivalsuiters5982 but not in the 30s and 40s. You picked the most right wing time in our country possibly. If not then the second most
To anyone disagreeing, just notice how a number of especially Southern Republicans still fly the Confederate flag.
@@KyuuAA most of us in the south call it a rebel flag not confederate
@@wesleyflowers5267 Flying a traitor's flag while claiming to be a patriot is a little ridiculous. And no, we call it the confederate flag here.
@@kake1604 your kind burns American flags so I don’t wanna hear it. Again it’s the rebel flag
@@wesleyflowers5267☠️
@@wesleyflowers5267 Whatever you want to call it, the main point is that it's evidence of the fact that southern conservatives who were bitter about the end of segregation switched to the GOP from the democratic party after the 1964 civil rights act was passed under LBJ
When my father, from a small southern county in northern Florida, registered to vote in the state in the mid 80s, he was automatically registered as Democrat by the old fart behind the counter. When he asked what if he had wanted to be a Republican, the old guy just old him “But then you can’t vote in the election” My dad was uber confused, until my grandpa explained the old guy meant the Democratic primary, because the Dems were so assumed to just automatically win any election where they were, your vote in the vote in the primary was seen as more valuable than the vote in the general election.
They still are, just less people get involved in their local politics on either end of the spectrum.
Kinda like the Republican party of today
@@Thobeian if you live in a partisan district that leans left your statement is correct. Or are you trying to push the progressives conspiracy theory that there are millions of far-left people who don't vote because no candidate is far left enough.
If people paid more attention to local politics there would probably be more moderates. However both parties seem to believe in federal supremacy.
It was almost like that for me when I registered and that was the turn of the century.
The system of "registering" to vote is corrupt and frankly un-American. We should emulate Canada and permit people to vote as their conscience dictates for any fielded candidate, without regard to "party" affiliation. One person, one vote, for whomever you choose. So simple, so democratic. The Founders would agree.
I've seen so many people say it didn't happen, but also seen so many people sum it up as "Richard Nixon used the Southern strategy so the parties flipped immediately afterwards", when both are so blatantly missing the entire story
You got it
Ironically people who liked Nixon don’t like how he got us off the gold standard and made all of the losses in privacy in banking.
True very very very true
Like most things in life, there's nuance involved.
@@night6724 The major significance is that while Nixon worked slowly behind the scenes to enforce desegregation, he did not vocally support it. Instead he favored socially conservative racial dogwhistles such as appeals to "Law and Order."
Fun fact: Regardless of wether or not the switch happened, it's of no consequence for the party colors. A lot of people say that the reason why, unlike in european countries, the conservatives are red and the liberals are blue, is this switch, however, the association of party colors actually goes back to i believe 1980, and it wasn't even inspired by the parties themselves. Basically, in that years electoral period, NBC decided to cover the election live, featuring a map of each state that would be colored in as the vote is decided. Notably, however, this map featured the republicans in blue and the democrats in red, and there is no specific reason why they did this, other than blue and red being colors that are easy to tell apart. When a competitor did the same thing 4 years later, they decided to color the republicans red and the democrats blue, to set themselves apart, and when other competitors also decided to do the same thing, over time, red republicans and blue democrats won out over the original coloring that NBC used.
The republican red/ Democrat blue really solidified in 2000 when news media all adopted that use and it entered popular imagination of "red" and "blue" states.
it's also because CBS used "Red for Reagan" and it caught on
I always understood it as the 2000 election making it the standard because of how long that election got extended due to litigation.
It's interesting because here in Australia the conservatives are called the liberal party and are blue. And the progressives are called the Labor party and are red. Confusing? Yes it is
@@dashkostka9281 That's not supported by the facts (though CBS did use Red for the GOP at that time).
Please don’t stop making factual and informational content. They should just be showing these videos in school for history class.
@lesleyt8984when you forget mr beat is a history teacherr
That would go well with all that other bs taught in school... this dude is wrong. He's just repeating the leftist lie
This video is literal propaganda and leaves out so much information it isn't even funny.
@@markhennessy7598like what?
@@markhennessy7598yeah, like what? He’s a history teacher man, I think he knows what he’s talking about
It’s interesting that the switch was very slow on the state and local level. Alabama’s state legislature was controlled by conservative democrats till Obama’s term.
Yep, it was a very slow process
Likely generation politics, people vote how their ancestors do and the party switch was really top down
Dem guvernor lost in 2002 by like 2,000 votes
@@michaelnguyen9348 once again generational politics
Hell, Biden is so old, he is a pre-switch Democrat
The funny thing is southern democrats still had a voice in local govts until 2010. In 2008, democrats had 3/4 of the Mississippi house delegation, with similar trends being seen in other southern states like Arkansas which had 2 D senators and a trifecta in the local govt. That domination only ended in 2010
Obama killed them all
Yeah but that is because gerrymandering has basically eliminated democrats in the south.
@@GageEakins which comes from GOP control of state governments…
Obama was the first Democrat ever to win the presidency without Missouri (which he only lost by a few thousand votes). I think he might've been the first not to win Arkansas, at least since Arkansas became a state.
@@TheAlexSchmidt Missouri was really close. If McCain didn’t have Palin he probably would have got it
Part of the issue is traditionally *each* party had both a liberal wing (with people we would recognize as liberals) and a conservative wing (with people we would recognize as conservatives). The parties themselves were not more conservative or liberal than each other by today's values. They were less defined by the left/right political spectrum especially regarding social values, but even to some degree regarding economics.
It's only in the 21st century that that they really fell into line into 2 completely different tribes. But in a way that was bound to eventually happen in a 2 party system.
No that's not true. This is just another case of Americans thinking they're so special and unique and the rest of the world doesn't deal with the same problems they do.
@@biggibbs4678 two things can be right at the same time. But to tell the truth it isn't because "we are American" it's because our voting system is first past the post, which many other countries have. We aren't that special ;)
Well yes and no. What we call Conservative are Conservative Liberals and NeoConservatives vs the Paleoconservatives that we traditionally had as they mostly died out. Meanwhile The Modern Liberal are Progressive Liberals who merged Clasical Liberalism and Progressivism vs traditional Classical Liberals of the past. The terms has stayed the same but not the definition.
Regardless of the truth of any 'party switch' it has little or no bearing on the state of the parties and voters today.
99% of Southerners are racially equalitarian, and so are both parties.
@@biggibbs4678 dude what are you yapping about?
Never stop doing what you do, the visuals are very crisp and keep my ADD mind glued to the screen
Mr. Beat, I've been watching your videos since I was in the tenth grade and needed to find some info on the election of 1876 for my APUSH class, I'm almost 20 now and I haven't regretted subscribing for one day. This has honestly been the best video I have seen on the subject and all I can say is, *Mr. Beat voice* See you in the next video buddy!
Aw that's really cool to hear. I'm so glad you stuck around these past 7 years 😊
The South is still racist. My brother from Omaha was driving through Alabama and stopped to get gas. A black woman was ahead of him in line to pay for gas, but the cashier skipped her and tried to help my brother first. When my brother said, "She was here first," the cashier said, "So?"
I live in Georgia but someone called me racist since I live here so I guess I'm racist now. Gee I wish I lived in the North where there's no racism at all!
@@Kefkadetwhy did you comment this
@@wolf-xf6hfhe saying it’s a case by case basis which it is
Stupid remark
@@trpimirkarlovic838 I'm sorry you feel that way.
Not all conservatives are racist. But a whole lot of racists are definitely conservatives these days
Not all conservatives are racist. All racists are conservative.
@@ThunderTheBlackShadowKitty😂😂😂 no what a childish idea
@@AaronTheGreat________ Nope, it's entirely true. Not all conservatives are racist. All racists are conservative. It is a conservative world view.
@@ThunderTheBlackShadowKitty 😂child
@@AaronTheGreat________ Nope, just correct. Not all conservatives are racist. All racists are conservative.
10:09 I'm literally listening to this at work, and I flipped over my phone the moment you said "Are you listening and not watching?.." What terrifying timing
Loved the intermission! You caught me right in the act. I was literally doing my dishes.
This is a good video about an often misunderstood topic. One thing I would add is that not every issue or constituency switched. The republicans remained the party of business.
Very good point, and thank you!
Both parties are the parties of the business
Both parties had big business factions. The Democrats used to be the Party of Big Agriculture or only white property owning southern landlords until 1896.
@@nicolaseito5172 Definitely over the past 40 years.
@@nicolaseito5172 Define "Party of Business".
Because there is a difference between the support of Laissez--Faire Free Market Capitalism and businessmen running for office or allying with and cooperating with politicians (the latter is found among factions of both parties, whereas support for Laissez-Faire Free Market Capitalism is a feature of only the Republican Party and is not liked by the aforementioned fascistic public-private partnership factions).
Each party must constantly counter react to actions of the other party to survive and reach new voters. They do what they do in order to win.
yep
couldn't have said it better myself
If we had a system that incentivized more political parties then party switches would probably happen less often.
@@theperfectmix2 yeah but sadly in the rest of the world, two parties still (de facto) are the only ones who can control a country, like in UK, Spain or Germany
That sugar coats what's happening by playing the 'both sides-ism' bullsh!t. The Democratic party pushed for changes through the Civil Rights Acts but the Republican seized upon that as an opportunity to expand their power AT THE EXPENSE of blacks. There is no both sides-ism there, it was a one way street that resulted in the disenfranchisement of blacks.
Dude you totally friggen got me with that “you’re only listening put the dishes down” I was literally doing just that at that exact moments. Subscribed
This was actually REALLY helpful but this will always be one of the hardest aspects of American politics for me to fully wrap my head around
It's a case of correlation not being causation.
Because it never happened.😂.
@@Dom-vo9ni watch out, you're going to face the same screeching that Ukrainians do when they dispel Kremlin talking points.
@@Dom-vo9ni Man gave a detailed example of what happened. There are literally videos on youtube from that era where people on both sides are talking about this who were in politics. You have historians conforming this, newspaper articles but since it does not align with the regurgitated lies you filled you dense head with , all of a sudden it " never happened". Lmao. The fact that this eats at you so bad you have to lie to yourself makes me smile so freaking hard. It's hilarious and so so so sad at the same. I'm actually embarrassed for you. Cause no matter what, I know in your head you know it's the truth and it's eating you Lmmaaoo. This is great man.
@@rudiruttgerI'm glad we agree that the republican party and the kremlin are basically the same.
The party switch could also be said to have started in the 1920's when Herbert Hoover cracked the Solid South & won a few traditionally Democratic southern states.
Oh good catch there
That’s mainly because Al Smith was Catholic
@@sickzappybeef9209 Yeah that was also a factor, but Hoover did actively court Southern whites with his lily-white strategy which alienated many black voters.
@@bishopbling4115 Funny you should say that, because Herbert Hoover won a majority of blacks in his first presidential election win.
@@GreyWolfLeaderTW I'm not saying that Herbert Hoover performed poorly with black voters, but that the GOP's lily-white movement which Hoover did court started the alienation of black voters from the GOP. As this video points out, it wasn't any one event that caused the parties to immediately switch, but a long evolutionary process that I'd argue started in 1920's with Hoover if not the late 19th century with the birth of the lily-white Republicans.
It would be ignorant to pretend the parties haven’t changed in the last 50 years. Both have, for better and worse
Or the last 250 years!
@@iammrbeat the republicans didn’t exist 250 years ago
@@auramaster8459 i think he means the parties in general in American history
@@auramaster8459 The United States of America did not exist 250 years ago.... God save the King?
Thank you MrBeat, it’s great that you can give a very good history lesson while not trying to get to semi-political. Thanks so much your like a second history class for me 😊
How can this be covered in any way without it being inherently political? it is quite literally about politics, and MrBeat covers almost exclusively the history of Politics. Do you mean to say that he remained objective without divulging his own personal opinion?
ps sorry if it is a misunderstanding english is not my first language so it may be a dialect thing
I keep saying it (and you’re right): it wasn’t an instant switch. It was gradual.
This wasn't like a single lightning strike; the realignment was more gradual. When JFK was killed in 63 and LBJ became the President who pushed through the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, Nixon and John Mitchell realized it was their time to approach the Southern States to tell them that Democrats had abandoned them; this was the Southern Strategy. Republicans who hated the GOP as the party of the Union Army now had permission to embrace the GOP for upholding Southern values, while the Democrats took the side of the Black Man. And that's where we've been since then.
@@patrickdrazen8411 Problem with that claim is Nixon lost the Deep South to "Segregation Today, Segregation Tomorrow, & Segregation Forever" George Wallace, a Dixiecrat running as an independent in 1968.
Also, blacks joined the Democrat Party back in the 1930s, voting overwhelmingly for FDR for his first term. The blacks did not switch in the 1960s/70s.
@@GreyWolfLeaderTW Nixon of course wanted and hoped to win the Wallace voters next time in '72 (although he managed to win most of the whole country then).
@@GreyWolfLeaderTW (a) Yes, Wallace ran an overtly racist effort in 1968 and may have drained votes from both parties; the final margin of Nixon's win was very tight. History did not repeat itself in 1972; that spring, Wallace was shot on the campaign trail and had to drop out of the race. It was an easy re-elect for Nixon, which meant he probably didn't need to have his people bug the Democratic office at the Watergate... (b) Black voters didn't switch, because the GOP made it clear that they weren't interested in the Black vote as far back as the 30s; Truman reaffirmed the commitment to Black voters after the war.
@Dr SalTeeNeutsMD This video proves that it all did happen, my friend. Those who are rewriting history are those insisting that it didn't happen, despite all impartially sourced evidence.
I can't wait until the party system collapses and we start looking at politicians as individuals. Did you ever buy a variety pack of something and go, "I want those 3 flavors, but I don't like the other 2"? That's how I view the party system. Pre-packaged politics 🙄
Exactly when you're voting democrats you're ranging from people like Bernie to Biden
The collapse of the party system is intriguing, and I agree with you on "pre packaged politics," but I'm not sure a collapse is going to happen. For so many people, their political party is like a team sport with fanatical backing regardless of what the party is doing. I think most independents vote one or two issues at most--and that also leads to the party system getting by as is. As long as either is true, the party system is going nowhere--sadly.
This is a fantasy. Even without parties, coalitions are inevitable.
Yep.
@@TheArkDoc Well yeah that's true. Realistically, I don't expect it change any time soon, if ever.
The real key in terms of the racism aspect is in the Dixiecrats, the Democrats were factionalized. If it was as some claim, Nixon would have won the deep south in 1968 but Wallace did, with support of Dixiecrats. Then the next election as shown Nixon got 49 states, so not even just the South. I do like how you pointed out the other issues, such as how ab abortion was not something that was split along party lines like it is today. It is often portrayed as a 180 switch but it was an intricate shifting of policies, that didn't all happen at once. As for dog whistles, I hear it thrown around but when asked for specific examples, about all I hear is state's rights, a concept that has a much longer and deeper history than merely being supportive of racism, being supported in the North prior to the confederacy.
Dixiecrats started to walk out after Humphrey's speech in '48 (yes, born and raised here in MN)
"Southern Strategy" of course racism and trying to appeal to it was part of the Republican strategy but trying to making it sound as if that was the core of Republicans or their success crudely ignores that Nixon in '72 and then Reagan won landslides, had and were successful with 40-49 state strategies.
The democrats are still fractured and the Dixiecrats now call thems loves progressives.
Dog whistles are whistles that only dogs can hear. I'm not being literal, that's the definition of the term in politics. This nonsense about using coded words to make normal people support racism is just left-wing bs. Actual dog whistles can only be recognized by members of the group they're addressing. They serve as a signal that someone is like-minded, and it's safe to privately discuss controversial beliefs.
@@MrDj232 which explains why only Demoncrats hear the so-called "dog whistles" of the Republicans.
I'm very glad this video addressed that it was the political parties, not the people's ideologies that switched!
This is the most important part, especially when people bring up "democrats were the party of slavery".
The pro slavery people didn't change, the label they went by did.
@@casteanpreswyn7528 What are you getting at? The Democratic Party did tolerate and support slavery in the past, until a divide emerged between Northern Democrats and Southern Democrats, eventually shifting the party platform. It is also happens to be the oldest existing political party in the US.
@@nte5 the label changed that those people use. It's straightforward, idk why you needed to ask "what are you getting at", when I said something straightforward and impossible to misinterpret.
@@casteanpreswyn7528 Sorry if I wasn't clear, we both know political parties shift over time. I just wanted you to clarify your statement, but since it was impossible to misinterpret, it seemed like you were saying that the Democratic Party wasn't really the party of slavery, even though it was in the 19th century to early 20th century.
@@nte5 you'd have to intentionally twist my words to come to that conclusion.
What I find odd is that since the Southern Strategy began, Republicans have run few Prez/VP candidates from the South. W. I guess you might count Romney, McCain and Dole, but they’re not from the traditional South and they lost. Maybe Agnew? But none of them were who you’d pick to appeal to segregationists.
Dems, however, had Carter, Clinton, Gore from the traditional South. Of course, they were considered progressive on race but they had their moments when they needed to appeal to conservatives.
Ironic.
I love that you base most of your videos on facts not just opinion it's mostly facts. I love it, it helps for people to actual learn and it's great. Thank you
Pov: you went to new comments to look for angry people
Lol
Mr. Beat always keeping it real. He's human and flawed to personal biases as we all are and with that said I think he really is more focused on th3 truth then any allegiance to a political party or ideology. Besides the Bill of rights and the pursuit of liberty and happiness.
This is gonna hurt a lot of PragerU fanboy feelings.
But facts don’t care about your feelings 😎
From what I can tell in these comments, it already has! Of course, they are exactly what this video says they are: straw-man arguments and political rhetoric!
what most mean by "the switch" is claiming that the Republicans are now the racist party and the democrats are the heroes. Its a propaganda piece used to point the finger and ignore anything you say with the accusation "you're racist". Its literally the song and dance done constantly
@@oblitusunum6979 It goes both ways. Most Republican responses I hear aren't like your comment. It's more along the lines of "the switch never happened, you guys are the actual racists. We're Lincolns party." Everyone just talks over each other.
Nick Lee .. only people taking this video at face value are politically inept
Thank you! Literally other than myself, you are the only person who doesn't teach it, "Johnson signed the Civil rights bill, he said he lost the south forever, and he did"
Literally every history class I had was them saying it, me going, "what about Carter in 76" and their response is just something vague like, "it was different then"
Yep, it's so much more complicated
He did lose the South in terms of it being a partisan "Solid South" although a moderate can still win.
@@suarezguy when it comes to presidential elections, yes, but as the video pointed out, most congress people up until 1990 were still democrats.
I know this is coming to you third hand, but I've always wondered if there isn't more to the story about Carter. I worked with an older man maybe 15 years ago who was absolutely disgusted with Carter. When I asked why, he said that he had had a friend who was African American and who had worked on the Carter peanut farm. His friend told him that the Carters had treated him and his fellow African Americans pretty poorly on account of their race. Now, I've no doubt that Carter doesn't hold racist views (at least, not anymore), but could it be that part of the reason why many in the South voted for Carter was because they believed Carter was on their side when it came to race relations? That seems to make a lot more sense than simply saying, "Well, Carter was from the South. So, people from the South voted for him." Doesn't it make more sense to say, "Carter was from the South. So, a majority of Southerners believed that he would represent their interests, possibly even their perceived interests when it came to race-relations." As I've said, ever since that conversation 15 years ago, I've wanted to delve into this deeper.
Could Ford pardoning Nixion played a role in Carter winning?
As a non American I have always been confused by the colours of the American Parties, because where I'm from the Conservative Party, or the right wing Parties usually are shown in blue and the social democratic or as I think you would call them liberal Parties are always in red. But if the US-Parties kinda switched over time it makes sense that they would keep their associated colour.
Neither party had any particular color officially attached to them for most of their history and ultimately didn't really pick the ones that they have now either. But the first electoral television news coverage to feature one of the color-coded maps which wound up popularizing the practice was done by CBS in 1972 and actually used blue for the Republican Richard Nixon and red for the Democrat George McGovern. NBC followed suit during the next election cycle in 1976 by giving blue to Gerald Ford and red to Jimmy Carter. They cited the color scheme that had been adopted by the British parties, blue for the Conservatives and red for Labour, as the reason for assigning them the way they did. Though if you want to go back further, there was a printed electoral college map for the election of 1888 approved of by both candidates that also used blue for the Republican Benjamin Harrison and red for the Democrat Grover Cleveland. They were inconsistently applied across all the various news stations following the 1972 CBS broadcast, with the modern color associations only being uniformly agreed upon by the major networks in 1996 for the sake of not confusing audience members who switched between them and finally solidified in the public consciousness by the long-drawn-out process Bush vs. Gore turned into in 2000. If one needs some kind of an explanation beyond pure chance for why the red for Republican and blue for Democrat motif was even considered in the first place, there are two commonly-held theories. One is that the media as a whole simply likes the alliteration of the words red and Republican. The other is that they were playing defense for the Democrats by helping to distance them from the color traditionally linked to radicalism when the looming fear of communism remained ever-present. However, I still tend to believe it was just an accident of circumstances at the end of the day.
they got their colors late 90s early 2000s
Makes more sense. Communism is leftist and red.
From what Ive seen, NBC was the first to use "red for reagan" in '80 and the other networks follow suit to avoid confusion
Actually, they got their associated colors in the early 2000s, before that the colors would switch between them in the 80s and 90s
"I will gladly point out when both the Republican party and the Democratic party suck. In fact, they both suck all the time!"
Based Mr Beat. Thanks for being one of the more objective voices in American historical analysis.
Mr. Beat, the way you bring people back to paying attention is funny. thank you for making history fun
I don't see how it's even possible to argue otherwise.
If you compare the original platform of the GOP to the original platform of the Democratic Party, it's quite obvious that the GOP was originally the more progressive one.
Indeed
@@night6724 go watch your wwe women’s moments creep-o
@@night6724 At the time, abolitionism was _extremely_ progressive
The Whigs were the more Progressive Party at the time. The Republican Party was more liberal leaning. (hence Lincoln was a moderate whig when he was in the House)
Thank you for this video Mr. Beat. There is lots of misinformation on this topic and this was definitely huge clarification.
Thank you!
George Washington was the first president learn more if you need to click it on it the fund up and read more and I got while history in my sleeve😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎
@Louis XIV: But they did switch, or evolve. It’s pretty obvious that they switched. The Dixiecrats moved to the Republicans on the argument of “states’ rights,” and it cannot be denied. And before you ask, until about 2012, I was fairly conservative.
@@night6724 Did you watch the video?
Something ironic about seeing someone with the username @@night6724 argue for states' rights. As your namesake would say, "L'etat c'est moi!"
HAHAHA! I was literally listening while washing my dishes when he called out the audience. Always great videos. thanks -
I also really appreciated your nuanced telling of Goldwater. We always simplify Goldwaters decision as a matter of racism when it was devoid of that, looking at his history. I would actually push back on your characterization of him as leading the push for civil rights. He was always supportive of them, as seen in his push for desegregated schools in Nevada. But in my opinion, was never extremely devote or fierce in his pro civil rights stances, at least when compared to his other policies, and other civil rights advocates.
I remember thinking for a while that the reason Reagan switched parties was because of racism based solely on the timing only to find he really did only do it because he hated FDR's New Deal.
@blackjacknight that is incorrect. Reagan switched parties for three reasons. Number 1 Reagan didn’t like that he was be investigated in 1961 by democrats RFK and the justice department while being a Union president for violating anti-trust laws. #2 the people that paid for Reagan to run for political office Holmes Tuttle, Alfred Bloomingdale, joesph coors, etc were staunch anti-labor and anti -union and saw what Reagan was able to do while spokesman for GE. The “kitchen cabinet” as his donors were called hoped Reagan being a union president could convince workers to relinquish their rights and and remove regulations like OSHA. #3 Reagan’s wife Nancy and her family were republicans and she had a major influence on him.
@@alwillk well explained - you nailed it - he literally was playing a part
Interestingly, Goldwater distanced himself from the Reagan Republicans because he supported abortion and gay people openly serving in the military, toward the end of his life he even told Republicans "Do not associate my name with anything you do. You are extremists, and you've hurt the Republican party much more than the Democrats have.", despite being regarded as the founder of modern conservatism.
Eh, it's a bit more nuanced but he was no civil rights hero. A big tip for anyone: any time you ever hear someone bring up 'state's rights', remind them and let them know that that was literally the same argument people used 150 years ago when supporting slavery. It's a pretty lame dog-whistle now.
Woodrow Wilson was left-wing on economics, but incredibly racist.
And that's why so many dislike him today! History is complicated.
Indeed, except I think that Wilson gets way too much hate online. Everyone would agree that Wilson’s racism is a bad thing about Wilson. Conservatives and libertarians would oppose his liberal economic policies and his liberal internationalist foreign policy. I mostly agree with Wilson’s economic policies and I partially agree with his foreign policy. Wilson is a C tier president in my opinion.
@@night6724 We already had a conversation about Wilson in the comments on Mr. Beat’s presidential tier list video with Vlogging through History. I know that you are very conservative and even though I disagree with you I understand why you hate Wilson.
Apparently Theodore Roosevelt was also a supporter of the Lilly White movement.
@@night6724 when did Woodrow Wilson ever publicly seize the means of production?
@@night6724 I mean he did keep us out of the war for as long as he could. although I definitely do think it was justified that we joined in 1917. other than that I hate him
I would love to see a vid on the shift in Appalachia. It’s been fairly quick and recent. The role labor played, racism, etc. is very interesting. The extremely effective messaging by the GOP in Appalachia, with my area of SW VA being a prime example on every level or the eastern KY local and state level...is wild. Out of the 9 races I’ve professionally worked on, 5 have been in Appalachia and it’s puzzling (to a degree) what’s happened even as a lifelong Appalachian.
That's a great idea
Maybe it had to do with the party switch from a New-Deal style coalition to the coalition of the ascendant that the Democrats underwent after the 1960s. The Democratic Party went from being an econ-focused party to a socially-focused party that working class voters did not approve of(traditionally more econ left and soc con). As social issues are increasingly matter more than economic issues, the Democrats heavily regressed in Appalachia, which is clearly a working class area. It is the same reason why Northern Virginia gone blue, but for the opposite reason.
@@Tukmo5 There's also the general weakening of labor movements due to things like the outsourcing of jobs, advances in automation, and crippling right-to-work laws. Joe Manchin himself is a pretty good example of the change in West Virginia politics: previous Democrats would have won due to the support of labor unions, whereas Manchin was pro-business and funded heavily by the fossil fuel industry.
@@leifconnor7146 That surprisingly would help the Democrats, but not in the way you think. The Democratic advantage for labor unions is almost zero in 2020.
However, strong labor unions would be a counter-balance to the really wealthy white progressive donors. Quite literally any counter-balance to them would help the Democrats as it would help them win more of the working class vote.
On this topic, I would also like to see a video talking about labor and unions and how they relate to political affiliation. To me it always seemed like back in the day union members tended to gravitate toward Republican, but red states also seem to be the ones with the highest loss of unions and union membership as well as pushing "right to work" laws, meanwhile I think the members still lean red in rural areas and red states, yet the Republican party is the party trying to eliminate their unions. Could be interesting to do a more in depth look.
I'll have to watch this again. So much information.
Great video Mr. Beat. Though, I have a couple of things to say.
1-The way people vote has changed significantly throughout US history. Americans before the Great Depression more along the lines of economic policies and Americans afterwards voted more along the lines of social policies. This is due to the U:nited States getting richer.
2-The civil rights movement was aided by a lot of the same strategic thinking similar to the Southern strategy. The black vote was the key swing vote group that both parties tried to win from the 1930s-1964. It was apparent when Democratic strategists in 1948 weighed that Truman making a pro-civil rights speech helped him gain 0.5-1% in key swing states due to black voters and lose 2-3% in the solid south(due to winner take all, this was a good trade)
3-Quite literally, a bunch of non-voting evangelicals started to vote heavily in the 1970s and sped up the Southern realignment. They suddenly became active in politics due to Roe vs Wade and the unique candidacy of Jimmy Carter. It is similar to how Prop 187 caused California to trend heavily blue because a bunch of non-voting Latinos went from rarely voting to actively voting.
4-I completely agree with the younger Southerners not having ties to the Democratic Party, who trended Republican.(lines up with the data) It is similar to how younger Hispanic and black voters are trending Republican due to not having the same historic ties as the earlier generations of today.
This was a well-researched video and bravo for doing so.
There are also very interesting points that I have not known about! Thanks for the comment!
Ehhh, I wouldn’t say the younger black and Latino voters are trending Republican. Young people still overwhelmingly vote Democrat
@@ferddoesweirdthingsinlife1040 Actually, they are actually trending hard Republican.
Trump got 41% of the under 30 Latino group and 38% of the 31-49 Latino group while getting 36% of the Latino vote(it is actually really close to 2004 Bush 40% Latino vote mark)
Trump also got roughly 19% of the 25-49 black voter group which is significantly higher than the over 50 age group.
Even if you look at Biden’s approval or favorability numbers and break them down by race and age, Biden’s decline came from the collapse of the younger black and Latino support.
@@Tukmo5 I couldn’t find any of the facts that you cited. Could you provide a source? But either way, that doesnt make them trend “hard republican”
I've seen from AP, Biden got from 85-90% of the black vote in 2020. Sure Trump got 10-15% of the black vote, but it's still an overwhelmingly large margin.
Black families had an average income of $24,100 in 2019, favoring Democrats favorably with the democrats policy. If we as a society were to implement some more policies favoring equity, the vote could swing again later in time. It would be welcome, if we strengthen our lower class and namely African Americans in the lower end of the income bracket in this country. Not to mention BLM, and
The Latino thing is mainly in Florida, with Cubans immigrating to the country. Trump played south Florida really well. Biden won about 75% of the Latino vote in California, especially with anti immigration rhetoric from the GOP. Democrats really do well with Latinos in other parts of the country. Trump and Cuba really helped turn Flordia into a red state for the foreseeable future.
That was an excellent presentation!! Thank you for making it so clear!
Those who argue against the existence of the party switch and the Southern Strategy generally categorize everything as good and evil, so "the good guys and bad guys did not switch." The switch is easier to see objectively when looking at conservative vs. liberal/progressive without branding either as good or bad. Making the switch focus only on racism, while it certainly played a part, puts conservatives on the defensive and leads to those denials.
Wrong the switch did not happen at all the racist did not switch the well fare proponents did not switch and the people looking out for working Americans did not switch those that say other wise can neither read nor do math
Not true! Because the switch has EVERYTHING to do with racism in the South. The Dems created the KKK, JIM CROW LAWS and the like.
Amazing, two responses from exactly opposite ends of the pendulum. It's simple to see that when the Republican party started out, it was the party of progressives while the Democrats were the conservatives, and today the Republicans are the party of conservatives while the Democrats are the party of progressives. That is a switch. However, it is incorrect to think that the switch was quick or based on only one issue. Think of it as one of those puzzles where one word changes to a completely different word with entirely different letters through steps where in each step it changes only one letter at a time. Were some of those steps about racist policies? Yes, particularly at the end. Were all the steps about racism? Not necessarily. Are there still individual issues that did not move along with the general conservative vs. liberal divide? Yes. We have a diverse country with a multitude of hot issues, and the party switch reflects that.
@@h_in_oh That is NOT even true. The Democrat created the KKK, Jim Crow Laws, and tried at every turn to NOT free salves and to keep them "on the plantation". The Republican Party was the party which wanted freedom for ALL! The Republican party was the party of BLACKS. You aren't very good at true history, are yah?
@@RottenInDenmarkOrginal Yes, the Republican party started out as the party for freedom for slaves. At the time, you could not get more radical progressive than that. At the same time, the Democrats were the conservative party with the hot issue of preserving slavery and segregation. When did I indicate otherwise? The point is that the parties eventually flipped which was conservative and which was progressive though a series of phases, not one big flip. Some of those shifts were focused on race and some were not.
I appreciate this video more now than ever. This is the first time I can vote this year and my dad keeps trying to push me to be republican when my stances and issues lay more with the democratic side. While signing up to vote I listed as democrat just not really thinking about it, and he was furious. He told me many things about how bad the democrats lie, and how the democrats used to be heavily related to the KKK. I was surprised to hear that but everytime I looked it up I had a hard time figuring this out. Thank you for explaining about party switching and I now know exactly what I can do to rebuttle if I ever get questioned on my stances, or the democrats relating to the KKK
I’m surprised you weren’t taught about the party switch in school. I went to school in texas, a very conservative state yet we still learned about it (at least our teacher taught us about it, idk about the curriculum). I hope you stand up to your dad, just as long as your relationship isn’t ruined by politics
Most of the rural and small business Democrats of the baby boomer generation I've spoken with, in my extended family, said they vowed never to vote Democrat again after voting Carter and getting the results. Economic issues were the huge factor for that generation, and the results of the big change were evident in Reagan's landslide elections. Obviously some of the switch voters went back to voting Democrat again, but many didn't. It was enough to make a permanent change in voting habits on a large scale.
"After voting Carter and getting the results". Carter inherited Inflation from Nixon & Ford...and it was his policies that ended inflation, they just took until 1983 to make a difference...and the Republicans stole credit. We now know the Right coordinated a false memory field in this era, including folks like pundit George Will. They had no Fox News, but most reporters were very naive about partisanship in their ranks.
Yeah this just seems to play down the role the southern strategy and roe v wade had. Reagan had a huge economic down during his first term and he only got better results.
@@reggiefreeborn2143
Hold on to that thought
On the flip side of that, the majority of Trump voters are between the ages of 41 and 55. They're the ones who have destroyed the Republican party.
Reagan never had full control of Congress despite two landslide wins even taking a massive beating in the 1982 midterm election. Now contrast that to Bidens midterm election where he didn't lose a single seat in the Senate, only lost the House because Florida governor DeSantis redrew the Congressional districts himself to give his party 20 of the 28 districts despite Biden losing the state to Trump by only 3% in 2020. Perhaps the most blatant gerrymandering of any state. A more representative redistricting would have been 15 Republican and 13 Democrat. That would have resulted in Republicans falling short of 5 house seat needed retake the House. Biden also held every Democrat controlled state legislature. This was the first time in 70 years where the incumbent didn't take a midterm beating like Reagan, Clinton, Obama and Trump. Sometimes the country are more into the person than the party like Reagan in 84 and sometimes they agree more with the party than the person like Biden in 2022 midterm.
Mr. Beat thank you for all of your great content over the years. I appreciate your well researched and presented videos and especially your dry sense of humor. You cutting straight to "I'm losing my hair" after finishing the discussion about race based politics had me legitimately laughing out loud. I've heard you're from Lawrence, and I'm only about 25 minutes east in Lenexa! If you have any events coming up I'd love to meet you in person, you've really kept history interesting for me in the last couple of years.
Amazing video as always Mr. Beat! This felt very unbiased and covered a lot of political history that people are not always comfortable recognizing.
Also, around the 8 minute mark I started falling asleep and listening instead of watching. So when you said that thing about paying attention it definitely freaked me out. Thought I was dreaming for a second!
He had to do that or he loses his audience wiht his crap.
Its such an interesting cultural phenomenon we have going on in our time to see people deny the party switch: Acknowledging that the ideology of the Democratic party was conservatism is too embarrassing for conservatives, so they deny the party switch and just say "Democrats", ignoring the conservative thing.
Actually, the Democrat Party had two wings, the Northern and Southern. The Southern was always more conservative and racist in nature. Republicans and the modern Right always leave out that fact.
Its such an interesting cultural phenomenon we have going on in our time to see people deny social evolution. Acknowledging that a modern liberal or conservative is not the same as one from 80 years ago is just too embarrassing for liberals, so they deny social evolution and just say "conservatives", ignoring the fact that nobody today would've supported segregation or slavery despite how the only critique of modern conservatism is that tHeY aRe rAciSts.
This video is so well-timed, I have a test that includes this switch on Monday! Thanks Mr. Beat!
Well that works out. :)
Party Politics used to have more to do with regionality than any ideological divide.
-There used to be liberals and conservatives in the Democratic Party. Typically southern conservative democrats shared a party with northern liberal democrats (George Wallace and Bobby Kennedy shared a political party while having polar opposite beliefs on almost every issue.)
-There used to liberals and conservatives in the Republican Party as well. Barry Goldwater was an Arizona conservative Republican who shared a party with Jacob Javits, a liberal New York Republican. (The modern conservative movement won control of the GOP through the 50s, 60s, and 70s and cemented their grasp on total control of the party with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.)
Issues like The Civil Rights Act and the Vietnam War polarized Americans. The political polarization of the 1960s was the genesis of America being split in half into two national parties split along ideological lines.
It is important to make the distinction that for much of this time from the 60s to as far as Obama, both parties were aligned within somewhat of a liberal consensus, which eventually turned into a neoliberal consensus under the likes of Reagan and Clinton etc.. The more partisan divide centered around cultural issues.
More accurately it is an ethnic, cultural, and ideological divide, not specifically "regional" as in geographic, because Politics is a feature of human beings and not geography.
My religion, the Latter-Day Saints, historically were split pretty evenly between Democrats and Republicans, but were and are Puritan Classical Liberals who favored conservative Democrats and Republicans up until the 1960s (our split between the two parties was in fact completely arbitrary and the result of two halves of wards (congregations) being assigned membership in one party or the other when Utah was adopted as a state in 1896).
In the 1960s however, things changed as a result of the rise of the New Left. The Democrat Party's platform was fundamentally altered by them, and so pretty rapidly the Church's members changed party affiliation to the Republican Party. Today, Latter-Day Saints are one of the ethno-religious groups that are most lopsided in party membership affiliation, being over 70% Republican and over 80% Republican + Lean Independent.
@@GreyWolfLeaderTW You are confused. You are using the word "is" when I'm clearly talking about the past, specifically 1850-1950. It sounds like you are attempting to make a point about the *current* ideological divide in America.
Even still, you are wrong in saying geography is not a factor in deterring someone's likelihood for certain party affiliations, even in the present day. The importance of geography as a determining factor of someone's party affiliation can be seen in the Urban/Rural divide. You are dramatically more likely to be a conservative republican if you live in a. rural area.
There are a number of factors that determine an individual's party affiliation, (geography being one of many).. If you wrote a paper and claimed "politics is a feature of human beings not geography", you would get an F+.. because that statement is meaningless while at the same time being factually incorrect.
In other words, it's hard to say nothing and be wrong at the same time, but you've managed to do just that.
Wayne.. “You are dramatically more likely to be a conservative republican if you live in a. rural area.” That’s because ideologies, big cities versus farmland, align with economic policy differences.
@@amaramzk There are tons of reasons
@@amaramzk I’d say that the polarization between the big cities and small towns has more to do with American politics shifting from emphasizing class conflict to focusing on culture war than anything else.
Fun to watch a Mr. Beat-style summary of the change in party loyalty in the South.
You hear that folks? He said I got style! 😄
What can I say? Your vids are uniquely entertaining from my perspective. 😊
The big takeaway is that the people largely stayed the same. Social conservatives supported whichever party promoted their values. It used to be the Democratic party but overtime new generations of social conservatives supported the Republicans
It happens in most countries that essentially only allow two parties to have winning odds, over time.
I always loved Abraham Lincoln if you want to learn more then go to one of his shot in the back of the head videos
I will always love Mr. Beat for just giving the History and the facts
Thank you for being transparent about why Goldwater didn't support the civil rights act. But you glossed over the role Republicans played in Congress to help pass the act.
With a little research, the actual voting record for both Houses of Congress shows that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed the Senate on a 73-to-27 vote. The Democratic supermajority in the Senate split their vote 46 (69%) for and 21 (31%) against. The Republicans, on the other hand, split their vote 27 for (82%) and 6 against (18%). Thus, the no vote consisted of 78% Democrats. Further, the infamous 74-day filibuster was led by the Southern Democrats, who overwhelmingly voted against the act.
An examination of the House vote shows a similar pattern. The House voted 290 to 130 in favor. Democrats split their vote 152 (61%) to 96 (39%) while Republicans split theirs 138 (80%) to 34 (20%). The no vote consisted of 74% Democrats. Clearly, the 1964 Civil Rights Act could not have been passed without the leadership of Republicans. Keep in mind the Republicans who voted against were likely opposed to issues that granted the federal government too much power and Democrats who opposed likely had some connection to the KKK.
They don't care about history they care about pushing their narrative and looking like an intellectual. The more I studied history the more I realized what a lie it is. It's also ridiculous they would think that Lincoln would be supporting BLM today.
100% correct yet democrats still try and credit themselves. Who did lbj say he would have voting democrat for the next 200 years again?
I think either party using the "Southern Switch" or the "Southern Strategy" as talking points against the opposing party is just not called for. Neither one identifies with what their own party supported one hundred years ago by and large. So why bring it up? It means nothing! It just mucks up political discourse.
i completely agree. we make 0 progress with these kind of arguments
I mean yeah, who cares what people did 100 years ago? We can’t control that.
As a historian I find it fascinating to see how things evolve over time, and seeing how history repeats itself so much. The Southern Strategy is more than just a talking point though as it is something that actually happened. One thing I think the US needs to learn from Germany is that we can't whitewash or ignore history. We hear "white guilt" a lot as an argument for why we shouldn't talk about History (particularly with the way indigenous groups were treated) in the US. Germany really embraced their country's role in the Nazis and make sure that their citizens understand the country's role. A large swath of the US is still engaging in "The Lost Cause" rewriting the history of the Confederacy and the Civil War. We can't learn from the past by trying to ignore it because it makes people uncomfortable.
@@Mzee1084This is the importance of history. We are doomed to repeat mistakes made in the past if we ignore history and their consequences. Like everything we learn through experience, shared or lived.
No... you're wrong. The Southern Strategy is definitely relevant today. And now in August 2024 it should be very evident that this is the case.
Both parties, indeed, "suck all the time." Mr. Beat, you're doing a fine job - keep it up. Your videos are very informative.
Suck all the time?? FDR and JFK say hello to you
I can't believe I got called out for listening while doing dishes. I had to make sure Mr. Beat wasn't in my house.
I’m sure this comment section will be civil and respectful…
Not as bad as I thought. lol
This video was done very well and clear as can be. Thank you so much
Hell I've seen Democrats and Republicans basically switch positions on tariffs in my lifetime
I literally just finished washing dishes and played down with my phone hand! When his said put down those dishes I 😂😂😂😅
A few things:
1. Republicans embraced “state’s rights” to counter the New Deal. FDR had embraced the idea of Herbert Croly for using Hamiltonian means to achieve Jeffersonian ends. Republicans flipped their means as well.
2. There is a competing narrative surrounding the 1968 election called “The Surburban Strategy”. Many of the areas Nixon won in ‘68 were ones that Ike had won twice, so he focused on the peripheral South where there were more suburbs and Republican transplants from the North.
3. The regions rather than the ideologies of the parties switched. To believe otherwise you’d have to think some really strange things about Presidents McKinley, Taft, Harding, and Coolidge as well as party leaders like Senators Aldrich and Lodge Sr. and Speaker Cannon.
No, Republicans advocated States Rights as defined by the 10 Amendment of the Constitution.
@@GreyWolfLeaderTW I would call it State authority or State powers. "States rights" is a bad term because under our constitution, State don't have "rights", they have "powers".
@@GreyWolfLeaderTW The Supremacy Clause of the constitution, which states that the federal government has the ultimate authority over the states, was hotly debated by the founders and has frequently come up, particularly in regards to civil rights for African Americans.
The regions rather than the ideology switched?
"I'll have those blacks voting Democrat for 200 years."
That quote is attributed to LBJ, but it's not verified and most likely made up. However it's something I believe he would've said, or something else to that effect. It just wasn't recorded or written down.
Possibly, but until there is evidence I will hold doubt
Truman and LBJ both said racist things and yet Truman integrated the military and LBJ signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
They actually have Lee Atwater on tape.
@@night6724 Atwater discussed dog whistles? That's the only one we know actually happened.
@@night6724 wow, yeah that's the take from that.... "and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites." This in the context of comparing 1954 to 1968 makes it point well. It trades disparate intent for disparate impact since being out in the open was no longer acceptable
Great video Mr. Beat, I’m now a fan of your channel, I honestly don’t understand why your videos don’t have millions of views & why you don’t have millions of subscribers, keep up the great work man! 👍
Also I just remembered I have a second account so I used it to subscribe to you a SECOND time!
Holy crap, well thanks for subscribing to me twice!
I was actually watching when you asked, thank you very much
The problem seems to lie in our national desire to see everything as a binary. There are regional and ideological nuances to so much of this.
Not national, global
@@jakefromstatefarm6969 There is indeed a global dimension to this being missed. Specifically, that the professional class which used to be the base of support for right-wing parties has been moving Left while the working class which used to be the base of support for left-wing parties has been moving Right. It's expressing itself in various ways in different countries due to how their unique systems are set-up, but it is observable in some form across many if not most Western nations.
@@johnweber4577
Everything you said is definitely observable in the US.
It's nuts how fast it's happening too
Very informative video. I've seen many claims that the switch happened without any evidence beyond people saying 'google the Southern Strategy'. I've done a lot of digging into election results and dominant policies supported at the time and while your take is very informative, I still think it's better to say there was a 'shift' in the parties, rather than a switch. For example, FDR who was president throughout most of the 30s and 40s introduced a great many policies that could be considered 'leftist' today, while the Republican administrations of the 1920s share many parallels with modern Republican rhetoric of small government and states' rights. If somebody walked up to me and suggested that the Democrat party is the party of Coolidge, and the Republican party is the party of FDR, I'd look at them like they're insane, yet this narrative is constantly pushed that it was a complete switch that happened, that the parties completely flipped on every single one of their positions to the position the other one held.
Seems to me more that the Republican party shifted over time to be more socially conservative, while the Democrats shied away from social conservatism a bit. Could say they swapped in terms of that, but that's not the entire picture.
The nomenclature of using "switch," even if unintended, is purposed for the suggestion of Republicans supporting segregation. Nothing more nothing less.
How are the Republicans more socially conservative. Absolutely no Republican of the past would have supported gay marriage, but now there's LGBT Republicans.
If you did not grow up in the South, it is difficult to understand just how much the Civil War was integrated into the Southern identity. I was in the third grade when I realized that the South had lost the war. I always heard that “we” had never lost a war and “we” were the South! Southerners were Democrats only because the Republicans were that Yankee party.
It was the Democratic Party’s move to support civil rights instead of just workers rights that alienated Southerners. For many Southerners they simply could not accommodate the concept of Blacks being equal. This concept was even part of religion.
It took a long time still for many Southerners to identify with that Yankee Party and drop the emphasis of it being that Yankee Party.
As far as the Southern Strategy I would argue that even though some or many 1860’s Republicans supported the abolition of slavery the real issue was more related to Northern economic interest. Notice how the Republicans softened on supporting Black people after they had finished looting the South.
Side Note: I would argue that Nixon won because Nixon promised to end the Vietnam War with Honor (Not Lose it)
I was literally putting up dishes when the little “put down the dishes and watch” bit happened. CREEPED ME OUT! 🤣
Thanks for tackling this. I looked at this years ago informally and came to the same realization. It's great that finally someone is giving this subject the closer look that it deserves in the public eye.
They switched back.
What is this, musical chairs
@@Dom-vo9ni since when?
@@chrisnotpratt1903 Since Obama got selected.
@@Dom-vo9ni that's weird, because no one has ever mentioned that at all. There's people saying the switch never happened and now apparently it did happen, but it switched back? Where did you even get this info from?
I feel like there were two times that the parties “switched” although I think switch is the incorrect term here. Perhaps “drastic changes” is a better phrase. First was in the 1890s when the populist movement started to define Democratic policies rather than the Classical Liberal policies that defined it previously- though some ideas such as low tariffs stayed the same. Those Classical Liberal ideas seemed to gain less traction as years move on, yet many of these policies were adapted by the Republicans. The Republicans in the 1800s were pro-protectionism and pro-business, not very liberal policies. In the early 1900s the Republican and Democratic Parties were dominated by Progressive policies but in the 1920s the Republicans adopted more of those Limited Government, Classical Liberal ideals. This was the first party switch. The second being what you spoke about in the video. I think you should make a video (if you have not already) on what I referred to as the “first party switch”.
Glad to see someone else point this out - both parties didn’t completely abandon their entire ideology in the post-Civil Rights movement switch, it was mostly just social positions. Democrats have been the economically left party and Republicans the economically right one since the 1930s.
It's more like Rural vs. Urban today!
Exactly. Look at the big cities, they are all mostly Democrat and the more rural areas are mostly Republican.
That’s what a lot of people tend to miss. Democrats have pretty much always been powerful in cities, back to the days of Jackson they were the party of laborers and immigrants, and those would grow substantially following the Second Industrial Revolution. The Republicans would lose the brunt of their competitiveness there, aside from the odd victory on a lawn and order platform, when the established Anglo-Saxon Protestant demographic that has served as their political lineage's base back to the Federalist Party was overtaken in numbers. And perhaps even more so after major industry started leaving the cities behind which puts the party traditionally associated with business at a major disadvantage.
1920 would give us the first census that showed that more people were living in urban than rural communities. Gradually, major cities would start to swamp out the other districts of their states in elections. I’d argue that what really happened was that as the South industrialized and modernized it slowly but surely converged with those broader national voting patterns. The states there just don’t have the same number of large cities that can dominate elections. Though that’s not even getting into how people in the late 1970’s started moving into likeminded community en masse to the point we now have more landslide counties than ever before which naturally further solidifies those lines.
@@johnweber4577 the democrats were powerful in some cities but the republicans were powerful in others. Take Philadelphia for example. It was so Republican that it even supported Hoover in 1932. Then in 1936, FDR won it and it never went Republican again. Saint Louis city was also Republican in the early 1900s and New York City would swing between the parties.
I was actually doing dishes and I now think you are magic Mr Beat
Thanks for calling me out Mr. Beat I was literally doing dishes when you told me not too 😂
Just a couple of points of clarification. First, Nixon's strategy wasn't simply the southern strategy. His chief of staff gave an interview where he specifically said he knew they couldn't win all the states in the south because racism was still to strong there but they could win some of them. He was proven correct by Wallace being in the race and winning those states with Nixon winning the others.
Also, Al Gore Sr. wasn't a civil rights champion as you seem to portray him. Go look at the Congressional Quarterly for 1964 and you'll see that Al Gore Jr wasn't the only one who suffered an inconvenient truth. In the end you are right, both parties suck and stopped representing the people they are supposed to long ago.
This is the first video of yours that I have watched, and I am very impressed. You don’t resort to oversimplification and you are easy to listen to. I’m going to check out your other videos now.
Weirdly enough I actually was loading the dishwasher when you said put those dishes down and watch the video. And this video was posted two years ago. Now I’m deeply unsettled but also have several questions about the future
Mr. Beat, I’ve been watching your videos for a few years now. Don’t comment much, but I have to truly commend you for providing accurate historical videos with context. Context matters so much and it’s a shame that professional media outlets lack it
I appreciate that Mosef. Thanks for watching for so long, and your words encourage me to continue to try to get better at this.
@@iammrbeat Your content is great enough, keep it up sir!
@Dr SalTeeNeutsMD somebody didn’t watch the video
@Dr SalTeeNeutsMD The southern strategy was a myth pushed by Democrats and the media to discourage African Americans and other racial minorities from voting for republicans by Libeling theme as racists.
Democrats Today are following the same strategy with voter suppression.
They keep telling Black Americans that photo ID is voter suppression and that Republicans are a bunch of racists trying to suppress their votes and discourage theme from voting for republican candidates and fish for their votes
For 60years 90% of African Americans kept voting for democrats.
Not because they liked their policies but because they believed the Media's lies about republicans being racist people
@@iammrbeat “lowering taxes is racist”
- Mr. Beat
One of the things that I think needs to be made clear when talking about this is:
What the Republican Party of the past did with the Southern strategy, does not mean the Republican Party of today has to use the same principles. Political entities (and politicians) change and adapt, as well as trying to influence the populace in their favor. That's exactly what happened with the switch.
I agree with you that it would not necessarily be the case that the Republican Party of today has the same values and principles as the Republican Party of 1970. That said, it clearly does where racism is concerned. We see the same attempts to disenfranchise Black voters (both by removing polling stations and other forms of access to voting as well as gerrymandering so exact that it will cut streets in half to "crack" Black neighborhoods). We see the same arguments against CRT that were previously used too counter integration. It's very plain that the Republican Party believes that covert racism is a successful political strategy.
@@oremfrien I'm saying arguing from the Republican standpoint to at least acknowledge that the switch happened. Especially with the points in this video, conservative doesn't mean wrong.
@@aaronkuhlman1392 1. the only switch that happen is location as the democrats still view the world in skin color.
2. while the republican is dealing with a rino infection which we are dealing with that.
@@themerchantinblack6157 Just to be clear here... you're arguing that the Democrats are the conservatives, and that those in the deeo south for example, are the true liberals...
And that the Republican Party has people that are Republican in name only?
Just so we're clear here.
@@aaronkuhlman1392 somewhat but allow me to explain with the confusion parts
1. the democrats are not conservatives they got rid of that when they lost control of the south. They adopted the whole end justify the mean mindset in which they turn their support into a cult who will always vote blue no matter what and the whole projecting their racism onto the republican which is know as the party switch conspiracy theory.
2. correct for the republican in name only it just most people like you only know the surface level while people like me are on a deeper level.
I love all of the people in denial about the party switch lol
This is just untrue facts created by liberal trying to prove this fake party switch.
Thank you for being 100 percent factually correct.
Thank you Mr. Beats for stepping into the minefield of history, politics, and social policy.
Not sure if you’re doing this after I suggested it as a video topic when you reacted to the PragerU video on this but thanks for making this!!!
You weren't the only one to suggest it...but...uh...yeah...SURE. :)
This was covered very well. If could have written a piece on this subject it would be “I Don’t Know This to be True, I just Know It’s True. The two groups switched places, but I couldn’t prove it. Thank you.
It’s interesting for example, how the party of farm communities switched from Democrat to Republican. Some things that haven’t changed about the parties are the Republican support of protective tariffs and being more pro-business, and the Democrats being the party of NYC Catholics
These things haven’t changed since the 1860s.
The Republican Party have not always supported protective tariffs. Have you heard of the past 40 years in American history? ;)
@@iammrbeat I've been exposed as a Canadian
Another interesting one is how the idea of Democrats in big cities being corrupt may be the result of lingering suspicion due to things like Tammany hall in addition to the dog whistle racism aspect.
Mr. Beat learn more about him
@@historystuff2215 nah it's just that there's no Opposition as Republican Idealogy isn't strong in cities and for some reason alternative parties aren't organized
My understanding is the southern democrats used to to be super socially conservative but economically left wing, like with candidates like Huey Long.
Yes
My favorite thing about Republicans is when they claim they can’t be racist because Lincoln was a Republican. Amazing how quickly people can help inform on whether or not you should take anything they say seriously.
oh oh oh... now do affirmative action. You can't be racist because you alleviate your white guilt by helping people you think you are superior have a better life because you don't think they can actually do better if they were asked to meet the challenge of standards.
literally no republican says that ever. Amazing how I can figure out that you care more about "owning the conservatives" than having an actual discussion and recognizing that the truth isnt black and white
BS
@@nooblord1233 they actually do lol. They say republicans freed the slaves
@@gballdadon312 which they did actually but thats not the point of the original comment anyway
Usually when UA-camrs try to “catch me/call me out” it never works but damn you made me lock in