Guest Commentary
by Michael Schwartz
I have never seen this message better stated than in this video. Louisiana State Senator Guillory’s defection from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party is an important event. It’s an opportunity for Republicans to set history straight and introduce our vision of our country’s future to a new generation of voters. In order to represent our vision, we need to know the facts.
I’ve had conversations with left-leaning friends and read articles by left-leaning authors who have no problem stating matter-of-factly that Republicans are the racist party. When you point out the horrible and racist history of the Democratic Party, their response tends to be along the lines of, “they used to be, but then they all went out and re-registered as Republicans”. Let’s take a look at some numbers and events to see if their claim stands up to reason.
The 1964 Civil Rights Act was the final version of a piece of federal legislation that made it illegal to discriminate based on race, color, national origin, or sex. It was the federal law that made it illegal to have “white only” restaurants and made it illegal to fire someone because they are African American. The act, in effect, ended the Jim Crow laws passed by Democrats in the 19th century which were still being enforced in the 1960s. Here is the text of the law.
A whopping 31% of Democrats in the U.S. Senate voted against the law and 37% of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives voted against it. But these numbers do not tell the whole story. Democratic leadership in key Senate committees like the Judiciary Committee and Rules Committee made attempts to prevent a vote on the bill. Fortunately they were unsuccessful, but after the bill made it to Senate floor, 18 Democrats and 1 Republican attempted a filibuster. Eventually a watered-down bill was offered and it gained enough votes to break the 14+ hour filibuster being performed by Democratic Senator Robert Byrd. Getting this landmark legislation passed was a task and the difficulty was due almost entirely to segregationist, racist Democrats.
Once the history of the 1964 Civil Rights Act is heard, the response from the left is usually along the lines of “yeah, but now all the racist, southern states are the ‘red states’ who all stopped voting for Democrats years ago.”
Let’s look at how Republican the so-called “red states” really are. Take a look at the number of elected governors in 10 southern states in the post-Civil War era since the mid-1860s:
• Mississippi has elected 6 Republican governors (three in a row after the Civil War and only three since 1992) and 30 Democratic governors.
• Florida has elected 8 Republican governors (depending on what you call Crist, it is 7) and 29 Democratic governors.
• Georgia has elected 4 Republican governors (2 directly following the Civil War and only 2 since 2003) and 38 Democratic governors.
• Texas has elected 6 Republican governors (2 directly following the Civil War and only 4 since 1980) and 30 Democratic governors.
• Louisiana has elected 10 Republican governors (4 were right after the Civil War and only 3 since 1991) and 33 Democratic governors.
• Tennessee has elected 10 Republican governors (3 directly after the Civil War and only 4 since 1975) and 28 Democratic governors.
• South Carolina has elected 8 Republican governors (3 directly after the Civil Ware and only 5 since 1979) and 36 Democratic governors.
• Kentucky has elected 8 Republican governors (only two Republicans since 1950) and 30 Democratic governors.
• Arkansas has elected 7 Republican governors (4 directly following the Civil War and only 2 since 1981) and 38 Democratic governors.
• Alabama has elected 6 Republican governors (2 right after the Civil War and only 4 since 1987) and 36 Democratic governors; including George Wallace 3 different times and his wife once)
I picked governors because that means a statewide election, unaffected by gerrymandered districts. It is important to know that these same states during the same time period had state legislatures mostly controlled by Democrats and federal representation to the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate that was mostly Democratic. There is a pattern, clearly.
So by this point in the discussion I usually hear, “well…that was true before Nixon and his ‘southern strategy’ when all the disenfranchised racist Democrats went out and re-registered as Republicans to vote for Nixon which is how the Republicans won the south.”
A closer look at presidential races since the 1960s simply doesn’t show this to be the case. But before I jump into the numbers, the 1964 Civil Rights Act was indisputably championed by the Republican Party. Does it logically make sense that racist Democrats became frustrated with the Democratic Party when they opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, so they quit in order to join the Republican Party. which was responsible for the 1964 Civil Rights Act victory?
No. Maybe support a third party, but not side with their enemy.
And that’s exactly what happened. Undisputed racist and Democratic governor of Alabama George Wallace, after a failed attempt to run for president in 1964, ran in 1968 as the American Independent Party nominee on a purely segregationist platform. His campaign split the Democratic Party votes in southern states allowing Nixon to win the race despite that Texas broke Democratic. Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia voted for American Independence Party candidate George Wallace because Democrats liked his racist message. The Democratic control of the south was split by heavy support for Wallace by Democrats in states like Tennessee, Missouri, and both Carolinas allowing Nixon to win in states that were historically Democratic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ElectoralCollege1968.svg
So was the 1964 Civil Rights Act and Nixon’s supposed “southern strategy” the end of Democrats in the south? Not even close. The next elected president after Nixon was southern Democrat Jimmy Carter who won the entire south in the general election. Followed by Reagan and Bush, who nobody would claim benefited from race issues, but benefited from President Carter’s failed economic and foreign affairs policies. By the 1994 Republican takeover of congress (under another southern Democratic president Bill Clinton), a generation had passed since the 1964 Civil Rights Act and George Wallace’s campaign. President Clinton attributed much of the credit of the 1994 takeover to the “NRA having a great night” and the Republican’s Contract with America; not resentment of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The 1994 Republican victory was the first time Republicans had controlled the House of Representatives since 1954, due to the popularity of southern Democrats for decades. In 1980 Republicans took control of the Senate, beating out Senate Democrats led by KKK member Sen. Robert Byrd, a southern Democrat. Sen. Byrd was the Senate Majority leader throughout the 1970s and again when Democrats took back the Senate in 1987.
“He once had a fleeting association with the Ku Klux Klan, what does that mean? I’ll tell you what it means. He was a country boy from the hills and hollows from West Virginia. He was trying to get elected,” former President Bill Clinton said of Sen. Robert Byrd at the senator’s memorial service. Sen. Byrd was strongly opposed to the 1964 Civil Rights Act and refused to vote to confirm Supreme Court nominees Thurgood Marshall and Clearance Thomas. Sen. Byrd was the man Democrats chose to lead Senate Democrats for decades. Considering his record and the fact that Sen. Byrd made it to Klan leadership holding titles of “Kleagle” and “Exalted Cyclops”, it seems unlikely Sen. Byrd simply “was trying to get elected” as Clinton stated. Maybe it depends on what the definition of “was” was?
To be clear, what I am not saying is that all Democrats are racist. What I am saying is that their history, near and far, is racist and it is due to their tendencies towards a collectivist, political philosophy that sees people as groups to be controlled as opposed to seeing individuals with unalienable rights.
Sen. Guillory’s message is important. Don’t use his message to argue with Democrats who won’t change their mind anyway. Sen. Guillory’s message isn’t going to turn more Democrats. Most are too entrenched. Use the information regarding political philosophy, what it led to historically, and how it manifests itself today to reach out to new voters. It can convince fence-sitters that the Republican Party is best for their future. This is an opportunity to tell the poor, tired, huddled masses that judging by history, if they continue to vote Democratic, poor, tired, and huddled is all they will ever be.
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Michael Schwartz is a Republican.
Comments 19
“To be clear, what I am not saying is that all Democrats are racist. What I am saying is that their history, near and far, is racist and it is due to their tendencies towards a collectivist, political philosophy that sees people as groups to be controlled as opposed to seeing individuals with unalienable rights.”
That about nails it. Racists register Republican as well but policy differences between the parties, by and large, show that Republicans favor equality of humans while Democrats feel that some humans just aren’t as equal as others.
Nice!
All or almost all of the Democrats who voted against the Civil Rights Act represented the South. The people who put those representatives in office now vote overwhelmingly Republican.
If you don’t believe the South changed when the Civil Rights Act passed, please look at (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_South).
Check out the chart on Presidential elections and tell me that the South didn’t do a complete 180.
“Hypocrisy questioned says:
June 24, 2013 at 5:17 pm
Michael,
Those racist Democrats you refer to all re-registered as Republicans the day after Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law. They and their heirs are still Republicans today.”
Above was your original claim, Hypocrisy. Can you show evidence of a spike in registered Republicans in the south that matches a decline in Democratic registration?
If you can find this information, can you then explain why these supposed newly registered Republicans continued to vote for Democratic governors, senators, representatives, and presidential candidates like Carter and Clinton? And Wallace?
Yes, I can definitely see in the wiki chart that as the south has gotten less and less racist, it has voted more and more Republican. Thanks for sharing that.
Also, some of the “northern” states whose reps supported the act, have since voted more and more Democratic.
Does that make them racist?
Brad,
“Yes, I can definitely see in the wiki chart that as the south has gotten less and less racist, it has voted more and more Republican.”
Who is being Orwellian now?
Michael,
“…can you then explain why these supposed newly registered Republicans continued to vote for Democratic governors, senators, representatives…?”
Two reasons:
1. The same reason everyone hates Congress but keeps voting for their own congressman. We like the people we know and incumbency is a powerful thing.
2. None of those governors, senators or representatives voted for the Civil Rights Act. The turnover didn’t take place until those particular representatives retired.
As for the Presidential voting, the people you named were all southerners. Of course, they were going to get votes running against a Yankee. And even still, except for 1976, the Republican still won more southern states than the favorite son.
Not I, since I was being facetious. You on the other hand are trying to make a serious correlation when in actuality there could be several factors involved. The most obvious is a conservative constituency seeing the Democrats as increasingly more liberal and therefore shifting allegiance. Please do respond to this by saying I made your point, so all will see the proof that you believe conservative and racist are one in the same.
Hypocrisy, then why’d they run out and change their registration and the registration of their heirs to Republican if they weren’t mad at their Democrat representatives?
And could you produce that source showing the spike in Republican registration in 1964-65 compared to the dip in Democratic registration?
Since you are focused on the presidential races…which president was elected by racist former Democrats who re-registered as Republicans? It wasn’t Nixon. Wallace spilt the vote which gave him a victory over the Dems in the south. It wasn’t Carter. He was a Dem supported by southern Dems.
Was it Reagan that was swept into office by legions of people still mad about the CRA 16 years earlier?
There really hasn’t been a huge shift in the southern states. A shift, but not huge. It seems to have had far more to do with the religious going to the Republican Party, the Contract with America from the Republican Party, and Republicans protecting gun rights. Nothing to do with race issues at all.
Throughout the last half of the 20th century, southern states voted for Democrats. Period. There really is no case to be made otherwise.
Michael,
I can’t make you see what you don’t want to and frankly I have given up trying, but somewhere along the way you need to ask why the only demographic a Republican Presidential candidate seems capable of winning is the white male vote; the other demographics aren’t even close.
Your last two comments that there hasn’t been a huge shift in the South and that Southern states have voted for Democrats throughout the last half of the 20th century also need a fact check because they just aren’t true. From the same Wikipedia chart:
From 1876 – 1964 (the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1965), a Southern state voted for the Democratic Presidential candidate 263 times, the Republican candidate 45 times and the independent 6 times.
From 1968 – 1996, a Southern state voted for the Democratic Presidential Candidate (and all but two of the votes were for Southerners) 27 times, the Republican candidate 80 times and the independent 5 times.
That is a huge shift. One final point, if it were true that Democrats were the racists and not that it was a Southerners thing, then why did all of the Northern Democrats (and Northern Republicans too) vote in favor of the Civil Rights Act?
I will leave you to debate amongst yourselves and hope you figure out a way to get more than 30% of the minority vote in the next election.
Hypocrisy, you’re not able to back up your claim?
“…could you produce that source showing the spike in Republican registration in 1964-65 compared to the dip in Democratic registration?”
Or explain your assertion? “…which president was elected by racist former Democrats who re-registered as Republicans? It wasn’t Nixon. Wallace spilt the vote which gave him a victory over the Dems in the south. It wasn’t Carter. He was a Dem supported by southern Dems.
Was it Reagan that was swept into office by legions of people still mad about the CRA 16 years earlier?”
As for the fact check…did you see the numbers regarding the governors I posted? Georgia has 5 Democrats in the House. Florida has a Dem senator and 10 Dems in the south. Louisiana has a Dem senator and a dem in the House. Arkansas has a Dem governor and a Dem senator. Both of Virginia’s senstors are Dems. West Virginia has a Dem governor, two Dem senators, and 1 of their 2 reps in the House is a Dem.
After you back up your claim, we can debate over degree, but even after 50 years this doesn’t appear to be a major shift. And the last 50 years, as I pointed out, have been pretty Democrat blue for the southern states.
Michael,
As you probably know, many states (and most of the South) do not keep voter registration by political party. (http://www.ask.com/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_U.S._states), but let’s look at that same article while pointing out that your examples of Southern Democratic elected officials was simply the exception proving the rule. Here are the complete statistics:
1. Every Southern state’s congressional delegation is majority Republican. The totals are 114 Republicans and 44 Democrats.
2. 12 of the 14 Southern states have majority Republican legislators in both their upper and lower state houses. In total 12 of 14 lower houses and 13 of 14 upper houses are majority Republican.
3. 22 of 28 Southern U.S. Senators are Republican.
4. 11 of 14 Southern Governors are Republican.
I grow weary of trying to convince you that 2+2=4 so I will leave you with this and then give you the last word: Mitt Romney captured 29% of the Hispanic vote, 27% of the Asian vote at 7% of the African American vote. He also only captured 45% of the female vote. You have a problem and no amount of denial is going to change it.
So Hypocrisy, just to be clear, your original claim that all the racist Dems in the south went out and registered Republican (heirs too) in 1964 was totally without any basis or proof? I want to make sure we make that clear. Because it’s a common misconception on the left
.
It’s important that Republicans remember and talk about history while we sell our vision of the future. We changed the south a generation after the Democrat’s Jim Crow south and we did it through clear leadership and a vision. (The Contract with America) A vision the south couldn’t see through their racism which had a home in the Democratic Party. And our kind of leadership and vision will win over the rest of the country to help bring back a respect for an individuals rights that the collective left will never have.
Michael,
Just to be clear, most Southern states do not keep registration numbers by party. However, I have provided more than ample data showing that the Southern voters who voted for racist Democrats (your characterization, not mine) starting voting overwhelmingly Republican after the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
Just to be clear, the heirs of those Southern voters still vote overwhelmingly Republican.
Just to be clear, you have been so hung up on my use of the word “registered” instead of “voted” that you have refused to address any of my points.
Just to be clear, the Republican Party has a huge problem with minorities and no attempt to re-write history or deny reality is going to change that.
Have a good weekend. Your Nero impersonation has become boring.
Hypocrisy is the perfect example of someone being too entrenched to change his views even when facts are right in front of him. He had no evidence for his factually untrue claim that after and as a result of the 1964 CRA racist Democrats all went out and registered as Republicans. I’m sure he read it on Salon.com or watched it on MSNBC, but he didn’t come to this conclusion from his own research like I did nor does he chose to believe it because it’s truth and factual. It fits his needs and helps advance his agenda.
So now, if I’m understanding him, his new claim (after he admits there is no record of a mass re-registration in the mid to late 60s in the south) is that if you ignore every election except the presidential elections, remove presidents who won that were southern Democrats, pretend Wallace didn’t exist, and only pay attention to how southern states have voted in the last two years….then the south is solid red and has been since 1964.
Uhm…good point.
The problem is reality. The reality that the south (especially the racist south) continued to vote for Democrats for a full 30 years after the CRA. Republicans have had an influence on the south since the 90s as the country became less racist. As the LA State Senator in the video above pointed out and Hypocrisy shows here, Dems continue to segregate voters and look at them as percentages and colors.
Republicans have shown in the past that when we respect the rights, liberties, and freedoms of individuals and have a vision for our country, we gain voters. Leave dicing the population into groups and pitting them against each other to the Democrats.
It ain’t just Michael saying this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3LqPedoxSk&feature=player_embedded#at=212
Too much talk about parties and not philosophy.
It was the liberal wing of the Democratic Party that ended segregation.
Bill, while Democrats had an internal philosophical debate over whether or not racism is right, Republicans, as a party, were united against it philosophically. Because of their views on individual rights.
Thanks for pointing that out.