The "But Sometime in the 60's, the Parties Switched" Meme

Very often, when a typical modern lib actually pays attention to me when I point out which party is actually the party of Racism, they will come back with, "yeah, but sometime in the 60's the parties switched sides."

They offer no explanation of why or how this supposedly happened.  Apparently, it's just a mystery.  One we just should take their word for, too.

I have an explanation for what happened.  But it's not what they say happened.

What happened was after the Republicans were successful in passing civil rights legislation in the 1960's, the Democratic Party stopped officially championing racism.

This didn't make racists disappear overnight.

Since the 1930's, however, the progressive wing of the Democratic party had worked very hard at carving out demographics for special treatment by the government -- to woo their votes.   One of these demographics was, and is, our Afro-American brethren.

Republicans, named after the ideal of a Republic, which is a Constitutionally confined democracy with built-in checks and balances to protect the people from government, primarily, but also to protect the people from misgoverning themselves ... began with the root ideals of equal protection under the law.   Their goal was to free our brothers from the burden of unequal protection.

When Republicans overwhelmingly passed Civil Rights legislation in the 1960's over the Democrats' efforts and against the racists desires, the racists had to make an ironic choice.  Go with the people who wanted to grant the people they hated special treatment under the law, or go with the people who championed equal treatment under the law.  That was their choice.

The parties didn't switch sides.  Many of the dwindling number of racists may have.  But ... why?

I happen to know some people who are very staunch Democrats today who are clearly quite racist.  But I'd say for the most part a majority of the racists probably jumped from the Democratic party to the Republican party for the reason described above.

This was a step up for them, whether they meant it to be or not.

Because now they had to align themselves with people whose core beliefs (I know, Republicans aren't a party of saints -- they stray from it, but it remains a core principle) are rooted in equal protection and equal treatment.

The Democrats remain the party of unequal treatment.  They're primarily the ones who want us split into factions they can pit against one another to create artificial coalitions that end up serving nobody's long-term interests but the politicians themselves.

So yeah, we got racists on our side of the street now, but they joined us, we didn't join them.  And to join us, they're going to have to alter their behavior, because we won't tolerate behavior contrary to our principles.  That is not to say we won't tolerate people.   But we won't tolerate the behavior.

Love the sinner, hate the sin.

Like I said, it's a step up for them.