The Democratic Party moved way out to the Left, causing Southern whites, Cold War hawks, and pro-life Catholics to become Republicans. The rest is history. Isn't it? Er, no, actually, it isn't.
Southern white Democrats were by no means all segregationists and white supremacists, and those who were, as such, had no particular reason to become Republicans in or after the 1960s. It had never bothered them much before, and the Democrats had had a Civil Rights plank since as long ago as 1948, when Strom Thurmond had run against Truman as a Dixiecrat for precisely that reason.
Nevertheless, a higher proportion of Congressional Republicans than of Congressional Democrats had supported the Civil Rights Act, and anyone who voted for Nixon on the wrong side of the race issue must have been very naive indeed. In accordance with his record, Nixon in office vigorously pursued desegregation.
That section of opinion might have fallen out of the Democratic Party. But it has never been given the slightest cause to fall into the Republican Party. Say what you like about the Republicans, but they have never made the tiniest effort to permit the return of Jim Crow, instead providing two black Secretaries of State, which is two more than the Democrats have ever managed.
For good, old-fashioned race-baiting, see instead Bobby Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and both of the Clintons well into the present century. Watch out for some more of it, if need be, in 2016.
Nevertheless, a higher proportion of Congressional Republicans than of Congressional Democrats had supported the Civil Rights Act, and anyone who voted for Nixon on the wrong side of the race issue must have been very naive indeed. In accordance with his record, Nixon in office vigorously pursued desegregation.
That section of opinion might have fallen out of the Democratic Party. But it has never been given the slightest cause to fall into the Republican Party. Say what you like about the Republicans, but they have never made the tiniest effort to permit the return of Jim Crow, instead providing two black Secretaries of State, which is two more than the Democrats have ever managed.
For good, old-fashioned race-baiting, see instead Bobby Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and both of the Clintons well into the present century. Watch out for some more of it, if need be, in 2016.
There was no reason for diehard Cold Warriors to vote for Nixon rather than Humphrey, little reason for them to vote for Nixon rather than even McGovern (especially once he had balanced his ticket), and none whatever for them to vote for Ford rather than Carter. In the last case, quite the reverse, in fact; the same was true of those whose hawkishness was fiscal.
And there was, so to speak, no conceivable reason for pro-lifers, as such, to become Republicans rather than Democrats in or since the 1970s. Look at the judges who handed down Roe v. Wade. Harry Blackmun, the ruling's author, had been appointed by Nixon. Warren E. Burger by Nixon. William O. Douglas by Roosevelt. William J. Brennan by Eisenhower. Potter Stewart by Eisenhower. Thurgood Marshall by Johnson. And Lewis Powell by Nixon.
Even take out the two Democratic nominees, and that still gives a Republican majority in favour of what was in fact the overturning of the laws of all 50 states. In stark contrast, one of the dissenting judges, Byron White, had been appointed by a Democrat, Kennedy, while the other, William Rehnquist, had been appointed by a Republican, Nixon.
No one found that remotely odd at the time. No one who had bothered to pay attention would find it remotely odd from the perspective of the present day.
Nixon, by Executive Order, first legalised abortion at the federal taxpayer's expense. Whereas it was Carter who signed into law the Hyde Amendment banning it, which, although Henry Hyde himself was very conservative Republican, had been passed by a Congress both Houses of which had been under Democratic control at the time. That Amendment has never failed to receive its necessary annual renewal by both Houses.
In 1976, Ellen McCormack, a strongly pro-life Democrat, became the first woman Presidential candidate ever to qualify for matching federal funding and for Secret Service protection. If there is not one already, and I should be delighted to hear of it if there were, then someone needs to write a full biography of Ellen McCormack.
(Someone also needs to do a "Whatever happened to each of them and to what each of them stood for?" study of the eight candidates whose names were placed in nomination for Vice President at the 1972 Democratic Convention.)
Both of McGovern's running mates were pro-life. Whereas Nelson Rockefeller legalised abortion in New York. Ronald Reagan, who to this day retains a totally undeserved pro-life reputation, legalised abortion in California. Reagan, like Bush the Younger after him, proved to be worse than useless when it came to appointing pro-lifers to the Supreme Court, not even trying to do so on two of the three occasions when the opportunity presented itself to him.
Thus, in 1993, when Planned Parenthood sued the staunchly pro-life Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania, whose son is now a staunchly pro-life Democratic Senator for that state and made his case without difficulty from the platform of the 2008 Convention, over that state's very moderate legal restrictions on abortion, Planned Parenthood's case was upheld by a court every member of which had been appointed by a Republican President, including three by Reagan, apart from Byron White, who had dissented in 1973 and who was still dissenting 20 years later.
Eight Republicans out of nine judges. A third of the court appointed by Reagan. And before that court, Planned Parenthood beat Bob Casey, the Democrat who sought to uphold democracy in Pennsylvania. Of course. All round: of course.
RomneyCare provided and provides for state taxpayer-funded abortion from which, through Bain Capital, Romney continues to derive an income. But ObamaCare repeats and strengthens the 1977, Democratic-enacted ban on federal taxpayer-funded abortion. It does so thanks to the efforts of Bart Stupak, a Democrat.
No one found that remotely odd at the time. No one who had bothered to pay attention would find it remotely odd from the perspective of the present day.
Nixon, by Executive Order, first legalised abortion at the federal taxpayer's expense. Whereas it was Carter who signed into law the Hyde Amendment banning it, which, although Henry Hyde himself was very conservative Republican, had been passed by a Congress both Houses of which had been under Democratic control at the time. That Amendment has never failed to receive its necessary annual renewal by both Houses.
In 1976, Ellen McCormack, a strongly pro-life Democrat, became the first woman Presidential candidate ever to qualify for matching federal funding and for Secret Service protection. If there is not one already, and I should be delighted to hear of it if there were, then someone needs to write a full biography of Ellen McCormack.
(Someone also needs to do a "Whatever happened to each of them and to what each of them stood for?" study of the eight candidates whose names were placed in nomination for Vice President at the 1972 Democratic Convention.)
Both of McGovern's running mates were pro-life. Whereas Nelson Rockefeller legalised abortion in New York. Ronald Reagan, who to this day retains a totally undeserved pro-life reputation, legalised abortion in California. Reagan, like Bush the Younger after him, proved to be worse than useless when it came to appointing pro-lifers to the Supreme Court, not even trying to do so on two of the three occasions when the opportunity presented itself to him.
Thus, in 1993, when Planned Parenthood sued the staunchly pro-life Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania, whose son is now a staunchly pro-life Democratic Senator for that state and made his case without difficulty from the platform of the 2008 Convention, over that state's very moderate legal restrictions on abortion, Planned Parenthood's case was upheld by a court every member of which had been appointed by a Republican President, including three by Reagan, apart from Byron White, who had dissented in 1973 and who was still dissenting 20 years later.
Eight Republicans out of nine judges. A third of the court appointed by Reagan. And before that court, Planned Parenthood beat Bob Casey, the Democrat who sought to uphold democracy in Pennsylvania. Of course. All round: of course.
RomneyCare provided and provides for state taxpayer-funded abortion from which, through Bain Capital, Romney continues to derive an income. But ObamaCare repeats and strengthens the 1977, Democratic-enacted ban on federal taxpayer-funded abortion. It does so thanks to the efforts of Bart Stupak, a Democrat.
Or consider Joe Biden. He was already a United States Senator before the judgement
in Roe v. Wade. During 36 years in the Senate, he voted to overturn that
judgement by means of an amendment to the Constitution, he voted year
on year to renew the Hyde Amendment banning federal funding of abortion,
he voted against rape and incest exceptions until Hyde himself
was forced to accept them rather than see that renewal vetoed by Bill
Clinton (meaning that Biden has never actually cast a vote in favour of
them), he voted to ban partial-birth abortion, he voted to overturn both
of Clinton's vetoes of that ban, and he voted to recognise as
legally protected persons those infants who survived abortion. That is Biden's record, still unchanged in terms of votes cast.
But there is something beyond all of this. The Democrats were not wiped out in the South by the Civil Rights Act or by anything else. The Democrats were not wiped out in Middle America by Reagan's rhetorical Cold War hardness, which bore no resemblance to his actions in office in his second term, or by anything else. The Democrats, as the very fact of the Caseys 20 years ago and today illustrates, were not wiped out in the Northern Catholic citadels by abortion or by anything else.
The
Democratic Party controlled the House continuously from 1955 to 1995.
It controlled the Senate for most of that period, and it has done so for
much of the period since, including at the present time. It has won the
Presidency on four of the six occasions since Reagan retired, and the
popular vote on five of them.
But there is something beyond all of this. The Democrats were not wiped out in the South by the Civil Rights Act or by anything else. The Democrats were not wiped out in Middle America by Reagan's rhetorical Cold War hardness, which bore no resemblance to his actions in office in his second term, or by anything else. The Democrats, as the very fact of the Caseys 20 years ago and today illustrates, were not wiped out in the Northern Catholic citadels by abortion or by anything else.
Nixon Democrats, Reagan Democrats and, insofar as they existed, Bush Democrats were still Democrats, and they still are. There has never ceased to be a natural Democratic majority, and Southern white populists, who have adjusted perfectly well to the racially inclusive polity that many of them always foresaw and which some of them actively pioneered, have never ceased to be part of it, indeed a key part of it. The same is true, and if anything even truer, of Northern urban and now ex-urban Catholics.
Alas, those Cold War hawks were Democrats also mostly remained in the fold all the way through the Clinton years, doing immense damage to the party, to America and to the world along the way. They transferred to the GOP under Bush, and every step must be taken to ensure that they never come back in the guise in which they now present themselves, with their beating of the drum of war against all and sundry.
Just as the economic views of the paleoconservative movement that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union have no conceivable audience in the Republican Party but every hope of such among the Democrats, so the same is also true of the foreign policy views, and with both of the cultural views: the uncompromisingly pro-life, pro-family and patriotic case against global capitalism and its wars.
Those views, articulated or otherwise these days, define an indispensable section of a potentially permanent majority. On my knees, I beg the Democratic Party not to nominate Hillary Clinton.
Alas, those Cold War hawks were Democrats also mostly remained in the fold all the way through the Clinton years, doing immense damage to the party, to America and to the world along the way. They transferred to the GOP under Bush, and every step must be taken to ensure that they never come back in the guise in which they now present themselves, with their beating of the drum of war against all and sundry.
Just as the economic views of the paleoconservative movement that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union have no conceivable audience in the Republican Party but every hope of such among the Democrats, so the same is also true of the foreign policy views, and with both of the cultural views: the uncompromisingly pro-life, pro-family and patriotic case against global capitalism and its wars.
Those views, articulated or otherwise these days, define an indispensable section of a potentially permanent majority. On my knees, I beg the Democratic Party not to nominate Hillary Clinton.
Dave, if you think pro-life or pro-family views would ever get any hearing in the Democrats, you know nothing about American politics.
ReplyDeleteThe feminist lobby is fastened to the Democrata and the (single) female vote is America's fastest-growing demographic. And it is all going to the Democrats ( unmarried women, the most likely to have abortions, swung it for Obama in 2012).
You know nothing about this issue-politics is tribal in America, and the left-wing liberal pro-abortion tribe are passionately pro-Democrat. Always will be. And the Democrats will always reflect that, Hillary or no Hillary.
I think this post suffers from taking examples of people who began political and judicial careers in the 40s and 50s and suggesting that voters today should make decisions based on a political culture that has not existed already for a 2-3 decades.
ReplyDelete1. The DP moved way to the Left on social issues, though the death of socially conservative Democrats was reported far too early.
1b. Even if it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, it is indisputably accurate today, look at Congress, there are only a handful of socially conservative Democrats remaining, especially after 2010. Of course there were plenty through the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, but they just can't get elected anymore.
2. The Democrats did have a civil rights plank going back to 1948, it's true, but they did not act on it outside the federal sphere until the 60s (and during this time, it was the Eisenhower administration that intervened in Arkansas in 1957). Also note that Strom Thurmond was one of the *first* converts to the GOP. The first wave of Republicanism in the South hit like lightning in 1964 when Goldwater won huge majorities in the Deep South (e.g., Alabama went from 8 Dems 0 Reps in its House delegation to 3-5 Republican). Goldwater did not believe in racialism, but did strongly support states' rights and that was enough for Southerners. Most new Republican congressmen lost in 1966 or the elections soon thereafter.
3. You are right about Nixon and desegregation - Nixon simply changed his rhetoric (mainly through surrogates) for electoral advantage. The problem here is that, while Southern Whites used to be relatively pro-government intervention and had little reason to vote for a party growing close to Milton Friedman, they were driven by hatred not per se of Blacks generally but of radical Black, New Left, and culturally liberal activists who had no relationship at all to the GOP (even the neocons were still Democrats or Socialists at this stage).
This is the same as today - maybe the GOP does not deliver on social issues but radical gay rights and abortion rights activists are only found in the Democratic Party today.
4) I don't think many diehard Cold Warriors did defect to Nixon from HHH, they defected in 1972 with McGovern, an open dove (at that point). If ethnic anti-communist Catholics had defected in 1968 then, taken together with the Wallace defectors, the Democrats would have been absolutely routed, not just beaten by 0.7%. In fact, it might be more likely that some (Eugene) McCarthyite doves defected to Nixon in 68.
As for Carter, he won carrying much of the Southeast and Northeast and losing the West. This, combined with some well-known electoral studies, shows he did particularly well among social conservatives and badly among more libertarian middle class, suburbanite folk (disproportionately found out West).
5) I get the point about Roe v. Wade for the year of Roe v. Wade. The problem is now say with the GOP you have a 50% or so chance of getting a socially conservative justice...with the contemporary Democrats the chance is 0%.
You are being entirely unfair to Nixon - he only appointed Blackmun after (the Democratic) Senate rejected two conservatives.
I apologise I do not have a link for this - I found it some years ago in a PoliSci academic journal - Congressional votes on abortion show immediate revulsion by about 3/4 of both parties' Congressmen right after Roe v. Wade but the quick movement of most Democrats to a pro-choice position within a few elections thereafter. So, there you go, differences on abortion may be superficial but they are not an illusion.
6) Ellen McCormick was a totally irrelevant candidate - she received very few votes and came close to winning zero primaries. Gov. Askew of Florida ran as a pro-life candidate in 84 but got basically no votes. By 1988, Gore and Gephardt had already switched positions on abortion - there have been no serious pro-life candidates since then, though I guess Lyndon LaRouche has won a few delegates and had them stolen...
ReplyDelete7) Yes, Rockefeller signed a very liberal abortion law in NY. Rockefeller Republicans have largely become (New) Democrats.
8) "There has never ceased to be a natural Democratic majority, and Southern white populists, who have adjusted perfectly well to the racially inclusive polity that many of them always foresaw and which some of them actively pioneered, have never ceased to be part of it"
---Yes, I am afraid they have. The Southern rebellion against the Democrats started in the suburbs, then spread to the coastal lowland rural areas, and just recently hit Appalachia and the Ozarks. Look, if Romney, a pro-choice Yankee Mormon hedge fund hyena, can win a coal-mining state like West Virginia by 27 points, the (national) Democrats are **DONE** there. Shifts in state politics started in the Nu-South states like NC, GA, and FL, more recently spread to the Deep South (LA, MS, AL), and will take KY and WV soon.
The "natural Democratic majority" could have been maintained if the Democrats had just been a little less economically and socially liberal (in the European senses), but now a new natural majority is forming based on Blacks-Hispanics-feminists-yuppies/hipsters-public sector workers. Social conservatives of whatever economic persuasion have no place here.
8b) The demographic outlook for socially conservative Democrats is awful. Yes, there are Blacks and some Hispanics (< who are pro-life but pro-gay) yet almost their entire political leadership at the national level is entirely culturally liberal. Among the White Democrats remaining, just doing some basic math shows they must be only 10-15% pro-life, then if you just look at younger voters, probably 5-10%.
ReplyDelete9) "Just as the economic views of the paleoconservative movement that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union have no conceivable audience in the Republican Party but every hope of such among the Democrats"
---It is true that such views would be more tolerated in the House Democratic Caucus than in the House Republican Caucus, but they are more common among Republican *voters*. I can refer you to all Pew Research Center political typologies since the 1990s - Republican voters are more protectionist and a large number are wholesale economic populists. The problem is these people do not run for Congress and would not get the funding necessary to win primaries.
10) "so the same is also true of the foreign policy views, and with both of the cultural views: the uncompromisingly pro-life, pro-family and patriotic case against global capitalism and its wars"
---No, foreign policy views fluctuate depending on which party is in power. Under Clinton and now Obama, Republican voters are less interventionist. Under Bush, they were markedly more.
As for global capitalism, there is a degree of resistance among voters from both parties about equally. I can refer you to some recent polls about whether people prefer 'capitalism' or 'socialism' and negative/positive perceptions of these and other concepts and ideologies. The result shows that while there is a clear partisan split over socialism, what you see otherwise is many conservatives and elderly opposing both and many liberals, young, upper educated, and Blacks supporting both.
" I beg the Democratic Party not to nominate Hillary Clinton."
---Yes, we could do without this, but it is hard to see how anything would get any worse for the country or how the Democratic Party would be more hostile to social conservatives and paleoconservatives. On a superficial level, she'd have a good shot at winning the Appalachian and Ozarks states back for the Democrats.
The only decent option for populists is a third party, but there is no future with the Dems.
Yes, the Democrats will win in 2016, as Pat Buchanan predicts in his book, because of mass immigration and the growth of unmarried women (their two largest voter segments and Amercia's fastest-growing demographics).
ReplyDeleteIn 2012, the majority of married women voted Republican-the majority of unmarried women voted Democrat (they're more likely to use federally-mandated contraceptive cover and have abortions).
That's the same at every election.
But marriage is dying in America-which can only be good for the Democrats. It expands their voter base.
The less people married, the more they depend on Government for everything.
Until, as William Buckley predicted, "women won't marry men any more since they can now marry the Government"
By failing to stand up to left-wing cultural revolution and allowing marriage to die out, the Right has destroyed its natural constituency.
And, as Pat Buchanan's book reveals, 93% of blacks vote Democrat, as do the majority of Latinos and other recent Latin American migrants.
By opening America's borders to poor, vulnerable, state-dependent third world migrants, they have allowed the Democrats to import their future voter base.
America is set to become a totalitarian one-party state.
Most people always were Democrats, or at any rate the majority was.
ReplyDeleteThere were Congressional Elections on the same days as both of Nixon's Presidential Elections and both of Reagan's. The Democrats won them. Their tribe was larger then, and it is larger now.
That is what no one has ever cared about attracting Republican voters to Democratic Presidential candidates: there has never been any need. The only need is to get the Democratic vote out.
The hysteria about feminist lobbies and what have you never did wash with all that many people, and it no longer does with anyone very much at all. Compared to what, exactly? The record of the GOP?
When did the Democratic Party "move way to the Left on social issues"? Which social issues? How did that differentiate them from the Republicans, apart from the fact that the Republicans had made the same move first?
Two Southern Democrats - fiscally conservative(ish) in one case, fiscally and socially far more conservative than either his Republican predecessor his Republican successor in the other case - became President after 1964, with one of them elected to his second term as late as 1996. A third in the same vein won the popular vote in 2000.
"Radical gay rights and abortion rights activists" are certainly not "only found in the Democratic Party today". It is just that no one looks for them anywhere else, so they get far more done in and through the GOP. They always have done, even when people did look for them more obviously there than among the Dems.
The idea that the Democratic Party is now in some kind of hock to them is utterly far-fetched. If you don't believe me, then ask them. Every time that the Dems win the Presidency, then there really isn't anything on the then-current agenda left to do. The outgoing GOP has already done it.
Carter "did particularly well among social conservatives and badly among more libertarian middle class, suburbanite folk". Exactly.
"With the GOP you have a 50% or so chance of getting a socially conservative justice"? Really? When? What has that ever delivered?
"Ellen McCormick was a totally irrelevant candidate," but at least she was there.
"Rockefeller Republicans have largely become (New) Democrats"? Really? You could have fooled any objective observer of the GOP. Where did the McCain and, especially, Romney nominations come from, then? Or those of both Bushes?
The natural Democratic majority never went away. It never ceased to express itself at Congressional Elections, or only very recently and quite sporadically. West Virginia may return socially one of the most conservative Democrats to the Senate. But it still returns a Democrat. He used to be the Governor there, as you know.
I say again that there was no reason to become Republicans on the race issue. That is one of many reasons why the Southern whites mostly never have become Republicans. Many of them have become occasional or even quite regular Republican voters, especially for the Presidency. But that is all.
"Republican voters are more protectionist and a large number are wholesale economic populists. The problem is these people do not run for Congress and would not get the funding necessary to win primaries." Exactly. Whereas Dems like that are increasingly taking over the party, at least so long as Clinton is not nominated.
The Democratic Party is now largely defined by being anti-war; by people who were not really active before Obama in 2008 and who feel horribly betrayed by him since.
As for dear Anonymous, Buckley is dead, Pat Buchanan is persuadable by the right candidate and the Dems are far more likely to produce one before he dies, and (I really do love this insight into quite how illiterate you are) the black in America are not recent immigrants. They are not social liberals, either.
"Most people always were Democrats, or at any rate the majority was."
ReplyDelete---Since the New Deal this has been true (assuming you mean a 'relative majority'). There have been just a few years where these trends reversed. However, most independents have usually leaned GOP. As the Dem:GOP ratio has declined from something like 45-25 50 years ago to about 35-30, you see there is really no functional Democratic majority.
"When did the Democratic Party "move way to the Left on social issues"? Which social issues? How did that differentiate them from the Republicans, apart from the fact that the Republicans had made the same move first?"
---Abortion, since the functional policy of the majority of the party is to obstruct any legislation on any limits whatsoever. So no parental notification, much less consent. No limits on partial-birth abortion, etc. Even when some prominent Democrats like Gephardt, Biden, Daschle, etc. voted for some of these laws, they were not joined by 2/3 of their colleagues. (The Human Life Amendment, btw, has been in the GOP platform since 1976)
On gay rights, the national party only arrived at an uncompromising hard-left position in the last few years.
On secularism, the party at a national level only appoints judges who enforce the misconception that nothing public may be related to anything formally religious, or at least Christian.
On immigration, pro-Democrat portions of the media effectively say it is 'racist' to do anything about illegal immigration.
I am not here to disagree with you about the fact that Republican elected officials are effectively liberal on all these matters as well. The point is that they are not actively provocative in these spheres and Democratic activists (rich donors and petty bourgeois campaigners) are very radical on social issues. This is what people see and why they don't want to be associated with Democrats.
Carter was simply not nearly as socially conservative as you wish him to be. Saying he signed the Hyde Amendment does not prove much. He lost his social conservative support by 1980 and the Democrats never got it back. With the exception of 1992, the Democrats have retreated in socially conservative regions at every presidential election.
'"Radical gay rights and abortion rights activists" are certainly not "only found in the Democratic Party today"'
---Yes, effectively they are. That was not true, say, 30 years ago, but it is now. There is a handful of outspoken Republican pro-choice politicians, though many of them have just retired (like Christine Todd Whitman), and there are pro-choice voters, but not radical activists like NOW, NARAL, or Emily's List. Basically 100% of that is now in the Democratic camp.
I can add that when they heralded that Clinton 'moved to the center' also on social issues, this meant support for the death penalty, an extreme form of the 'war on drugs', anti-terrorist legislation, and other authoritarianism that 'neoliberals' tend to adopt. The rush towards cultural liberalism and even cultural Marxism continued.
Your point about Rockefeller Republicans continuing in strength as proven by the Romney nomination is valid. I am not sure McCain quite counts and Bush II actively shunned such associations, so let me modify my point. ***The social base for Rockefeller Republicanism has died out or converted to the neoliberal-imperialist wing of the Democratic Party, just as the social base for Middle America populism has largely converted to voting Republican, though it lacks representation in the national party.*** Romney got elected as MA governor campaigning as an old-style, fully socially liberal Rockefeller Republican. He had to modify this stance in his presidential election and lost MA 37%-60%, as clearly about 1/3 of his support at the state level is partisan Democrat at the national level.
"West Virginia may return socially one of the most conservative Democrats to the Senate. But it still returns a Democrat."
ReplyDelete---Yes, but a Republican is almost certain to take Rockefeller's seat and the GOP has 2 of 3 Congressional seats in the state, and soon to take the third. All of this was entirely unthinkable when I was little and the entire Congressional delegation, the Governor, and 90% of the state houses were Democrat.
"I say again that there was no reason to become Republicans on the race issue"
---The race issue was never overt. I think all this comes down to is that many people don't want to be in the same party as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. They'd rather be in the same party as their local banker or factory owner. The Democrats permitted at least racial identity politics to prosper in their ranks and so now they face the consequences of losing when people vote based on racial, rather than class, identity.
I'd say a related issue limited to the South is the war on Confederate symbols and history. Nobody wants to be told that their ancestors were basically evil Nazis and that any memorials to those who fought for the South are tantamount to publicly whipping Black people. Again, not all Southern Democrats endorse these campaigns by a long shot, but it is mainly national Democrat media which push them aggressively. People feel there is a war on their identity - and they are right.
"That is one of many reasons why the Southern whites mostly never have become Republicans. Many of them have become occasional or even quite regular Republican voters, especially for the Presidency. But that is all."
---No, no, no. Your understanding is behind the times again. This is true of maybe 20 years ago. As Bush beat Clinton in the Deep South but Clinton won in the less-Black border states, there were more self-identified Democrats than Republicans still throughout the South. Already by 2000, this was only true of a few states, and now, of almost none (I think only West Virginia, maybe now Virginia but that is because it adopting Northern voting patterns due to the DC suburbs).
You should be able to find state-level exit polls from 2012 online. You can see for yourself.
"Whereas Dems like that (populists/protectionists) are increasingly taking over the party"
---I'm afraid not. Typically, the heads of the Democratic Congressional and Senatorial Campaign Committees are Wall Street Democrats (e.g., the notorious Rahm Emanuel). They are known to often withhold money from populist, conservative, and even progressive anti-war candidates, rather like the RNC just caused Cuccinelli to lose in Virginia by letting him be outspent 3:1. Don't be deluded, it is forces like Goldman Sachs investing in the national parties and demanding a return. This will be equally true whether there is an Obama-successor or Clinton.
If you had limited your point, Mr Lindsay, to saying people who had and have no reason to vote Republican *had* to no reason to leave the Democratic Party, then I'd agree with you. However, you appear to say they still have no reason to not be Democrats as if it is their fault or something that the Democrats lose many national elections. No, the national Democrats give conservative and populist Whites many reasons not to vote for them and some quarters actively scare them off. So the question should not be 'why are ex-conservative Democrats irrational and insane' but how should the Democratic Party change. First, of course, you have to admit that the Party has a problem to begin with - and it does. It is overall like a European liberal/neoliberal party in its dominant political ideology (not populist, Christian-Democratic, or Social-Democratic, though those are minority factions) with a political culture infested with both cultural Marxism and corrupt urban ethnic machine politics. What appeal do you expect anyone to find here?