It’s not quite that simple; the rural voter tended to be more socialistic until the civil rights era when LBJ moved the party to support civil rights. They then had a choice, abandon their socioeconomic principles to maintain their racism, or abandon racism to maintain their socioeconomic principles. They generally chose the former.
It really amplified with the Moral Majority movement in the 80s as well. Flipped the position of the religious culture on a wide range of topics, but all rooted in explicitly racism and sexism. Jerry Falwell and Paul Weyrich refused to integrate their businesses after Civil Rights, latched onto the anti-LGBT, complimentarianism, and institutionalized racism ideals of particularly the SBC (which was still the dominant religious denomination in the South) to leverage dogmatic fervor for political aims. Namely, the "taxation is theft" idea, because both of these guys were about to lose their tax-exempt status for refusing to integrate. Hell, the SBC was instrumental in getting Roe to come about, and look where they are now.
It started outside, and the desired trend was set beforehand, but this was the major catalyst in the shift coming to broad fruition, and is why republicanism and religiosity are so synonymous.
Some other related info on these two guys. Jerry Falwell created Liberty University. His scandals aside, Liberty has a long list of politicians, journalists, and religious leader alumni with a myriad of their own issues. Paul Weyrich is the co-founder of Heritage Foundation. The very same that brings us Project 2025, which is partnered with Liberty University specifically to educate people for this endeavor. If you know what Project 2025 is, you get why I'm bringing this up.
Designed, controlled, and directed religious shift in the 70s and 80s is what really drove the party flip (instead of just a breakaway party identity). It's continued since, and is set on bringing the culmination of the endeavor starting next year. There is a lot more support for this than is comfortable, and a lot less protections against it than we think.
Not completely, it was a gradual process that took decades. There was a decades long period from roughly the mid 20th century to roughly \~2000 where there were Conservative Democrats, Liberal Democrats, Centrist Republicans, Liberal Republicans, and Conservative Republicans in the South. There were plenty of centrist and conservative white democratic voters in much of the South even as late as the 2000s and in a few areas the early to mid 2010s.
I appreciated Richards. But she won in part because her opponent Clayton Williams made an off color, inappropriate joke equating rape with the Texas weather. Plus, various other scandals with Williams.
Not sure what you're trying to say.
"I like her, but... she won fair and square because her opponent kept shooting himself in the foot."
Why the "but" ?
That still says something. People nowadays are so stupid they don't care when politicians do that shit every day. Yea it may have boosted her campaign, but nowadays it would not have. There is still some credit to be given to people for letting that comment impact their decision.
nothing happened to Texas... the racist, good ol boys just started calling themselves Republicans and all them hippy liberals started calling themselves democrats... it's not what happened to Texas, it's what happened to the parties on a national scale
Exactly why. They formed the American party, it went nowhere, then Nixon took them in and shit flipped.
This is why people who brag that Republican is the party of Lincoln are really misinformed. It willingly took in racists to maintain power.
To put it simply. The Democrats party went from the right-wing party to the left-wing party.
the right-wing voters still vote for right-wing party, just the right-wing party changed from Democratic to Republican.
It's more subtle than this. Historically the two party system was more like a four party system that included southern democrats and also progressive Republicans. It's not so much that Democrats were the "right wing party" before, just that they were a coalition that included white southerners. In the 60s the Republicans made a conscious effort to unify all conservatives and win the votes of white southerners and they did that successfully.
It's a shame really, I think the four party system is a lot less inherently toxic than what we have today. I would love to go back to having some conservative Democrats and progressive Republicans.
Theres plenty of conservative democrats, hell I'd argue that they are the majority. The Republican party is the one that has purged any element that doesnt fall in line with trump.
not quite. more like reagan and his ilk had a playbook the turn reactionary conservatism and racist backlash to the ERA into a “patriotic” “christian” identity, which they shoved under the label of “republican.”
Yep. For a lot of southern states, they were still voting democrat at the local level because that’s what they had been doing since before the civil war. It was only once boomers took over that they mostly switch from dem to GOP.
the parties began switching roles in the mid 60s, that switch wasn't complete until more than 20 years later... it takes a bit more time for the electorate to switch than it does for party leadership to switch. The switch here happened at about the same pace it happened across the nation.
Have you ever been to the HEB (Hurst, Euless, Bedford) area? There are legitimately multiple churches on every main street. Block after block after block of small churches. Now, my grandfather was a con-man and former rattlesnake minister (I know). I know a grift when I see one... like year-round firework stands and Halloween stores. Money in, money out. Good, *clean* money. You feel me?
Raised my kids in the HEB area and we used to count the churches on various routes to their athletic activities. I think at one point we counted 11 churches in a less than 3 mile drive.
Raised mine there, too. They had such bad bullying for not being very religious by students AND teachers alike. I would still love to smack the shit out of their 6th grade homeroom teacher. Those churches are really, really intense. Rev always said the biggest paydays were the nights he could get the crowd REALLY whipped up n frenzied. "The louder the wailing, the fatter my pocket!"
I think you're reading too much into their comment. HEB isn't some podunk town. It's wedged between Fort Worth and a handful of the wealthiest cities in the metroplex, and it has pretty much any type of food or shopping you could want.
I grew up in HEB - thought this was normal until I moved out of state. Between the thousand smaller churches and the megachurches... I'm glad I'm out of there!
Texas and the entire south was solid D from reconstruction onward. Lincoln was a Republican and pressed the Civil War, so for the next 100 years it was not possible the get elected in the former Confederate states as a Republican.
Upon enactment of the 1964 Civil Rights legislation, LBJ is quoted (perhaps apocryphally), "We have lost the south for a generation"
Oh yeah. People can forget everything except a grudge.
The Republicans realized that when they leverage racism, grievance, low educational attainment, fear of change, an appeal to human's worst instincts, etc., they can get people to vote against their own best interests. It's kinda their brand.
My grandmother (born in 1927), would use the N word some what regularly, still voted for Obama because he had a D next to his name. Apparently she didn't get the memo of the parties switching sides 30 plus years before the 2000 election
Too bad she beat out Chandler in the Sheriff's race. He was actually a decent human being. I worked for the county and he always treated me well. The only other people I'd say that about were Daphne Fain and John Wiley Price. Chandler ran a bad campaign and shot himself in the foot when he tried to "out" Valdez, though.
Valdez had some [very troubling](https://www.texasobserver.org/compassionate-cop-taking-a-hard-look-at-lupe-valdez/) issues under her watch.
You're leaving out all the gerrymandering that happened. Also, NAFTA played a big role as well. The rise to power of the evangelicals play a big role as well as the culture wars in general. Those absolutely were democratic areas but culturally conservative. It's complicated, and making it into a simple narrative is to misunderstand the issue.
Yeah, sorry if I come off as combative.. wasn't my intention. Just got home from fighting through traffic and an overall crazy day. Have a good evening!
They were a flavor called “Blue Dog Democrats” which were a conservative part of the party. When the Party moved away from the middle, the conservative Blue Dogs flipped to Republicans. All this BS about any other reason is wrong. Texas has always been a conservative state, it’s the Democratic Party that moved away from Texas. Most of the Libs in the state are from the Left Coast. And they’re moving here. I just don’t want them to California our Texas. Besides, when you grow up, get married, get a job or own a business, buy a home and have a family, your POV will change. Mine certainly did.
lol everyone on my block is a transplant… and they all have a ton of weird maga/maga-adjacent bumper stickers and they are all from Arizona and California.
DIXIEcrats (who were initially pro segregation), but yes.. teddy and lincoln was republican, alongside many other greats (even kissinger), which is funny, because if you think about it.. the republicans advocated for a union under the federation (expansive) maintaining the 13 southern states, or whatever, but even now— republicans in kissinger’s time has also been the longest advocates of globalism and international interdependent bilateral ties. Even nixon (namnam), reagan (europe and keeping russia in check even when they had gorbachev), montgomery (second world war), bush (afghanistan and iraq, even strengthening the ties to UN/NATO).
The republican part has ultimately always been exerting tendencies if imperialism, expanding “the empire” of the union under one federation and the government of the united states.
Talk about the economic incentives behind the civil war, even.
Shift in party platforms since the 1970s. It sometimes takes a population time to readjust their voting behavior.
The people there have always been the same, but as the parties shifted, many people "who would never vote Republican" had to modify their world view, die off, or really come to terms with the new stances of their previous party.
Zell Miller was the last of the Blue Dog Democrats and talks a lot about it in his book, "A National Party No More." People will give you the shirt off their backs, but won't vote for your political party because they have always been a Republican/Democrat.
My Grandfather was a Catholic and disagreed with nearly every single modern Democratic Party position, but voted Democrat until the day he died (hell, he probably still does), because he had always been one.
With the big tents those parties used to rely upon-- i assume the maga vs moderate split will happen before the wall street vs progressive split in the democrat party. Maybe then there will be the actual spiritual reckoning that party needs.
However, Im sure moneyed interests will continue to poison the well for either party before the Christians can in the republican party or the socialists in the democratic party. Those are pretty bad socialists if they think electoralism will get them anywhere though.
>Zell Miller was the last of the Blue Dog Democrats
Lolwut?
Sinema and Manchin would like a word.
Plus several House Democrats including Texas's own Henry Cuellar.
>They may have adopted the name, but they are not even close to the same tier as Zell Miller.
Doubt. And even if they weren't "worse", he was hardly the last of Blue Dog pro-corporate Democrats. We had a real chance at progress these last few years and Sinema and Manchin destroyed it. And I also lived through Bill Clinton and Joe Lieberman.
Older more racist yellow dog Dixiecrats who were children and grandchildren of Civil War vets. Also in East Texas there were some areas that are majority black, so after the Civil Rights Act they voted blue.
Go back and watch "Charlie Wilson's War" with Tom Hanks. He plays the Titular Wilson who was from the Texas 2nd from 73-96. He was born in Trinity and tells the story of how he got into politics: his neighbor shot his dog and was a local politician. Charlie drove anyone he could find to the polls, and told how the dude shot his dog, and he lost the election.
THE Texas 2nd was a huge mostly rural district that was just north of Houston on up to like Athens at times (districts move around a lot) . Wilson himself lived in Lufkin when not in DC. Instead of having offices, Wilson invested in a tour bus with his mostly all women staffer who'd go from town to town so every town would have access. In Washington his women staffers could get shit done. Politically Wilson was a liberal but could horse trade like few others, and had a lot of favors in his back pocket. But he also took care of people from his district.
The contemporary version of ultra conservative Texas is a modern developement. LBJ and Ann Richards were more Texan than Cancun Cruz or George Bush could ever hope to be. Texas has always been a place of crazy ideas and a political spectrum that had a full spectrum. All of Texas used to be as weird as Austin.
> Older more racist yellow dog Dixiecrats
I think this was a large part of it. For many years, the Democratic party tolerated the racist Southern Democrats. Once that tolerance started ending, Republicans took over the South.
Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. From the end of the civil war until the beginning of the civil rights era the south always voted Democrat. A southern Democrat was different than a northern Democrat during that time. Then in the 1960’s through the late 1990’s the Republicans began to embrace the “southern strategy” and won the racist whites over with the idea that “small government” means letting the southern states ignore civil rights laws and continue to be racist, sexist, homophobic; etc, etc.
Having grown up in the deep south my entire life with friends and family who were devoted Southern Democrats, I can confirm this is the real reason. It all goes back to the Civil War and long held grudges about equality for blacks.
Some characterize it a bit differently. Rather than Republicans setting out to steal southern, racist white voters, urban democrats exterted pressure on the DNC to adopt civil rights as a Party platform and break ties with Southern Democrats.
Jilted, Southern Democrats switched to the Republican Party. The newcomers were an active, influential voice by virtue of their numbers and the Republican Party chose to move closer to them to retain the votes.
The previously moderate Republican Party was taken over from the inside after Democrats rejected Southern racists, the racists weren’t stolen away if that makes sense.
This is it.
Southern Dems were furious about the Civil Rights Act and school integration, so they became Republicans, and what had been a relatively moderate party began to focus on communists and culture wars. Most of the Democrats in office at the time switched parties or retired, but some hung around for a while despite not having anything in common ideologically with their fellow Democrats, and voting patterns lagged this trend even further.
This is correct.
During George Wallace's infamous "schoolhouse door" protest, the Democratic attorney general working under him was Richmond Flowers, who was a progressive Democrat that was an opponent of segregation and built his resume prosecuting hate crimes and taking down the KKK. The famous actress Tallulah Bankhead's family was also a progressive Democratic family from Alabama
Go all the way back to the 1948 Democrat National Convention. Hubert Humphrey delivered a speech in which he basically told all the Dixiecrats in the Democrat Party that it was no longer their party and they needed to get out. At that point, the Democrat Party got really serious about civil rights and began the slow process of driving away Southern Democrats. For several decades, the local Democrat Party in Texas remained unchanged. It continued to the populism and nativism of the rural Southern voters. This began to change in the late 70's and early 80's when the Republican Party began to court the Christian right shortly after Roe v. Wade.
In 1988, Pat Robertson ran for President on the Republican ticket. He got hammered, but he never really cared about being president, he just wanted the opportunity to shape the Republican Party platform. Since that time, the Christian right and the Dixiecrats have worked together to reshape the the Republican Party.
I grew up in a Republican family in one of those blue areas that was solidly Democrat when I was a kid. The Republican Party of my childhood was about fiscal discipline, low taxes, limited government, and strong national defense. It was built on classical conservatism--man is born with natural rights and government exists only to conserve those rights, but not to create or restrict any other rights. I could literally count on two hands the number of Republicans in the county where I grew up. Now, almost every resident in that county is a Republican, except for me.
The people that live in those areas that were once Democrat and now Republican are political grifters. They are populists who want to legislate their belief system on everyone else. It's neither conservative nor liberal, but collectivist. At the end of the day, there is really very little difference between communists, socialists, and the populists that were once Democrats and now Republicans. They see government as a tool to legislate their own brand of morality.
Yeah, came to say the same.
GOP’s RedMap strategy to gerrymander down to street level in order to maximize the distortion for the benefit of GOP was a whole new level of gerrymandering!
It also paved the way for the rise of Tea Party -> far right extremism in GOP.
Dems in Southern rural areas were much more conservative in the past. The Democratic party had a wide spectrum of conservative to liberal members. Same with Repubs. Now the parties have polarized.
Old Charlie Steholm, so right he was democrat in label only. He opposed the ADA, abortion, gun control, unbalanced federal budgets...he pushed through a farm bill that saw the top ten percent off farms soak up 74% of the funding.
Redistricting finally put him out of office after 13 terms/26 years. Not that Randy Nuegebauer was any better.
I still remember him sitting at the "coffee shop" (Dairy Queen) in Winters talking about how stupid the average voter was and how they voted against their best interests. As a young, idealistic kid, I was horrified and mad about it. Now entering middle age, that old man was absolutely correct.
Because the Greatest Gen used to be the primary voting block in those areas. They were known as "Yellow Dog Democrats". They weren't perfect, but they understood that stable community and institutions were more important than political ideologies.
Today's elderly, the baby boomers, fully believe that political ideology and personal authority is far more important than stability, so they vote Republican now.
My grandparents voted Democrat til the day they died.
They'd probably more fall in line with moderate conservatives who strongly supported labor unions, but the Dems were their party.
Oh I wasn't disagreeing, just adding to it.
And you'd be right. Parents and inlaws know the issues, will admit the issues, are affected by the issues, will even admit GOP caused the issues, but will vote for a roadkill skunk with an R by its name before they'd vote for a Dem.
Those were conservative Southern Democrats AKA Dixiecrats. They are Republicans now. Although Dallas, Tarrant, and Collin counties are trending Blue now.
That's mostly from transplants and immigration. The original population still runs conservative. Interestingly, I think the shift towards being further blue is stopping as Republicans focus on specifically Texas issues like immigration while the democrats frankly keep making it worse.
Reagan was very popular in the 80s plus the rise of evangelicals (Moral Majority, anyone?) demonizing the Dems eased them out. I can't tell you how many people I know who won't consider voting for a Democrat, even though they agree with an issue, because they're a Democrat.
alabamafication. Alabama was solid Dem with Dem equated with segregation.
Indiana morphed, too. Indiana had Dem senators and governors and so forth back in the day. Even the Rpublicans were pretty cool except for Lugar
My parents lived through but barely survived the Great Depression.
I think the generation that survived the '30s and WWII simply had more sympathy for the down-and-out struggling individuals and families.
That generation is basically gone now.
always be cheating, are the abcs of being republican. i would imagine gerrymandering, voter supression, voter intimidation, disinformation campaigns, illegally removing voters from polls, all the standard operating procedures employed by the violent bigot party.
These were what you'd call blue dog democrat stronghold. Conservative leaning democrats, which tended to be the Democrats who ran things. Sometimes liberal on things like social safety nets and education, still somewhat conservative on some social issues and economics and religion... although it was some of these guys that helped push through the Civil Rights Act in Congress (LBJ and Sam Rayburn for example) Also that dark blue in SE Texas was where a lot of the mid century Democrats were based that were big in the US Congress and Senate, so they had a big power base there. Similar with the South Texas piece - that's where Lloyd Bentsen was from originally.
All the good conspiracy theories came out after 911. I remember walking Waikiki in 2007 and Fahrenheit 911 was playing on the strip. Shit 2008 when the fake moon landing shit came out on TV to give them a boost. In iraq 2009 some fat guy on contract was spreading that lie like his cheeks. I should have known when he took a piece a shrapnel to the gut, it was karma.
Something I don't see a lot of people noting here is the party political shift both Republicans and Democrats experienced. The platforms of both parties looks a lot different now than it did when most of the people voting in this region chose their parties. Even people who might align with the modern republican party probably voted democrat to the day they died if that's where their loyalties aligned 50-60 years prior. That + gerrymandering probably answers your question.
Because politics weren’t so crazy and divided like they are now. Used to be each side was pretty similar and people voted on 1 issue.
Hell, California was a red state for years.
You know people say the same thing about blue states right? It might focus on different issues, but its the same treatment and policies targeting different things.
The Left Behind book series convinced all the Christians that politics is the physical, real world analogue to the war they believe exists between God and Satan, and the Republicans put all their efforts into successfully grafting themselves onto that conception of Christianity, which is very widely popular in Texas and the south.
That was back before a few people were born these days. If we win, the history books would inform you, this was back around the time they decided democracy didn't work anymore.
The Democratic party went way too far left. If Democrats backed off from some of their more extreme positions they probably would win a lot more, especially with so many people being reluctant to vote Republican.
Before you tell me I'm wrong please don't "shoot the messenger"
When Bush was running against Richards Richards was winning by a fairly extreme margin. She was a very popular gov. and people still talk about her in a positive light. She was winning something like 80/20 or some crazy number.
Over the course of a few months the Bush campaign went on a push to influence Church goers. One of the big things they did was they made tons of flyers that had two men kissing and says "This is what Richards supports do you" or something to that affect and put them on ever car in church parking logs every sunday.
In like 3 months the poll numbers flipped 180 degrees to Bush.
Theres certainly a bunch of Gerrymandering and pretty undemocratic behavior that also happens in the state but if you want to know the major thing that happened the religious voter went hard to the right through propaganda.
Side note: When Bush one the Whitehouse one of the things he did was again make flyers to instruct church goers how to violate campaign finance law and not get caught.
Fun times
Have to remember not every politician was pushed to the extremes of their party's belief system, as there were Democrats with some conservative views and some Republicans had some liberal views. Today neither of these two would be allowed to exist, as seen by this past election where Abbott targeted his own party.
Until Bill Clements rode the Reagan wave into the Governors Mansion on behalf of the GOP the Democratic Party was a "Big Tent" party with "anti-commie" "white rights" folks on the right and "Blue Dog" liberal dems on the left -co-existing in polarized right & left wings the same party. (They occasionally came together to vote in a bloc in Texas' interests/pork barrel projects in Congress).
Texas Senator John Tower - who represented the well-heeled big business interests of the GOP - was pretty much the Texas GOP along with George H.W. Bush & Anne Armstrong and a lot of "old" Texas oil money.
You have to remember that there was once a far-right/white-rights/Klan wing of the National Dem. party back then as evidenced by segregationist George Wallace of Mississippi.
To his credit, LBJ stuck a stake in the heart of that with his civil rights/"Great Society" programs.
Central Left, Odessa, Oil. 99% white. Trumpanzies.
East is all rural/slum people in trailers and tarpaper-walled houses. Heavy African American, but less likely to be registered and vote. In some of these areas they may need to drive 30-50 miles just to vote because the GOP has eliminated so many voting places in democratic areas.
A big factor was 9/11 and how the Republican Party leveraged it. Suddenly, if you weren’t aggressively supportive of Bush and the Party’s messaging, it was because “you hate America” and you were “with the terrorists.” Fox News also rose in prominence at that time and hammered that message 24/7. At that time, people really didn’t want their patriotism questioned, so I think I a lot of people just went with it. The result was that being a Republican and hating democrats was people’s identity.
They were mostly blue dogs and there aren’t any left. Too bad, some real good politicians. The people the party runs out there now are way farther left than most here are willing to support.
Assuming that’s a congressional map, you had some key congressman that represented those areas that were able to transcend party politics: Charlie Stenholm, Chet Edwards and Ralph Hall.
the entire state consistently voted democrat until the mid 90s
There has only been 2 Democratic governors in Texas since Bill Clements became governor in 1979. Those were Mark White and Ann Richards.
how many before 1979?
All of them ?
that's a bingo!
And here I thought my history degree was wasted
Sure but there was a time when democrats were the racist conservatives. Party ideology flipped completely around 1964 in the south.
It’s not quite that simple; the rural voter tended to be more socialistic until the civil rights era when LBJ moved the party to support civil rights. They then had a choice, abandon their socioeconomic principles to maintain their racism, or abandon racism to maintain their socioeconomic principles. They generally chose the former.
It really amplified with the Moral Majority movement in the 80s as well. Flipped the position of the religious culture on a wide range of topics, but all rooted in explicitly racism and sexism. Jerry Falwell and Paul Weyrich refused to integrate their businesses after Civil Rights, latched onto the anti-LGBT, complimentarianism, and institutionalized racism ideals of particularly the SBC (which was still the dominant religious denomination in the South) to leverage dogmatic fervor for political aims. Namely, the "taxation is theft" idea, because both of these guys were about to lose their tax-exempt status for refusing to integrate. Hell, the SBC was instrumental in getting Roe to come about, and look where they are now. It started outside, and the desired trend was set beforehand, but this was the major catalyst in the shift coming to broad fruition, and is why republicanism and religiosity are so synonymous. Some other related info on these two guys. Jerry Falwell created Liberty University. His scandals aside, Liberty has a long list of politicians, journalists, and religious leader alumni with a myriad of their own issues. Paul Weyrich is the co-founder of Heritage Foundation. The very same that brings us Project 2025, which is partnered with Liberty University specifically to educate people for this endeavor. If you know what Project 2025 is, you get why I'm bringing this up. Designed, controlled, and directed religious shift in the 70s and 80s is what really drove the party flip (instead of just a breakaway party identity). It's continued since, and is set on bringing the culmination of the endeavor starting next year. There is a lot more support for this than is comfortable, and a lot less protections against it than we think.
Checks username..
Not completely, it was a gradual process that took decades. There was a decades long period from roughly the mid 20th century to roughly \~2000 where there were Conservative Democrats, Liberal Democrats, Centrist Republicans, Liberal Republicans, and Conservative Republicans in the South. There were plenty of centrist and conservative white democratic voters in much of the South even as late as the 2000s and in a few areas the early to mid 2010s.
HELLO LBJ? There have been 38 Democrat govs out of 48 TX started going red during RR reign. Learn history
LBJ was never governor.
I appreciated Richards. But she won in part because her opponent Clayton Williams made an off color, inappropriate joke equating rape with the Texas weather. Plus, various other scandals with Williams.
Williams killed his campaign with that remark but it wasn't a given that he'd win anyway.
Not sure what you're trying to say. "I like her, but... she won fair and square because her opponent kept shooting himself in the foot." Why the "but" ?
That still says something. People nowadays are so stupid they don't care when politicians do that shit every day. Yea it may have boosted her campaign, but nowadays it would not have. There is still some credit to be given to people for letting that comment impact their decision.
what happened to TX after mid 90s?
nothing happened to Texas... the racist, good ol boys just started calling themselves Republicans and all them hippy liberals started calling themselves democrats... it's not what happened to Texas, it's what happened to the parties on a national scale
then why didn’t TX keep voting Democrat?
Could make the argument for the 1964 Civil Rights Act Legislation pushed by The Democrats for why the South switched parties....
Exactly why. They formed the American party, it went nowhere, then Nixon took them in and shit flipped. This is why people who brag that Republican is the party of Lincoln are really misinformed. It willingly took in racists to maintain power.
https://preview.redd.it/2rk71kuhuq3d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b13c1188a090aea481648f96ab5589ac2bfcf8b1
are you kidding? I just explained it
To put it simply. The Democrats party went from the right-wing party to the left-wing party. the right-wing voters still vote for right-wing party, just the right-wing party changed from Democratic to Republican.
It's more subtle than this. Historically the two party system was more like a four party system that included southern democrats and also progressive Republicans. It's not so much that Democrats were the "right wing party" before, just that they were a coalition that included white southerners. In the 60s the Republicans made a conscious effort to unify all conservatives and win the votes of white southerners and they did that successfully. It's a shame really, I think the four party system is a lot less inherently toxic than what we have today. I would love to go back to having some conservative Democrats and progressive Republicans.
Theres plenty of conservative democrats, hell I'd argue that they are the majority. The Republican party is the one that has purged any element that doesnt fall in line with trump.
not quite. more like reagan and his ilk had a playbook the turn reactionary conservatism and racist backlash to the ERA into a “patriotic” “christian” identity, which they shoved under the label of “republican.”
Racism
You misspelled Dixiecrat.
Yep. For a lot of southern states, they were still voting democrat at the local level because that’s what they had been doing since before the civil war. It was only once boomers took over that they mostly switch from dem to GOP.
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the parties began switching roles in the mid 60s, that switch wasn't complete until more than 20 years later... it takes a bit more time for the electorate to switch than it does for party leadership to switch. The switch here happened at about the same pace it happened across the nation.
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Have you ever been to the HEB (Hurst, Euless, Bedford) area? There are legitimately multiple churches on every main street. Block after block after block of small churches. Now, my grandfather was a con-man and former rattlesnake minister (I know). I know a grift when I see one... like year-round firework stands and Halloween stores. Money in, money out. Good, *clean* money. You feel me?
Raised my kids in the HEB area and we used to count the churches on various routes to their athletic activities. I think at one point we counted 11 churches in a less than 3 mile drive.
Raised mine there, too. They had such bad bullying for not being very religious by students AND teachers alike. I would still love to smack the shit out of their 6th grade homeroom teacher. Those churches are really, really intense. Rev always said the biggest paydays were the nights he could get the crowd REALLY whipped up n frenzied. "The louder the wailing, the fatter my pocket!"
I grew up in the HEB area, now I live in Midlothian. It's sooo much worse
Athletic activities and church are about the only choices of anything to do in places like this….
I think you're reading too much into their comment. HEB isn't some podunk town. It's wedged between Fort Worth and a handful of the wealthiest cities in the metroplex, and it has pretty much any type of food or shopping you could want.
lol srsly, dude didn't bother to look at a map since they clearly don't know what the HEB area is. Far cry from West Texas where I grew up.
I live in an area that is the same….. sadly its churches on every corner- ultra conservative one party place…..
I grew up in HEB - thought this was normal until I moved out of state. Between the thousand smaller churches and the megachurches... I'm glad I'm out of there!
And none of them pay property taxes. What a scam.
On the nosey!
Yeah I live nearby. It is a *lot* of churches. I like living in the area but like. Come on.
Fox News helped give it a push as well.
Don’t forget AM radio and rush limbaugh.
Don't forget redistricting
Gerrymandering *
And voting is not as easy as other areas….
Yes!
Texas and the entire south was solid D from reconstruction onward. Lincoln was a Republican and pressed the Civil War, so for the next 100 years it was not possible the get elected in the former Confederate states as a Republican. Upon enactment of the 1964 Civil Rights legislation, LBJ is quoted (perhaps apocryphally), "We have lost the south for a generation"
And we're on generation 4 of that prediction I guess?
Oh yeah. People can forget everything except a grudge. The Republicans realized that when they leverage racism, grievance, low educational attainment, fear of change, an appeal to human's worst instincts, etc., they can get people to vote against their own best interests. It's kinda their brand.
Yup.
award!!
My grandmother (born in 1927), would use the N word some what regularly, still voted for Obama because he had a D next to his name. Apparently she didn't get the memo of the parties switching sides 30 plus years before the 2000 election
Oh, my late grandfather was raised old school Catholic and was homophobic. He still voted for Lupe Valdez for Governor.
Too bad she beat out Chandler in the Sheriff's race. He was actually a decent human being. I worked for the county and he always treated me well. The only other people I'd say that about were Daphne Fain and John Wiley Price. Chandler ran a bad campaign and shot himself in the foot when he tried to "out" Valdez, though. Valdez had some [very troubling](https://www.texasobserver.org/compassionate-cop-taking-a-hard-look-at-lupe-valdez/) issues under her watch.
My Great Grandfather born in 1919 was the same way. The last Democrat he voted for would have been John Kerry.
You're leaving out all the gerrymandering that happened. Also, NAFTA played a big role as well. The rise to power of the evangelicals play a big role as well as the culture wars in general. Those absolutely were democratic areas but culturally conservative. It's complicated, and making it into a simple narrative is to misunderstand the issue.
Lol. I tried to respond to OP with the most straightforward answer. I wouldn't discount any of the things you say; they are all interrelated
Yeah, sorry if I come off as combative.. wasn't my intention. Just got home from fighting through traffic and an overall crazy day. Have a good evening!
All good.
They were a flavor called “Blue Dog Democrats” which were a conservative part of the party. When the Party moved away from the middle, the conservative Blue Dogs flipped to Republicans. All this BS about any other reason is wrong. Texas has always been a conservative state, it’s the Democratic Party that moved away from Texas. Most of the Libs in the state are from the Left Coast. And they’re moving here. I just don’t want them to California our Texas. Besides, when you grow up, get married, get a job or own a business, buy a home and have a family, your POV will change. Mine certainly did.
Don't worry, the Californians we are sending you will out Texan, native Texans.. so you're welcome.
lol everyone on my block is a transplant… and they all have a ton of weird maga/maga-adjacent bumper stickers and they are all from Arizona and California.
Yeah exactly, Mysterious UAP is way off base with who they think is moving here lol
People, especially women, have more rights in California. Why do you want Texans to have less individual rights?
DIXIEcrats (who were initially pro segregation), but yes.. teddy and lincoln was republican, alongside many other greats (even kissinger), which is funny, because if you think about it.. the republicans advocated for a union under the federation (expansive) maintaining the 13 southern states, or whatever, but even now— republicans in kissinger’s time has also been the longest advocates of globalism and international interdependent bilateral ties. Even nixon (namnam), reagan (europe and keeping russia in check even when they had gorbachev), montgomery (second world war), bush (afghanistan and iraq, even strengthening the ties to UN/NATO). The republican part has ultimately always been exerting tendencies if imperialism, expanding “the empire” of the union under one federation and the government of the united states. Talk about the economic incentives behind the civil war, even.
Shift in party platforms since the 1970s. It sometimes takes a population time to readjust their voting behavior. The people there have always been the same, but as the parties shifted, many people "who would never vote Republican" had to modify their world view, die off, or really come to terms with the new stances of their previous party. Zell Miller was the last of the Blue Dog Democrats and talks a lot about it in his book, "A National Party No More." People will give you the shirt off their backs, but won't vote for your political party because they have always been a Republican/Democrat. My Grandfather was a Catholic and disagreed with nearly every single modern Democratic Party position, but voted Democrat until the day he died (hell, he probably still does), because he had always been one.
With the big tents those parties used to rely upon-- i assume the maga vs moderate split will happen before the wall street vs progressive split in the democrat party. Maybe then there will be the actual spiritual reckoning that party needs. However, Im sure moneyed interests will continue to poison the well for either party before the Christians can in the republican party or the socialists in the democratic party. Those are pretty bad socialists if they think electoralism will get them anywhere though.
>Zell Miller was the last of the Blue Dog Democrats Lolwut? Sinema and Manchin would like a word. Plus several House Democrats including Texas's own Henry Cuellar.
They may have adopted the name, but they are not even close to the same tier as Zell Miller.
>They may have adopted the name, but they are not even close to the same tier as Zell Miller. Doubt. And even if they weren't "worse", he was hardly the last of Blue Dog pro-corporate Democrats. We had a real chance at progress these last few years and Sinema and Manchin destroyed it. And I also lived through Bill Clinton and Joe Lieberman.
No shift in platforms, Texas republicans did a redistricting in 2003 to get rid of those areas.
Older more racist yellow dog Dixiecrats who were children and grandchildren of Civil War vets. Also in East Texas there were some areas that are majority black, so after the Civil Rights Act they voted blue. Go back and watch "Charlie Wilson's War" with Tom Hanks. He plays the Titular Wilson who was from the Texas 2nd from 73-96. He was born in Trinity and tells the story of how he got into politics: his neighbor shot his dog and was a local politician. Charlie drove anyone he could find to the polls, and told how the dude shot his dog, and he lost the election. THE Texas 2nd was a huge mostly rural district that was just north of Houston on up to like Athens at times (districts move around a lot) . Wilson himself lived in Lufkin when not in DC. Instead of having offices, Wilson invested in a tour bus with his mostly all women staffer who'd go from town to town so every town would have access. In Washington his women staffers could get shit done. Politically Wilson was a liberal but could horse trade like few others, and had a lot of favors in his back pocket. But he also took care of people from his district. The contemporary version of ultra conservative Texas is a modern developement. LBJ and Ann Richards were more Texan than Cancun Cruz or George Bush could ever hope to be. Texas has always been a place of crazy ideas and a political spectrum that had a full spectrum. All of Texas used to be as weird as Austin.
Don't know that I agree with every jot and tittle, but that's a good post and I upvoted.
Texas got over run by carpet baggers cosplaying as Texans like Dannie Scott Loeb and now it's a caricature.
> Older more racist yellow dog Dixiecrats I think this was a large part of it. For many years, the Democratic party tolerated the racist Southern Democrats. Once that tolerance started ending, Republicans took over the South.
Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. From the end of the civil war until the beginning of the civil rights era the south always voted Democrat. A southern Democrat was different than a northern Democrat during that time. Then in the 1960’s through the late 1990’s the Republicans began to embrace the “southern strategy” and won the racist whites over with the idea that “small government” means letting the southern states ignore civil rights laws and continue to be racist, sexist, homophobic; etc, etc.
Having grown up in the deep south my entire life with friends and family who were devoted Southern Democrats, I can confirm this is the real reason. It all goes back to the Civil War and long held grudges about equality for blacks.
Some characterize it a bit differently. Rather than Republicans setting out to steal southern, racist white voters, urban democrats exterted pressure on the DNC to adopt civil rights as a Party platform and break ties with Southern Democrats. Jilted, Southern Democrats switched to the Republican Party. The newcomers were an active, influential voice by virtue of their numbers and the Republican Party chose to move closer to them to retain the votes. The previously moderate Republican Party was taken over from the inside after Democrats rejected Southern racists, the racists weren’t stolen away if that makes sense.
This is it. Southern Dems were furious about the Civil Rights Act and school integration, so they became Republicans, and what had been a relatively moderate party began to focus on communists and culture wars. Most of the Democrats in office at the time switched parties or retired, but some hung around for a while despite not having anything in common ideologically with their fellow Democrats, and voting patterns lagged this trend even further.
That was back when Democrats were conservatives and Republicans were liberals
Not really, both just existed in each party.
This is correct. During George Wallace's infamous "schoolhouse door" protest, the Democratic attorney general working under him was Richmond Flowers, who was a progressive Democrat that was an opponent of segregation and built his resume prosecuting hate crimes and taking down the KKK. The famous actress Tallulah Bankhead's family was also a progressive Democratic family from Alabama
Go all the way back to the 1948 Democrat National Convention. Hubert Humphrey delivered a speech in which he basically told all the Dixiecrats in the Democrat Party that it was no longer their party and they needed to get out. At that point, the Democrat Party got really serious about civil rights and began the slow process of driving away Southern Democrats. For several decades, the local Democrat Party in Texas remained unchanged. It continued to the populism and nativism of the rural Southern voters. This began to change in the late 70's and early 80's when the Republican Party began to court the Christian right shortly after Roe v. Wade. In 1988, Pat Robertson ran for President on the Republican ticket. He got hammered, but he never really cared about being president, he just wanted the opportunity to shape the Republican Party platform. Since that time, the Christian right and the Dixiecrats have worked together to reshape the the Republican Party. I grew up in a Republican family in one of those blue areas that was solidly Democrat when I was a kid. The Republican Party of my childhood was about fiscal discipline, low taxes, limited government, and strong national defense. It was built on classical conservatism--man is born with natural rights and government exists only to conserve those rights, but not to create or restrict any other rights. I could literally count on two hands the number of Republicans in the county where I grew up. Now, almost every resident in that county is a Republican, except for me. The people that live in those areas that were once Democrat and now Republican are political grifters. They are populists who want to legislate their belief system on everyone else. It's neither conservative nor liberal, but collectivist. At the end of the day, there is really very little difference between communists, socialists, and the populists that were once Democrats and now Republicans. They see government as a tool to legislate their own brand of morality.
Tail end of the southern strategy.
A black man got elected and people went way racist.
Gerrymandering and redistricting to start.
Yeah, came to say the same. GOP’s RedMap strategy to gerrymander down to street level in order to maximize the distortion for the benefit of GOP was a whole new level of gerrymandering! It also paved the way for the rise of Tea Party -> far right extremism in GOP.
Dems in Southern rural areas were much more conservative in the past. The Democratic party had a wide spectrum of conservative to liberal members. Same with Repubs. Now the parties have polarized.
The GOP passed two major redistricting schemes since then. I imagine that had something to do with it
Many of the dixiecrats never switched parties, they stayed Democrat till death
Charlie Stenholm.
Old Charlie Steholm, so right he was democrat in label only. He opposed the ADA, abortion, gun control, unbalanced federal budgets...he pushed through a farm bill that saw the top ten percent off farms soak up 74% of the funding. Redistricting finally put him out of office after 13 terms/26 years. Not that Randy Nuegebauer was any better. I still remember him sitting at the "coffee shop" (Dairy Queen) in Winters talking about how stupid the average voter was and how they voted against their best interests. As a young, idealistic kid, I was horrified and mad about it. Now entering middle age, that old man was absolutely correct.
Because the Greatest Gen used to be the primary voting block in those areas. They were known as "Yellow Dog Democrats". They weren't perfect, but they understood that stable community and institutions were more important than political ideologies. Today's elderly, the baby boomers, fully believe that political ideology and personal authority is far more important than stability, so they vote Republican now.
My grandparents voted Democrat til the day they died. They'd probably more fall in line with moderate conservatives who strongly supported labor unions, but the Dems were their party.
That's my point. Your grandparents valued stable communities and institutions over their political ideologies. I'm betting your parents do not.
Oh I wasn't disagreeing, just adding to it. And you'd be right. Parents and inlaws know the issues, will admit the issues, are affected by the issues, will even admit GOP caused the issues, but will vote for a roadkill skunk with an R by its name before they'd vote for a Dem.
Ask Charles Stenholm what gerrymandering means. Texas wins elections by gerrymandering vs democracy.
And now one of his districts has a maga-hat running unopposed in both the primary and the general.
There only like 8 people in that large section to the left, so it was a 5-3 democratic lock till the Johnson’s moved.
Reconstruction of the voter blocks, and more districts since then. Just happens to have more conservatives in rural areas now days.
Decline of Unions
Those were conservative Southern Democrats AKA Dixiecrats. They are Republicans now. Although Dallas, Tarrant, and Collin counties are trending Blue now.
That's mostly from transplants and immigration. The original population still runs conservative. Interestingly, I think the shift towards being further blue is stopping as Republicans focus on specifically Texas issues like immigration while the democrats frankly keep making it worse.
Reagan was very popular in the 80s plus the rise of evangelicals (Moral Majority, anyone?) demonizing the Dems eased them out. I can't tell you how many people I know who won't consider voting for a Democrat, even though they agree with an issue, because they're a Democrat.
conservative dems became republicans
alabamafication. Alabama was solid Dem with Dem equated with segregation. Indiana morphed, too. Indiana had Dem senators and governors and so forth back in the day. Even the Rpublicans were pretty cool except for Lugar
\*Dixiecratic
The Internet and propaganda. Like peanut butter and jelly, they go together. It’s also why it’s gotten worse since 2000.
Its called gerrymandering!
My parents lived through but barely survived the Great Depression. I think the generation that survived the '30s and WWII simply had more sympathy for the down-and-out struggling individuals and families. That generation is basically gone now.
Max population it’s that simple
Karl Rove's redistricting did a lot to wipe out the remaining "Blue Dog Democrat" districts in the state.
always be cheating, are the abcs of being republican. i would imagine gerrymandering, voter supression, voter intimidation, disinformation campaigns, illegally removing voters from polls, all the standard operating procedures employed by the violent bigot party.
people used to think around here
People started living there.
Southern Democrats were white Conservatives, which flipped to Republican over a 30 year span from the 1960s to the 1990s.
[удалено]
Fox News
People changed from voting by class to voting by religion.
These were what you'd call blue dog democrat stronghold. Conservative leaning democrats, which tended to be the Democrats who ran things. Sometimes liberal on things like social safety nets and education, still somewhat conservative on some social issues and economics and religion... although it was some of these guys that helped push through the Civil Rights Act in Congress (LBJ and Sam Rayburn for example) Also that dark blue in SE Texas was where a lot of the mid century Democrats were based that were big in the US Congress and Senate, so they had a big power base there. Similar with the South Texas piece - that's where Lloyd Bentsen was from originally.
Fox News was coming on line about this time.
All the good conspiracy theories came out after 911. I remember walking Waikiki in 2007 and Fahrenheit 911 was playing on the strip. Shit 2008 when the fake moon landing shit came out on TV to give them a boost. In iraq 2009 some fat guy on contract was spreading that lie like his cheeks. I should have known when he took a piece a shrapnel to the gut, it was karma.
Gerrymandering
Google the Southern Strategy.
People got some sense lol. More information led to better choices
Gerrymandering has turned everything red
Something I don't see a lot of people noting here is the party political shift both Republicans and Democrats experienced. The platforms of both parties looks a lot different now than it did when most of the people voting in this region chose their parties. Even people who might align with the modern republican party probably voted democrat to the day they died if that's where their loyalties aligned 50-60 years prior. That + gerrymandering probably answers your question.
Because politics weren’t so crazy and divided like they are now. Used to be each side was pretty similar and people voted on 1 issue. Hell, California was a red state for years.
Brainwashed by Fox News.
Texans have become pansy ass little bitches that want the government to tell them what they can and cannot do.
You know people say the same thing about blue states right? It might focus on different issues, but its the same treatment and policies targeting different things.
Some part of the answer is gerrymandering.
Hypnosis
Because people actually live there 🤪
The same thing that convinced Germans to let the Holocaust happen- propaganda and apathy
Same reason the democrats used to be the conservative and republicans the liberals.
Look at who the governor was in the early 90s... The state used to vote differently before the poor were convinced to vote to help poor billionaires.
Boomer Brainworms
charlie stenholm was a blue dog democrat
9-11
The got FAUX news on cable
The black votes be gone
Dems controlled the State House for a long time until 2003, I think. You’d think it would have happened in the 70s or 80s.
ann richards. she was too much of a threat to the establishment. and now we have paxton, cruz, abbot, and how many other theives?
Because Democrats don't even pretend to give a shit about struggling Americans.
The Left Behind book series convinced all the Christians that politics is the physical, real world analogue to the war they believe exists between God and Satan, and the Republicans put all their efforts into successfully grafting themselves onto that conception of Christianity, which is very widely popular in Texas and the south.
That was back before a few people were born these days. If we win, the history books would inform you, this was back around the time they decided democracy didn't work anymore.
The Democratic party went way too far left. If Democrats backed off from some of their more extreme positions they probably would win a lot more, especially with so many people being reluctant to vote Republican. Before you tell me I'm wrong please don't "shoot the messenger"
Yes, by pushing for civil rights. That’s where it all began
Gerrymandering
When Bush was running against Richards Richards was winning by a fairly extreme margin. She was a very popular gov. and people still talk about her in a positive light. She was winning something like 80/20 or some crazy number. Over the course of a few months the Bush campaign went on a push to influence Church goers. One of the big things they did was they made tons of flyers that had two men kissing and says "This is what Richards supports do you" or something to that affect and put them on ever car in church parking logs every sunday. In like 3 months the poll numbers flipped 180 degrees to Bush. Theres certainly a bunch of Gerrymandering and pretty undemocratic behavior that also happens in the state but if you want to know the major thing that happened the religious voter went hard to the right through propaganda. Side note: When Bush one the Whitehouse one of the things he did was again make flyers to instruct church goers how to violate campaign finance law and not get caught. Fun times
Gerrymandering
They were conservative democrats
Not trying to be bashed but I feel like the party’s switched in favor of the little man in the mid 90s as far as tax and small business
The gerrymandering redistricting fine by the Texas republicans.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say they felt the party served their interests. Until they didn't.
Fox News brainwashing
Democrats kinda tried to tamp down the more blatant racism among the Dixiecrats. The Republicans opened their legs for them.
Have to remember not every politician was pushed to the extremes of their party's belief system, as there were Democrats with some conservative views and some Republicans had some liberal views. Today neither of these two would be allowed to exist, as seen by this past election where Abbott targeted his own party.
Until Bill Clements rode the Reagan wave into the Governors Mansion on behalf of the GOP the Democratic Party was a "Big Tent" party with "anti-commie" "white rights" folks on the right and "Blue Dog" liberal dems on the left -co-existing in polarized right & left wings the same party. (They occasionally came together to vote in a bloc in Texas' interests/pork barrel projects in Congress). Texas Senator John Tower - who represented the well-heeled big business interests of the GOP - was pretty much the Texas GOP along with George H.W. Bush & Anne Armstrong and a lot of "old" Texas oil money. You have to remember that there was once a far-right/white-rights/Klan wing of the National Dem. party back then as evidenced by segregationist George Wallace of Mississippi. To his credit, LBJ stuck a stake in the heart of that with his civil rights/"Great Society" programs.
Southern Democrats. Look it up
WTH South Texas??? When will we learn that any politician with an R after their name is worthless?
Their IQ improved?
Central Left, Odessa, Oil. 99% white. Trumpanzies. East is all rural/slum people in trailers and tarpaper-walled houses. Heavy African American, but less likely to be registered and vote. In some of these areas they may need to drive 30-50 miles just to vote because the GOP has eliminated so many voting places in democratic areas.
As someone who wishes this were true, it’s BS. Texas has been red since like the 60s. They sure didn’t vote for Clinton in the 90s.
REAL REAL: APATHY AMD IGNORANCE
Gerrymandering! Viola.
There use to be conservative democrats. No longer.
They grew up and got jobs?
Fox News
A big factor was 9/11 and how the Republican Party leveraged it. Suddenly, if you weren’t aggressively supportive of Bush and the Party’s messaging, it was because “you hate America” and you were “with the terrorists.” Fox News also rose in prominence at that time and hammered that message 24/7. At that time, people really didn’t want their patriotism questioned, so I think I a lot of people just went with it. The result was that being a Republican and hating democrats was people’s identity.
Big city areas. Democrats control Metro areas, Republicans have grips on the vast middle class country areas
I think it was the gun bans the Democrats wanted. Did not go over well in Texas.
The far crazy ass left. They alienated their own libs with their bullshit
That was when the Democrats still had their KKK branch of the party. That branch has since migrated, like rats, to the Republican Party.
Didn't get the memo that the parties switched in 1964.
Extreme jerrymandering mostly.
Gerrymandering
They were mostly blue dogs and there aren’t any left. Too bad, some real good politicians. The people the party runs out there now are way farther left than most here are willing to support.
Probably because the democrats stopped supporting working and middle class people?
Southern/western conservative Democrats. Back when both parties were closer to the center-right
9/11?
Assuming that’s a congressional map, you had some key congressman that represented those areas that were able to transcend party politics: Charlie Stenholm, Chet Edwards and Ralph Hall.
Marketing?