Issue #471 The Choice Tuesday, January 23, 2024
First, a reminder that today’s Republicans are more like yesterday’s Democrats and vice versa. In the 19th century “Lincoln Republicans” were the ones who fought for the end of slavery and the rights of African American men through Reconstruction, and Republican President Theodore (“Teddy”) Roosevelt was considered “progressive.” This is why many Black people identified with the Republican Party until the mid-20th century.
Teddy’s fifth cousin, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was a very progressive Democrat whose policies represented what the policies of today’s Democrats state. Meanwhile, many of the Democrats of that time were still racist and anti-business and formed the “sub-party” called the Dixiecrats that strongly opposed any kind of civil rights and business regulation.
When Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy chose Southern Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson as his vice-presidential running mate, it was specifically because Johnson was a progressive Southerner who believed in civil rights. After Kennedy’s assassination, Johnson spearheaded the passage of several civil rights laws and laws that helped the poor and elderly.
That is when the Dixiecrat Democrats started moving to the Republican Party, and when Ronald Reagan announced his presidential run based on “states’ rights” from a location in Mississippi that was not far from where civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were murdered by the KKK in 1964. This was clear evidence of racial bias in Reagan’s campaign.
