• niktemadur@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    That’s the thing with a republic - those who vote Democrat in NYC or LA have to compromise with those who vote Democrat in other places like Virginia and Oregon, for the type of median representation they get in federal government.

    Democrats used to have the South they could count on, and eventually the nation got FDR for four consecutive terms and the New Deal.
    Then the LBJ administration - from Texas, of all places - and Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, and Democrats lost that electoral advantage they had in the South.

    All the ingrained racist simpletons in society shifted towards the other side - "That republican fellow might screw me over, but at least he’s one of ours, a good patriotic christian (read: white) American that talks to me in MY (racist dog whistle) language!"

    What so many people don’t seem to ever get is that permanent changes in Washington work through inertia and take voting in every election, because the safer any party can feel in office, the bolder they can afford to be in that slow-moving, change-resistant place.

    Democrats did it before because they had the South they could rely on, including Texas. Now Democrats don’t have the South.

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      FDR was a fluke for the Democratic Party up until that point. That’s why his cousin ran on the Republican ticket in 1912.

      • niktemadur@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        But it still happened, and the opportunity for it to happen could only have been in the Democrat Party. Try and brush it off as much as you try, it’s still an undeniable event, fact and history, and proof that both parties are NOT the same.

        By the same token of your argument, LBJ and Congress passing the Civil Rights Act was a fluke, because it only happened once? They knowingly sacrificed the entire electoral south for several generations and to this day, to do the right thing. “Yeah, but it doesn’t count.” Oh give me a break.

        Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, there are shining examples of Democrats attempting to do the right thing in a complex and changing, overwhelming world, while with republicans at the same time it has been all about endless avarice and appetite, with the snarl of bigotry facing in all directions.

        • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          That wasn’t my point. My point is that the parties switched, or more accurately The Republicans went from being left of Democrats to the far right sometime between 1912 and 1945-1960