Barb
Carpe Scrotum
1964, though, is what changed everything. In signing the Civil Rights Act, LBJ cemented the Democrats as a civil rights party. And in nominating anti-civil rights Barry Goldwater for president (instead of pro-civil rights Nelson Rockefeller) the GOP cast its future fortunes with the white electorate of the South. LBJ trounced Goldwater nationally that fall, winning more than 60 percent of the popular vote. But in the South, voters flocked to the Republican nominee, with Goldwater carrying five states in the region. Mississippi, the same state that had given FDR 97 percent of its votes 28 years earlier, now gave Goldwater 87 percent. That fall, Thurmond, now a senator, renounced his Democratic affiliation once and for all and signed up for Goldwater's GOP. The realignment was well underway, and it had everything to do with race.
Yeah that about sums up the change in both parties that specific platform.
The excesses of the Democratically controlled federal government didn't stop there though.
The DEMS were arrogant enough to imagine that they could change the social dynamic of this nation in a LOT of areas that were bound to lose them support.
Regardless of what we might personally think about the agenda, Feminism, which challenged long cherished beliefs about society, ALSO alienated a huge segment of the working class population that had formerly been solidly Democratic voters.
Gays right further alienated deeply religous people who'd formerly been Dems.
The Dems stance on guns rights also alienated rural voters who'd previously seen the Republican party for what it is...the party of the rich.
Throw in the continued assault on American industry called FREE TRADE (remember that the Dems organized though unions for decades) and we find that the Dems shot themselves in the foot by losing those blue collar voters, too.
Politically, the Dems did so many things to alienate so many differnt blocks of voters, it would be surprising that Obama won the last election if one didn't know how badly Bush II's administration screwed things up.
Despite all the populist rhetoric we hear from both parties, America basically now has TWO parties working for the rich, now.
Neither of them really has natural consituents (other than the super wealthy) but they still have about half the potential voters (more than enough to insure that one party or the other will win) who are clueless enough to imagine that those parties are working on their behalf.
The Dems lost their way, folks
As a female, I say FUCK traditional sensibilities and the demographic they represent.
Truly, madly, and DEEPLY.
If the dems stuck to representing the under served, those ignored by society in the definition of "all" promised in our nations Preamble, they would have more than a plurality of the vote.
They do not stick to that though, they waffle and waiver, compromise and SUCK societies loudest and seemingly most influential dicks. Those compromises make the under served in our nation shrug when it comes time to vote their interests, as there seems NO party truly represents THEM, and they are the majority.