Oddball
Unobtanium Member
I think it was some time after the party of Jefferson became the party of social engineering and free shit for favored constituencies at the expense of everyone else.
IOW, I pretty much called it.My personal guess is the switch occurred during the New Deal when the elected portion of the fracturing Democratic party embraced the power of Washington over the states.
Republicans were in favor of Civil Rights leglislation in the 60's though.....although a strong war declaring President seems consistent with their views since the 80's.
HELP! Point me to some reading please.
Well I think you need to look at the time around Grover Cleveland and William McKinley. There was a large segment of the Democratic Party, known as Bourbon Democrats, who were still on board with Cleveland's ideas of the gold standard and non-interventionism. Then the Democratic Party nominated William Jennings Bryan, and many Bourbon Democrats supported McKinley based on his support for the gold standard alone. After that progressivism took over the Democratic Party with Woodrow Wilson, and many former Bourbon Democrats joined the Republican Party and became known as the "Old Right," where they espoused noninterventionism, sound money, and states rights. It was really just a blip in the history of the Republican Party, however, and died out fairly quickly.
Today the Republican Party does not espouse states rights.