scholarly journals The American Cultural War and the Restructuring of Kentucky Politics

SAGE Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824401987105
Author(s):  
James Larry Hood
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Gay Marriage ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
National History ◽  
Political Configuration ◽  
The 1960S

The study is an integration of the last six decades’ local, state, and national history concerning the correlation of border state Kentucky’s partisan politics with the events and themes of the country’s long cultural war. Beginning in the 1960s, the two national parties gradually became far more distinct from one another concerning cultural values. The Democratic Party supported results-oriented affirmative action, a woman’s right to choose, gay marriage, and the need for a powerful, active federal government to protect and encourage all the above. The Republican Party took none of these positions. This led to a new political configuration along rearranged racial, demographic, geographic, and party lines. Where once Kentucky’s Democratic Party had near total control of state offices and Republicans had won federal offices now and then, the new configuration had Republicans threatening to control both federal and state offices.

How Texas Turned Red

2020 ◽  
pp. 90-108
Author(s):  
Kenneth P. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
The South ◽  
Dormant State ◽  
The 1960S

This chapter explains how Texas came to align with the Republican Party. Texas is now the essential Republican state, but for most of its history it was part of the solid Democratic South. In the mid-twentieth century, the Texas Democratic Party divided into liberal and conservative factions—partly over race and civil rights but also over a range of questions including New Deal economic policies and anti-communism. Texas Democrats engaged in what V. O. Key called the most intense intraparty fight of any state in the South. The long-dormant state Republican Party began to revive in the 1960s as many Texans became alienated from a national Democratic Party that was shifting to the left. Republican gains produced a period of balanced two-party competition that lasted from the 1970s through the 1990s. By the early 2000s, the GOP established dominance, making Texas the nation’s largest and most powerful Republican state.

Critical Perspectives: Did Prosperity Contribute to the South's Abandonment of the Democratic Party?

2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-432
Author(s):  
W. J. Rorabaugh
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Thomas Jefferson ◽  
The South ◽  
George Bush ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Generation ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Critical Perspectives

During the past generation the South largely has abandoned its traditional commitment to the Democratic Party and emerged as an increasingly strong bastion of the Republican party. In 2004, George Bush won 58 percent in the South but only 48 percent in the rest of the country. (Throughout this article the South is defined as the former Confederate states plus Kentucky and Oklahoma.) In contrast, as recently as 1960, John Kennedy carried the South; excluding the South, Nixon beat Kennedy. The South's commitment to the Democrats lasted more than 150 years, from the days of Thomas Jefferson until the 1960s. How, then, do we explain the decline of the Democrats and the rise of the Republicans in the South in the past forty years?

scholarly journals THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN AND THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN REAGAN'S AMERICA

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
JOE J. RYAN-HUME
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Organization ◽  
National Organization For Women ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Demographic Shifts ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Reagan Era ◽  
The Impact

Abstract This article explores the emergence of women in the United States as a liberal voting group in the 1980s and the impact of this development on the power of liberalism, amid the Reagan revolution – an era often viewed as the apogee of conservatism. As the Republican party shifted in a more conservative direction in the 1980s, gender started to correlate with partisan preference/election outcomes in enough contests to give credence to the belief that women were becoming a decidedly liberal voting bloc. Contemporaneously, the equality-seeking movements of the 1960s and 1970s began institutionalizing their operations and exploiting these demographic shifts, becoming more entrenched than ever within the internal politics of the Democratic party. The National Organization for Women (NOW), the largest liberal women's group, proved to be particularly successful in this respect. Therefore, by presenting substantial archival evidence that liberal politicians and organizations remained a dynamic political force during the 1980s, this article details the growing organizational prowess of NOW and examines how liberals resisted the conservative challenge to fashion a political approach suited to the ‘Reagan Era’.

The Party-Group Alignment of the NRA and the GOP

2021 ◽  
pp. 149-185
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Lacombe
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
National Rifle Association ◽  
Internal Conflicts ◽  
Active Player ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Public Opinion Polls ◽  
Party Group

This chapter chronicles the party–group alignment of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the GOP, detailing the constellation of factors that collectively facilitated this alignment, which began in the 1960s, culminated during the 1980 election, and has deepened in the decades since. It reveals how the NRA's cultivation of a group social identity and gun-centric political ideology made its supporters an attractive demographic group to conservative politicians, and laid the foundation for the group's eventual incorporation into the Republican coalition. The chapter also delves into the NRA's motivations for entering the realm of partisan politics, showing how funding challenges and internal conflicts led to the 1977 “Revolt at Cincinnati,” after which the NRA quickly became an active player in GOP politics. Ultimately, the chapter analyzes public opinion polls to document gun owners' increasing close relationship with the Republican Party — especially following the election of President Donald Trump.

scholarly journals From Strom to Barack: Race, Ideology, and the Transformation of the Southern Party System

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 207-226
Author(s):  
Alan I. Abramowitz
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Racial Composition ◽  
The South ◽  
Hispanic Voters ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Race Ideology

The southern party system has undergone a dramatic transformation since the 1960s, a transformation that has affected both the electoral bases of the parties and their leadership. This transformation has involved two related trends-a shift in the racial composition of the Democratic Party at the mass and elite levels and an ideological realignment that has produced a much wider gap between the ideological orientations and policy preferences of Democratic and Republican leaders and voters. In the South, to an even greater extent than in the rest of the nation, the Democratic Party has become increasingly dependent on the support of nonwhite voters. Meanwhile, despite the growing size of the nonwhite electorate in the South, the Republican base has remained overwhelmingly white. The growing dependence of the Democratic Party in the South on African-American and more recently Hispanic votes has contributed to the party's increasing liberalism because African-American and Hispanic voters tend to strongly support activist government. And this trend has also contributed to the growing conservatism of the Republican base as conservative whites have continued to flee the Democratic Party for the GOP. As a result, the two-party system in the South now consists of a Democratic Party dominated by nonwhites and white liberals and a Republican Party dominated by white conservatives.

The Limits of Americanism

2020 ◽  
pp. 136-159
Author(s):  
D. G. Hart
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
New Left ◽  
College Campuses ◽  
Delayed Gratification ◽  
Free Love ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Heterosexual Marriage

This chapter highlights the emergence of the radicals, feminists, black separatists, free love advocates, and antiwar protesters who huddled under the banner of the New Left. It looks at the conflict that erupted during the 1960s, in which normative America stood for hard work, personal responsibility, individual merit, delayed gratification, social mobility, heterosexual marriage, well-defined gender roles, and national greatness. It also discusses Democrats, establishment Republicans, and conservatives that disagree about the responsibilities of the federal government and its programs. The chapter illustrates the protest culture that arose on college campuses during the 1960s and eventually found a home in the Democratic Party. It elaborates how the New Left embraced a transgressive outlook that challenged all sides of the American way.

The New Economic Populism and the Future of Inequality in the United States

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
William W. Franko ◽  
Christopher Witko
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Labor Unions ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
Income Disparities ◽  
The Face ◽  
Over Time

The authors conclude the book by recapping their arguments and empirical results, and discussing the possibilities for the “new economic populism” to promote egalitarian economic outcomes in the face of continuing gridlock and the dominance of Washington, DC’s policymaking institutions by business and the wealthy, and a conservative Republican Party. Many states are actually addressing inequality now, and these policies are working. Admittedly, many states also continue to embrace the policies that have contributed to growing inequality, such as tax cuts for the wealthy or attempting to weaken labor unions. But as the public grows more concerned about inequality, the authors argue, policies that help to address these income disparities will become more popular, and policies that exacerbate inequality will become less so. Over time, if history is a guide, more egalitarian policies will spread across the states, and ultimately to the federal government.

Putting Donald Trump in Historical Perspective

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doug McAdam
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
And Behavior

The tumultuous onset of Donald Trump’s administration has so riveted public attention that observers are in danger of losing a historical perspective. Trump’s rhetoric and behavior are so extreme that the tendency is to see him and the divisions he embodies as something new in American politics. Instead, Trump is only the most extreme expression of a brand of racial politics practiced ever more brazenly by the Republican Party since the 1960s. His unexpected rise to power was aided by a number of institutional developments in American politics that also have older roots. In the spirit of trying to understand these historical forces, the chapter describes (a) the origins and evolution of the exclusionary brand of racial politics characteristic of the Republican Party since the 1960s, and (b) three illiberal institutions that aided Trump’s rise to power, and that, if left unchanged, will continue to threaten the survival of American democracy.

Who Favors Legalizing Physician-Assisted Suicide? The Vote on Michigan's Proposal B

2001 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Strate ◽  
Timothy Kiska ◽  
Marvin Zalman
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Church Attendance ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Sanctity Of Life ◽  
Initiative Process ◽  
Social Liberalism

At the November 1998 general election, Michigan citizens were given the opportunity to vote on Proposal B, an initiative that would have legalized physician-assisted suicide (PAS). PAS initiatives also have been held in Washington State, California, Oregon, and Maine, with only Oregon's passing. We use exit poll data to analyze the vote on Proposal B. Attributes associated with social liberalism—Democratic Party identification, less frequent church attendance, more education, and greater household income—led to increased odds of a “yes” vote. Attributes associated with social conservatism—Republican Party identification and frequent church attendance—led to decreased odds of a “yes” vote. Similar to the abortion issue, PAS's supporters strongly value personal autonomy, whereas its opponents strongly value the sanctity of life. Voter alignments like those in Michigan will likely appear in other states with the initiative process if PAS reaches their ballots.

Before Reagan: The Development of Abortion’s Partisan Divide

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 1031-1047
Author(s):  
Neil A. O’Brian
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Vote Choice ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mass Public ◽  
Pro Life ◽  
Pro Choice

What explains the alignment of antiabortion positions within the Republican party? I explore this development among voters, activists, and elites before 1980. By 1970, antiabortion attitudes among ordinary voters correlated with conservative views on a range of noneconomic issues including civil rights, Vietnam, feminism and, by 1972, with Republican presidential vote choice. These attitudes predated the parties taking divergent abortion positions. I argue that because racial conservatives and military hawks entered the Republican coalition before abortion became politically activated, issue overlap among ordinary voters incentivized Republicans to oppose abortion rights once the issue gained salience. Likewise, because proabortion voters generally supported civil rights, once the GOP adopted a Southern strategy, this predisposed pro-choice groups to align with the Democratic party. A core argument is that preexisting public opinion enabled activist leaders to embed the anti (pro) abortion movement in a web of conservative (liberal) causes. A key finding is that the white evangelical laity’s support for conservative abortion policies preceded the political mobilization of evangelical leaders into the pro-life movement. I contend the pro-life movement’s alignment with conservatism and the Republican party was less contingent on elite bargaining, and more rooted in the mass public, than existing scholarship suggests.

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