Republican Factionalism and the Problem of Disenfranchisement

2008 ◽  
pp. 333-348
Author(s):  
John Roy Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
White Men ◽  
The South ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
National Constitution

This chapter explains that it was during the administration of President Benjamin Harrison that another effort was made to secure the enactment by Congress of the necessary legislation for the effective enforcement of the war amendments to the national Constitution—a federal elections bill. But the fact was soon developed that there were too many Republicans, in and out of Congress, who lacked the courage of their convictions to secure favorable action. In fact, there were three classes of white men at the South who claimed to be Republicans who used their influence to defeat that contemplated legislation. The white men at the South who acted with the Republican party at that time were divided into four classes or groups. Ultimately, the defeat or abandonment of the Lodge Federal Elections Bill was equivalent to a declaration that no further attempts would be made to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the war amendments to the national Constitution. Southern Democrats were not slow in taking advantage of the knowledge of that fact.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Angie Maxwell ◽  
Todd Shields
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Christian Right ◽  
Family Values ◽  
Policy Position ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
The South ◽  
Southern Identity ◽  
Racial Hierarchy ◽  
Playing Field

The GOP’s Southern Strategy initiated the realignment of the South with the Republican Party by exploiting white racial anxiety about social changes to the southern racial hierarchy. However, the GOP’s success was not solely the result of its policy position on civil rights. Rather, that decision was part of a series of decisions the party made on feminism and religion as well, in what is called here the “Long Southern Strategy.” White resentment toward a more level racial playing field, for example, was intensified by the threat of a level gender playing field, and the promotion of “family values” by anti-feminists paved the way for the Christian Right. Moreover, Republican candidates did not just campaign down South, they became “southern.” Throughout realignment, the power of southern identity was rarely taken into consideration, but for whites who proclaim themselves to be southern, that has been the only party that really mattered.

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.

Resilience of Southern Identity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher A. Cooper ◽  
H. Gibbs Knotts
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
American South ◽  
First Century ◽  
The South ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Remarkable Change ◽  
Southern Identity ◽  
Interstate Highway System ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
The American South

The American South has experienced remarkable change over the past half century. Black voter registration has increased, the region’s politics have shifted from one-party Democratic to the near-domination of the Republican Party, and in-migration has increased its population. At the same time, many outward signs of regional distinctiveness have faded--chain restaurants have replaced mom-and-pop diners, and the interstate highway system connects the region to the rest of the country. Given all of these changes, many have argued that southern identity is fading. But here, Christopher A. Cooper and H. Gibbs Knotts show how these changes have allowed for new types of southern identity to emerge. For some, identification with the South has become more about a connection to the region’s folkways or to place than about policy or ideology. For others, the contemporary South is all of those things at once--a place where many modern-day southerners navigate the region’s confusing and omnipresent history. Regardless of how individuals see the South, this study argues that the region’s drastic political, racial, and cultural changes have not lessened the importance of southern identity but have played a key role in keeping regional identification relevant in the twenty-first century.

scholarly journals Industrialization and Two-Party Democracy

1991 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 100-112
Author(s):  
Eric M. Mackey
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
American South ◽  
Industrial Change ◽  
The South ◽  
Congressional Voting ◽  
Industrial Employment ◽  
Primary Finding ◽  
The American South ◽  
The Impact

This paper analyzes the impact of industrial change on partisan transitions in the American South. Using aggregate data from the decennial censes from 1940 to 1980 and aggregate election returns for roughly this same period, the primary finding is a weak and often contradictory bivariate relationship between industrial employment and partisan support in the South. The results were usually much worse for a typical economic development thesis when the dependent and independent variables were operationalized dynamically and when presidential voting and congressional voting were analyzed separately. Overall, the evidence in this paper does not suggest that the Republican party is necessarily or often a beneficiary of industrialization. Neither does it speak well for the possibility of pursuing industrial development as a means of promoting partisan democracy in the South or any other geopolitical context.

scholarly journals Southern Politics After the Election of Presidential Clinton: Continued Transformation Toward the Republican Party?

1993 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 197-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles D. Hadley
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral College ◽  
The South ◽  
Southern Politics ◽  
Southern State ◽  
White House ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
Southern States ◽  
Democratic Vote

To whom does the South belong politically, now that an all-southern ticket has reclaimed the White House for the Democratic party? Review of 1992 voting returns for national, statewide, and legislative races in the South, contrasted with those from earlier presidential years, lead to only one conclusion: the South continues to move toward the Republican party. The Clinton-Gore ticket ran behind its percentage of the national vote in most southern states, as well as behind all Democratic candidates in statewide races, and would have won without any southern electoral votes; whereas Bush-Quayle ran ahead of their percentage of the national vote in every southern state except Clinton’s Arkansas, while Republicans gained seats in southern legislatures and congressional delegations. It is suggested that southern electoral college votes won by Democratic presidential candidates in 1976 and 1992 hinged upon Democratic vote-getters in races for statewide offices in each state carried except the presidential candidates’ home states.

Geography, Race/Ethnicity, and Obesity Among Men in the United States

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 228-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Kelley ◽  
Janice V. Bowie ◽  
Derek M. Griffith ◽  
Marino Bruce ◽  
Sarah Hill ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Ethnic Differences ◽  
White Men ◽  
The United States ◽  
Geographic Region ◽  
The South ◽  
Lower Odds ◽  
Logistic Regression Models ◽  
Geographic Regions ◽  
Racial Ethnic

The prevalence of obesity in the United States has increased significantly and is a particular concern for minority men. Studies focused at the community and national levels have reported that geography can play a substantial role in contributing to obesity, but little is known about how regional influences contribute to obesity among men. The objective of this study is to examine the association between geographic region and obesity among men in the United States and to determine if there are racial/ethnic differences in obesity within these geographic regions. Data from men, aged 18 years and older, from the National Health Interview Survey were combined for the years 2000 to 2010. Obesity was defined as body mass index (BMI) ≥30 kg/m2. Logistic regression models were specified to calculate the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for the association between geographic region and obesity and for race and obesity within geographic regions. Compared to men living in the Northeast, men living in the Midwest had significantly greater odds of being obese (OR = 1.09, 95% CI [1.02, 1.17]), and men living in the West had lower odds of being obese (OR = 0.82, 95% CI [0.76, 0.89]). Racial/ethnic differences were also observed within geographic region. Black men have greater odds of obesity than White men in the South, West, and Midwest. In the South and West, Hispanic men also have greater odds of obesity than White men. In all regions, Asian men have lower odds of obesity than White men.

The Long Southern Strategy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angie Maxwell ◽  
Todd Shields
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Southern Baptist Convention ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
The South ◽  
White Southerners ◽  
Traditional Gender Roles ◽  
The Media ◽  
The American South

Beginning with Barry Goldwater’s Operation Dixie in 1964, the Republican Party targeted disaffected white voters in the Democratic stronghold of the American South. To realign these voters with the GOP, the party capitalized on white racial angst that threatened southern white control. However—and this is critical—that decision was but one in a series of decisions the GOP made not just on race, but on feminism and religion as well, in what is called here the “Long Southern Strategy.” In the wake of Second-Wave Feminism, the GOP dropped the Equal Rights Amendment from its platform and promoted traditional gender roles in an effort to appeal to anti-feminist white southerners, and it politicized evangelical fundamentalist Christianity as represented by the Southern Baptist Convention. All three of those decisions were necessary for the South to turn from blue to red. To make inroads in the South, however, GOP politicians not only had to take these positions, but they also had to sell them with a southern “accent.” Republicans had to mirror southern white culture by emphasizing an “us vs. them” outlook, preaching absolutes, accusing the media of bias, prioritizing identity over the economy, depicting one’s way of life as under attack, encouraging defensiveness toward social changes, and championing a politics of vengeance. Over time, that made the party southern, not in terms of place, but in its vision, in its demands, in its rhetoric, and in its spirit. In doing so, it nationalized southern white identity, and that has changed American politics.

Democrats in the South: The Race Question

2008 ◽  
pp. 503-512
Author(s):  
John Roy Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Racial Identity ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Active Part ◽  
The South ◽  
Army Officers ◽  
Official Recognition ◽  
Do So

This chapter explores how, when John Roy Lynch came to Chicago, whether or not he should take an active part in politics was one of the first questions that occurred to him. He had no intention of actively participating politically in local matters, but it occurred to him that like some other retired army officers, he could, with propriety, take an active part in national matters. But after going over the field very carefully, Lynch found that conditions nationally, as well as locally, were not such as would justify him in doing so. In fact, beginning with the unfortunate administration of President William Howard Taft, the colored American had no standing with either of the two major parties. The Democratic party, nationally, was still a white man's party and, beginning with the Taft administration, the Republican party was no longer a champion of human rights. In fact, the policy inaugurated by President Taft was equivalent to transforming the Republican party, as far as it was in the power of an administration to do so, into a race proscriptive party. In other words, racial identity regardless of merit was made a bar to official recognition.

Party Leaders and Electoral Realignment: Democratic and Republican Southern Strategies, 1948–1968

The Forum ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 631-653 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boris Heersink
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
The South ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
White Voters ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
American Party ◽  
Black Voters ◽  
The Way

Abstract Political scientists who have studied electoral realignments in the American party system increasingly focus on explaining such changes as the result of major historical developments outside of the control of party leaders. Using both national parties’ approaches to the South in the period 1948–1968, I argue that while party leaders may be unable to cause or prevent a realignment, they do attempt to affect the way in which that process plays out. That is, while the shift of Southern White voters from the Democratic to the Republican Party itself was a largely inevitable process, the timing and context in which it played out was affected by competing strategies from both parties. Specifically, I show that between 1948 and 1964, Democratic leaders hedged their bets between attempting to keep white Southern voters in the party, or expel them in favor of black voters in the Northeast based on their assessments of the party’s electoral position. At the same time, between 1948 and 1968, Republican leaders struggled to balance an appeal to segregationist Southerners and voters in other regions before finding a winning formula in Richard Nixon’s 1968 ‘Southern strategy.’

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?

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