A few nights ago I was watching hardball, and to my surprise Chris Matthews and his other guest allowed Ron Christie to get away with a comment that absolutely drives me crazy. The comment was to the effect of "Republicans stood by civil rights; it was southern democrats who fought the civil rights movement". While the statement is historically accurate, transform the party dynamics forty years to the present and it is a meaningless statement.
Appealing to historical party dynamics is pointless. Does it matter in today's dynamics that Senator John C Calhoun, the staunch states’ rights believer in nullification was a Democrat from South Carolina, or that President Lincoln a republican from Illinois issued the emancipation proclamation; freeing the slaves in those states in rebellion. If we jump forward to the turn of the 19th we see one of the most progressive Presidents in Theodore Roosevelt; President Roosevelt happened to be Republican. We look at William Jennings Bryan, Democratic Presidential hopeful who prosecuted the Scopes Trial (the right to teach evolution in school).
If we jump forward fifty years to a more recent era, we get Senator. Strom Thurmond the Democrat from South Carolina who led the fight to maintain the segregation of the Jim Crow South (Sen. Thurmond would later become a Republican). Republican President Dwight Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne to aid in the integration of the Little Rock, Arkansas school district; Governor Faubus of Arkansas was a Democrat. The infamous words "Segregation now, Segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" were uttered by Governor Wallace a democrat from Alabama. In 1988, former Klan leader David Duke from Louisiana tried to run as a Democratic presidential hopeful. Fifty years ago a Democrat losing in the Deep South was unheard of, thirty years ago Republican Presidential hopeful Rick Perry was a Democrat in the Texas house.
As far as legislation is concerned, party dynamics change, the original party of States Rights is now considered the party of big business, while the party that freed the slaves and pushed the 15th Amendment, guaranteeing enfranchisement of at that time all male citizens regardless of race, now squares off against the Voter Rights Act of 1964. The party that broke the monopoly of Standard Oil, now tries to break unions. The sixteenth amendment, giving the federal government the ability to levy income taxes passed through a Republican controlled house, senate and white house. The landmark cases of the Civil Rights era passed through the Warren Court; Chief Justice Earl Warren was appointed by a Republican president.
When you examine the history of the two major parties in American politics and examine the current discourse of party politics you are baffled. I cannot count the times I've said "can you believe that guy was a democrat, or a republican". The dynamic changes as party politics evolve. For that very reason, Ron Christie's comment was a futile attempt to play to a historical ignorance and the fact that the comment wasn't addressed bothers the historian in me.