Comment by lapcat
17 days ago
> Even in 1976, Carter did great in the deep south.
Carter was a southern conservative, deeply, overtly Christian, whereas Ford, the accidental President, was a northerner and social moderate.
In any case, Presidential elections are not necessarily the best indicator of political alignment. After all, some were blowouts, such as 1972, 1980, and 1984. On other other hand, note that Lyndon Johnson lost much of the south, except his home state of Texas, despite winning big elsewhere in the country. But for political alignment, you also have to look at local elections, such as state houses.
> The realignment happened in the 1980s, due to economic growth in the south. The south went from being poor and agrarian in the 1930s to being newly industrialized in the 1980s.
This makes no sense, because first, the south is still poorer, and second, the political correlation you're implying simply doesn't exist. Why would wealth and industrialization turn a state Republican when that doesn't appear to be the case anywhere else in the country? To the contrary, at present the rural areas are solidly Republican and the urban areas solidly Democratic.
> The 19th century GOP was a coalition of religious conservatives and protectionist industrialists.
I can't say I'm very familiar with the 19th century GOP, and neither of us was alive in the 19th century, but I don't think you've correctly characterized the 20th century GOP. Moreover, I don't think you can characterize "the party of Lincoln" as socially conservative either.
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> You should study the economic history.
> You should read the primary sources from the civil war.
Please refrain from this type of comment. You should know as longtime, prolific HN commenter that they are against the guidelines.
> The gap has closed almost completely.
I don't think that's true. Some random links: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Map_of_s... https://www.cnbc.com/select/average-net-worth-by-state/
In any case, it's a red herring, because again, "the political correlation you're implying simply doesn't exist."
> For most of the 20th century, that was exactly the political dichotomy. Democrats were the party of the urban and rural poor, and urban social liberals. Republicans were the party of business and industry, plus religious conservatives.
This is merely a stereotype, an overgeneralization. The reality is much more complex, and inconstant.
But there's an interesting overlap in your claim: "plus religious conservatives". So what happens when "the urban and rural poor" happen to be religious conservatives?
> In states like Georgia, the first places to turn red where affluent educated collar counties around Atlanta, which were benefitting from metro Atlanta’s economic growth.
Given my skepticism of everything else you've already said, I'm not inclined to take anything without proof, but that's not really the issue here. My objection to your theory is not whether it can explain the political situation in the south but rather whether it can explain the political situation in the rest of the country, and I don't see any evidence that it can. Otherwise it's just cherry-picking.
> Abolition was driven by fundamentalist Christians, especially in the midwest.
Not all religion is socially conservative. There are various sects of Christianity in various parts of the country, each with their own social and political tendencies. The civil rights movement also came out of the church, e.g., the Reverend Martin Luther King, the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
> Remember that we didn’t have DNA in the 1850s, so the notion that the races were equal was a moral assertion, not a scientific one.
It's still a moral assertion.