NIxon and the Party Switch

While the history of American politics is relatively young, there have been major switches in the two main parties, the Republican and the Democratic parties. The most noticeable change in parties occurred in the 1970's with Nixon and locked in with Reagan in the 80's. Just about every one of the former Confederate states and the "Deep South" states supported the Democratic party. the northern states were all Republican. It was the Democrats who actually preached segregation, states rights, and wished to stop the civil rights movement. The Democratic Party used to favor a “small government” platform that social conservatives embraced, while the Republican party used to favor a “big government” platform that progressive liberals supported.

JFK was one of the causes of the switch, as he was a moderate who supported civil rights, and thus alienated many Democrats. The largest shift occurred when Nixon ran for election in 1968, his strategists persuaded Nixon to advocate for states rights, which most Republicans have embraced since the time. Nixon especially emphasized it as he was touring the South.

In the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, many white southerners switched over to the Republican party and thought that Nixon meant that he would not use the federal government to press for activism on racial issues. He won 77% of the deep south in 1972. On the other hand, many African Americans thought that Nixon was against Civil Rights, and it turned out that 90 percent of them switched over from the party of emancipation to the party of slavery (oh the irony).

However, Nixon actually did expand the power and size of the federal government, in different ways, obviously, like pushing for the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Looks like Republicans actually care about the environment. Hmmm. Nixon's so-called 'Southern Strategy' has shaped American politics since then. A president in a new liberal age, Nixon kept Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society program, and had his Philadelphia Plan, the first significant federal affirmative action program.Most importantly, however, is something that many people forgot: he was actually a member of the NAACP. Yet, the organization that supported Civil Rights and was opposed to discrimination. 

Nixon believed that Republicans should represent a broader spectrum of beliefs, and said he "would rather have Republicans as majority leaders in the House and Senate than Democrats". Thus, he was a 'worldly' president who traveled around the world from Europe to the Middle East to Asia. He met with political figures and worked out new international relations, like with China. who can forget his famous visit to China in 1972. In a sense, he also represented the views of the old Republicans and the "new" Republicans.

But let's look at today: we see Republican voters who wave Dixie battle flags and protect statues of Robert E. Lee, a Southern Democrat. Just look at the Charlottesville pictures. Then there are the progressive American liberal antifascists who preach violence and all of the protestors who are willing to kill. The shifts toward government programs like welfare, and things like social justice, states’ rights have spurred the party switch over time. With changing demographics, we have different people supporting the Democratic party like Latinos (only about 23% of them voted Republican in 2012 vs. 40% in 2004).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-switzer/post_4287_b_2450009.html 

https://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/197976/explainer-how-democrats-and-republicans-switched-sides-on-civil-rights/

http://prospect.org/article/great-party-switch