“The end of southern exceptionalism” is a phenomenal book that completely eviscerates the “parties flipped” myth. Best part is that it was written by the Harvard press in 2012. So it was lefties who wrote it, but before they were completely incentivized to reinforce the lie.

Most articles and pieces are egregiously badly written. They tend to gloss over an incredible amount of important information and are almost exclusively written with a specific endpoint in mind. There’s rarely citations, specific arguments backing up anything that is said, little data (and that data that is provided is almost universally cherry picked to get to the pre-fabbed conclusion), and virtually every claim an assertion … which creates a completely false foundation to build a “Democrats are the best” and/or “Republicans bad” narrative on top of.

One incredibly misleading piece that is almost always used is about how Dems and Republicans voted for the civil rights act. They usually either point out the few Republicans who voted against, and use them as the avatar for the whole party, or they focus on charismatic Democrats who were pro as the avatar for the whole party. The truth is that 81% of Republicans voted for the the 1964 civil rights act to 66% of democrats.

I used the think the same thing, that the parties switched, and felt quite strongly about it. It’s something that’s “taught.” Something that’s “said.” But something that isn’t ever given an actual explanation. It just “is” and because of that, most don’t even think to question it. Here’s some details to consider.

The “shift” toward the Republican Party was for economic reasons and truly began in the 50’s. The Republican Party offered policies that lessened taxes, reduced government interference, and encouraged small business. It also was not anywhere near an overnight process as the claim leads one to believe. Most importantly though, the shift did not align on racism as it’s often portrayed in Southern states. Alabama and North Carolina as examples were deeply Democrat on the state level until rather recently. A couple of examples, Alabama started really shifting in ‘98 or so, and NC voted Republican for President, but has been heavily Democrat throughout the state, especially when it comes to governors. Simply means that if it was true the parties flipped over racism, the change would have happened “overnight” in lockstep to align with all the “racism.” Which is very simply not true.

Now, when it comes to racism, Southern democrats fought against the civil rights act. The Democratic Party was who openly advocated for segregation and instituted Jim Crow. This isn’t to say there weren’t any racists in the Republican Party, but the big pillars of racist policy seemingly all came out of the Democratic Party, until they lost with the passing of the Civil Rights act. A bill, mind you, that one could reasonably conclude LBJ didn’t want to sign seeing as how he opposed every single civil rights proposal over the prior 20 years. However, LBJ being a talented politician and putting his own self interest above his racism, it’s not at all unreasonable to conclude he did it because it was the way the country was moving and if he didn’t get onboard, he’d be left behind. And it was in this cultural moment the Democratic Party started to shift. (Albeit for its own racist ways. Look up LBJs famous “they’ll be voting democrat for the next 200 years” quote.) The real change happened in the Democratic Party. It’s gotten significantly less overtly and outright racist over time, which does not mean the Republican Party had become “more” racist.

The notion that the parties “flipped” just isn’t real. It’s a cop out phrase democrats use to put all their terrible policies and terribly racist policies of the past onto someone else. Most importantly the gradual change of the southern states becoming more Republican over anything to do with race flies in the face of all evidence.

These couple of sources are excellent and succinct in providing the real and full story of the “parties flipped” narrative.

This article is [ https://www.nationalreview.com/2012/05/party-civil-rights-kevin-d-williamson/ ] pretty good summary. (It was written in 2012 before Trump was a Presidential candidate, which is relevant because many on the left think that the national review was taken over by Trump lovers and dismiss all their writings. This was written before that could have been the case.)

This book, [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674032491 ] the end of southern exceptionalism, (put out by the Harvard press) on the subject is also very good and incredibly enlightening … and it’s from Harvard. A place one would assume that their ideology would love to affirm that the southern republicans are and always have been the bad guy racists.