I mentioned Wilson as a step towards Republican/Democrat realignment. The alignment wasn’t purely a civil rights thing, it was also about coalitions. And he laid some important foundations to what became the administrative state and progressivism. He did some horrible stuff & “progressive” doesn’t always mean correct (eg eugenics was considered a part of the progressive movement at the time), and it’s not something we should honor. I only mentioned him as part of the coalition shifting. It shouldn’t be surprising that a racist Democrat (who also did things for the administrative state) was a bridge between the two eras.

As for post-Nixon, when I say “gradual” I mean that we’ll into the 90s and even 00s, there were still conservative Southerners that identified with Democrats. I agree they weren’t pushed out & I didn’t say the people were. It’s the ideas that were the inconsistencies in the coalitions. As everyone sorted more, the parties became further and further polarized, culminating in the South becoming deep red in places it used to be deep blue.

After LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act, he predicted “We have lost the South for a generation.”

There was already strong Southern opposition to civil rights, going back to… well, always. But with FDR’s liberal Supreme Court majority desegregating the schools, the Southern delegation published The Southern Manifesto preaching opposition and non-compliance. These tensions kept floating throughout the Civil Rights Movement. Over time, Democrats became more aligned with civil rights (eg Dem majority passing CRA and VRA, appointing the first Black Justice, etc) and Republicans became more opposed (ie Nixon’s “law and order” campaign, which started while LBJ was president).

So, I agree that Nicon played an important role. But imo the soil was fertile for his Southern Strategy because of what was crystallized under LBJ: Dems became the party of civil rights (even if it took decades for most of the inconsistencies to gradually get pushed out)

fwiw neither party was around 200 years ago (tho Dems are close at like 195 or so years). The Republican started around 1860, so it’s closer to 160 years old.

Back during the Civil War, Republicans were union men who defeated the traitorous losers. As a result, white Southerners wouldn’t be Democrats for generations. Started to change around Wilson, especially FDR, though the final big push wasn’t really until LBJ passed civil rights and voting rights legislation during his huge Democratic-majority Great Society agenda.

My favorite stat about population weirdness is that there are more Trump votes in LA County than in West Virginia