It has been taught (by strong implication) to our children as gospel that in 1964 the Dems and Rs flipped places with the Dems becoming pro civil rights and the Rs becoming racist bubba bait.
It is, of course, a lie.
"Of the 21 Democratic senators who opposed the 1964 act, only one would ever change parties (Strom!). Nor did the segregationist constituencies that elected these Democrats throw them out in favor of Republicans: The remaining 20 continued to be elected as Democrats or were replaced by Democrats. It was, on average, nearly a quarter of a century before those seats went Republican. If southern rednecks ditched the Democrats because of a civil-rights law passed in 1964, it is strange that they waited until the late 1980s and early 1990s to do so. They say things move slower in the South — but not that slow"
A very good piece explaining how LBJ, one of the most power hungry men in the history of American politics, pivoted from crude racism to modern paternalism in the pursuit of the only thing he valued: Power.
What is interesting in retrospect was how quickly the narrative flipped in the public schools. By 1977 when I took US history the notion that Dems were the party of civil rights was entrenched in all the best textbooks (I had a fetish about American history back then, I read several cover to cover. Well that, and Jakarta had no TV).
So much so that when my favorite high school teacher of all time, a retired Army master sergeant who was my American History teacher, taught a version of what turns out to be the truth at the end of the year, I sadly concluded that he must be a racist.
After all, I read the textbooks and they don't lie.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2012/05/party-civil-rights-kevin-d-williamson/
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