Nerd Stuff — "The Party Switch"

A lot of stuff in here I didn't know about and other stuff I though I knew about but really didn't.

My parents don't believe the demographic switch (they're maga) so I always appreciate more detail on this subject. The piece in Myth America by Kevin Kruse is one of my favorites, but he didn't go that far back. He focuses on the politician and demographic switch following the civil rights laws (or, at least, that's the part I remember best...i haven't reread it in a bit). Thank you!

Weird thing that my mom is currently obsessed with is how, according to her, the Republican party's color used to be blue and Democratic party red but they demanded it be switched because they wanted to hide the association with communism. I don't care much to debate her on that, but based on my cursory research it seems like the colors were largely spontaneous and only really became standardized with TV election coverage in part because Republican and Red start with "R". Weird maga shit is weird.

Love these history talks. One suggestion: Reconstruction / post Reconstruction are a really interesting and neglected time in America. I see a lot of parallels to today.

I would love more videos like this.

I’d also appreciate a video about Jim Crow. I feel like it wasn’t covered well enough in my college classes even.

The “change” came when Lincoln decided to run with a Dixiecrat, Johnson, allowing the Dixiecrats to take over the Republican Party, and denying the promised equity for former slaves. It was Johnson who stopped all mechanisms that would give the newly freed blacks and chance of escaping poverty at that time. With Johnson at the helm of the Republican Party after Lincoln’s assassination, the mass of white racist Dixiecrats switched parties. This left a chasm in the Democratic Party, which gave them no chance of survival, except to recruit newly politically enfranchised blacks, and poor whites. It was a slow transformation, but that’s when the switch really started. That’s the big switch.

I like this! Moar need stuff please

I'd like to see a list of your books; categorized and alphabetized, of course.

This was a great video! Thank you for making it! I knew many pieces of this, but it was nice to have you put them all together.

Hope to see more of these videos. I've seen your TikToK videos but I'm not on there that much now. I also enjoy your writings on the NYTimes.

As you pivoted to the 1960’s, I found myself wondering about the impact of the Vietnam War as a ‘Factor X’ working silently with the fallout of the Civil Rights Movement and legislation as another slow-moving catalyst for this switch.

Please do another one of these! I appreciated the depth you achieved in under a half hour.

Hello from the Canadian Prairies. Glad you’re still here speaking out Jamelle. That was BS with you getting pushed out.
Black nerd representation is also always welcome. Please touch base with FD Signifier!

Black experience in he 20thC wars + consequences would be a good Nerd Stuff mini series.

Fascinating video. Most comprehensive discussion on The Party Switch that I've seen.

Yes! Love nerd stuff! Thank you for experimenting with long form content.

This was really good especially for an off the cuff summary of sorts. Other significant events and figures that played a role in the grand partisan realignment include the "Lily White" Republican strategy that alienated Black voters, the Hoover administration's actions that repulsed Black Americans and led to FDR's election, the 1936 presidential election and the role of Elenor Roosevelt in attracting Black voters to the Democratic Party, and the RNC of 1964 and how social conservatives in the GOP managed to get Goldwater elected as the party's presidential nominee and the experiences of Black delegates and journalists at that convention (MLK and Jackie Robinson had some strong words for the stark changes happening in the GOP during that time). The election and tenure of Black GOP Sen. Edward Brooke of MA, the Black Republican known as the father of affirmative action (I forget his name at the moment), the historic presidential campaigns of Rep. Shirley Chisolm and Rev. Jesse Jackson, and the election of Democrat Douglas Wilder of VA as the nation's first elected Black American governor also represent watershed moments in this particular history. Also, as far as a starting point, I'd go back to the Compromise of 1876 which was a bipartisan response to a very contested (among other things) presidential election which officially ended Reconstruction.

I know this was a bit of an experiment, but I thought it was excellent! Please keep doing these!

This was a fantastic lesson

I beg to differ, FDR tossing our dimes, social security medicare happened in the 1930's, the schism tracked with "national media" or cable (1980) In the 1980s a South Carolina Democrat was far to the right of a connecticut Republican. in 1996 Rupert Murdock gave $6M to Newt Gingrich to allow Murdoch to start FoxLies channel. Which Roger Stone predicted in 1973.

Love to see this kind of in-depth discussion! I hate to see discussion of this topic oversimplified to the point of meaninglessness, given that it actually represents a series of complex, intertwined, and evolving political movements and forces over the course of many decades. I'd like to mention one of my favorite parts of that long, gradual and complicated "party switch" - the last progressive Republican. I've seen various Republicans held up as being the last remnant of the progressive Republicans, but my favorite candidate is Jacob Javits, Republican senator from New York from 1957-1981. Javits is one of my heroes.

The joining of capitalist and white supremacist forces always felt to me like a fallout of the Lewis Powell Memorandum of 1971. That was a turning point for pro-business forces as southern tobacco company counsel Powell convinced them that there could be no more sharing power with the American people: they had become too informed about their own wellbeing (and at then same time, too socially egalitarian and too antiwar). Capital (then still overwhelmingly white- and male-controlled) either must fully capture government or be crushed out of existence by (largely integrated) democratic overreach. For this line of thinking Powell was fast-tracked to the first vacancy on the Supreme Court.

Super interesting. Loved it. Thank you! More please!

So, Nixon wasn’t actually a racist, he was just an opportunist?

Please do more of this, love long form Bouie content

Awesome content! I’d love to see a video on the fractures and competing interests in the Democratic Party post-WWII culminating in the election of 1948 and Henry Wallace’s third party run.

More of this please

A better way to describe it is how both parties were big tent parties that had their own "left" and "right" inside it. What is the "party switch" is the years of change to both platforms where the "right" of both parties aligned together, and the "left" of both parties aligned together into both the Republicans and Democrats respectively.

This is why the Republicans of the 20's and 30's are similar to the Republicans of the 80's onward today.

George Wallace is being proven right everyday

Good stuff, Jamelle. I think your audio levels are a bit low.

Yes, please, a whole video about Jim Crow!

lincoln versus Trump

Rather than a party switch, I think it's more useful to talk about a party clarification. Before the 60s, both parties had liberal and conservative wings, with the Dems having both the most liberal and most conservative. What happened in the 60s was the conservatives left the Democratic party and joined the GOP, leaving one party dominated by conservatives and one by liberals.

Interesting conversation. I would be curious to know how the Brown ruling accelerated the ideological realignment. I think that many times we, as Black Americans, dismiss how our inclusion in the political and economic calculus of the country fundamentally changed everything. Brown was the first time, post-Reconstruction, that the courts validated our rights as citizens in this country (and the Federal executive branch enforced those decisions). Vying for someone's vote is one thing. Sharing resources with them (despite their contribution to those resources) is another.

While I agree to many points made, it still makes no sense why blacks return back to their enslavers, the democrats. It's like a Stockholm syndrome among blacks, to create a sympathy for their captors, for their ghetto-izers, for their identity politics masters, for their plantationists.

I would LOVE to see a four hour video, or even a series of videos, on the Party Switch. You provide a good synopsis, but there's SO MUCH MORE that goes into the "party switch", as you absolutely know. I'm really glad you brought up Humphrey - the "Happy Warrior" putting a civil rights plank into the Democratic party is a huge factor, as Truman unexpectedly winning due to a greater than expected turnout of Black voters for Truman in the North. Nixonland is also an excellent book - I'm happy to see you shouting it out.

I looked up Arlen Specter's history, incidentally, and I learned something new about him - he started as a Democrat from 1951-1965, but switched to running as a Republican because he got into conflict with a powerful Democratic ward leader (the whole thing gets so in-depth, you could do a whole thing on the history of political corruption, from the "spoils system" to Tammany Hall to, well, today.) Anyway I'm sure you have your own ideas. American political history is just way more interesting than a lot of people know.

Republicans want lower taxes and Democrats want more abortions.

Hey, the algorithm actually offered me something I actually would want to listen to

Loving this format!

Also, I feel like a lot of the arguments you mention taking place on social media are done in bad faith. I usually see them from conservatives arguing that the Democrats are the party of the Klan and always have been, completely ignoring that FDR existed. And I'm sure arguments like this are made in the opposite direction as well, though I mostly hang out in liberal spaces

I love this!

And lets not forget Lee Atwater's 1981 quote about the southern strategy: You start out in 1954 by saying, “Ni**er, ni**er, ni**er.” By 1968 you can’t say “ni**er”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Ni**er, ni**er.”

And thats a strategy thats STILL in effect TODAY.

Great information

What’s the difference between populists and progressives?

why does every conversation on this ignore the federalist party that was the original republicans

Nixon support affirmative action, law and order was because riots in the 60s and attitude of the left we should not arrest crooks because of poverty. Nixon supported the civil rights act of 1964 . He probably would supported welfare reform but about conservative beliefs of people should self reliant and opposition to taxes . He was not racist .

Fantastic stuff as always, Jamelle. Really appreciate you doing the work to set up a channel and to share more of your voice.

Thanks for this. Maybe talk about the 2000 general election and how SCOTUS got involved and gave it to Bush, instead of the tired story that Nader was a spoiler? Or what you think the potential is for a third party to have moderate success in elections? Or on the on flip side, if it's possible for either the Dem or Rep party to break up?

Really appreciate this. Instant subscribe

This is a great video, and I hope you make more of these longer-form video discussions. One topic I hope you delve into in the future is the Progressive Era in the US.

This is so good. I love the idea of “un-simplifying” hot-button debates that go nowhere on social media.