Hah. Did you know that the Republicans used to be the left wing party and the Democrats the right wing party? Apparently the GOP were the abolitionists and the Democrats were in support of slavery.
All changed thanks to two words: "Southern Strategy".
The 'Southern Strategy', Dixiecrats, Tea-Partiers... that's all noise, and none of it was new at the time.
The easiest way to describe it is that we've been split even
before Day One along a
Northern and Southern mentality.
The names never mattered. Jefferson formed the Democratic-Republican Party; they're
both the Grand Old Party in that sense. 'Dem' and 'Rep' are ideologically fairly generic and effectively identical.
Even their unofficial/official colors are reversed, with the world considering red leftist. And I think that happened in 1980 when the Reps were blatantly right-wing.
"Lincoln was a Republican!"
Yeah, but he was a lawyer who went to Congress representing Illinois, same as Obama. It's no surprise the 2008/12 election maps closely match 1860's Union/Confederacy versions ('cept for more states).
"~Half of Republicans in Congress voted
for the Civil Rights Act! ~Half of Democrats voted
against it!"
Yeah, but again... the actual vote matches the same North/South divide present 50 years later and 100/200 years earlier.
The parties always change, but it's usually been a pretty clear choice between North vs. South. Or ideologically -
Progressive vs.
Regressive.
Or (if a bit simplistically) morally better or worse.
Or the common, but less accurate -Liberal vs. Conservative.
I say less accurate 'cuz those are both basically neutral terms in themselves.
A liberal being
too open-minded can be highly regressive by excusing obvious immoral practices with the flawed logic of 'cultural differences', while certain conservation measures -like action on climate change- can be highly progressive).
