Returning home for the first time following last November’s presidential election, I sat down with my father after Thanksgiving dinner, unbuttoned my jeans to let my turkey-filled gut bloat and preceded to talk politics with the old man.
My father is of the breed that most political analysts consider the staunchest of conservatives — he is a self-made man that earned his own money and rarely feels he owes anything to anyone.
He said with great concern, “Son, I don’t think there will be another GOP president. At least, not in my lifetime.”
This is one point that I do not contest with my pops.
In recent years, there has been a noticeable shift in the politics of the Deep South. Democrats have begun to show they are competitive in our perpetually conservative region. Some have even come to ask the question, “Can Democrats win back the South?”
But this question may be misleading.
Back when Democrats were winning the South, Jim Crow still wrote the laws. Following the Civil Rights Movement, contemporary Democrats saw brief success, but they hardly spent enough time in office to consider it victorious.
It was not long before Old South Democrats like former Alabama Gov. George Wallace returned to power after the Civil Rights Movement and restored order under the guise of a Republican.
During the late 1940s and through the 1950s, when the nation was fiscally running high, social injustices — especially racial injustices — were prevalent.
Democrats — who were struggling at the time to win national elections — saw an opportunity to change their platform, but this would cause a severe split in the party, bringing one half out of the dark and leaving the other in a devilish demise. It became the Democrats versus the Dixiecrats versus the Republicans.
The result of the Democratic split caused a complete re-alignment of the American political parties — Republicans became the Democrats, and Democrats became Republicans.
Abraham Lincoln, widely regarded as the greatest American president, was indeed a Republican. But in today’s politics, he would have more likely been left of center.
The Dixiecrats, or southern Democrats who would not support any civil rights progression, diminished or joined the Republicans — the only other viable party that did not have civil rights under their platform.
But this does not mean that Republicans in the ’50s and ’60s were against civil rights and inherited the habits and values of white supremacists.
Progressive democrats made a historic — and even politically brilliant — move by adopting civil rights into their platform.
Subsequently, other conservative ideologies by Old South Democrats perpetuated racial inequality: A more strict interpretation of the Constitution would place more power and a belief in smaller government.
Do not think that even Honest Abe and Thaddeus Stevens – Tommy Lee Jones’ character in last year’s “Lincoln” — believed in total racial equality. During the Reconstruction era, they and many other Republicans believed freedmen should not be given the ballot.
Be that they are still socially disposed, the issues between the two parties are not racially inclined – at least, they should not be. That ship has long since sailed its course.
The Grand Old Party is seeing the last of its days.
Conservatives can no longer attack on social issues. The GOP has spent too much energy and focus on social issues that do not deserve such treatment.
Gov. Bobby Jindal was, for the most part, right in saying the Republican Party cannot be the stupid party anymore.
Ironically, the areas that vote Republican most are typically at the bottom in education standards – Louisiana and Mississippi included.
Southern voters have meticulously casted their ballots on the basis of social issues, and that is why the South has gone Republican. Republican and conservative values heavily mimic the moral codes of Christians.
I do not necessarily attribute the recent Democratic trend in southern states to a more socially liberal southern society, though the Mason-Dixon has become hazy — the result of Yankee infiltration.
President Obama’s term has also awoken some demographics that were not very liable to cast ballots in the past.
For the most part, the GOP is dying — if not already dead — but the cornerstone values and principles will still influence our southern politics.
Nevertheless, I do not see the South going blue in soon-to-come national elections. Fiscal conservatism and being a “self-made man” are traits of particular pride in the South.
Chris Ortte is a 22-year-old political science senior from Lafayette.