The Republican Party was the civil rights party right from its inception. From abolition to fighting for women to have the right to vote, it has always been the Republicans leading the way. But according to Democrats, the parties switched at some point in history. When asked for a specific date, different answers are given. There is no consensus as to when the switch happened. They just know it happened.

There is a great deal of disagreement from Democrats when the switch happened spanning many decades, but thoroughly convinced the switch occurred.

Franklin D. Roosevelt is one of the more common replies. For those who honestly believe the parties switched under Roosevelt, they do so based on myth and spin about events that never happened. He never undid a single racist policy put in place by the eugenicist, Woodrow Wilson. Every racist Wilsonian policy, including segregation of the military, continued under Roosevelt until the day he died.

It was Roosevelt who ordered Americans of Japanese descent to be put into camps, despite no violations of the law. It was Roosevelt who ensured the right people were in place to strictly limit Jews fleeing the Nazis from reaching the United States via unchanging quotas, despite the known horrors. His entire cabinet consisted of anti-Semitic eugenicists.

Roosevelt never would have supported Israel. Truman’s inherited Cabinet all threatened to resign if he did. Roosevelt, before his death, had his ‘M Project’ plan already in place.  It was the details of a plan to spread the surviving Jews throughout the world. He believed the large Jewish populations in countries like Germany was the reason for anti-Semitism, not hatred of the Jewish people.

Roosevelt did nothing to prove the parties switched under him. He was every bit the eugenicist that Wilson was. The only thing Roosevelt had was good PR that created a myth in his own time. A myth that continues to this day.

Those same actions, or lack of actions could have just as easily happened during Wilson’s presidency. If things changed under Roosevelt, where is the evidence?

Another answer for when the parties switched, though not as common as it used to be, was the Dixiecrats who supposedly became Republican in 1952, the next presidential election year following their failed attempt to repeat 1860.  If the Dixiecrats really became Republicans, it should have been reflected in the 1952 presidential election. Not a single Dixiecrat state voted for the Republican presidential candidate, Eisenhower. They voted for the Democrats’ candidate, Stevenson.  The 1952 presidential results prove the Dixiecrats, very much remained part of the Democratic Party. It clearly was not FDR or the Dixiecrats that brought about some change to the parties. Roosevelt was a eugenicist to the day he died and the Dixiecrats continued to vote Democrat the following election.

Perhaps the switch happened with the 1968 Civil Rights Act that Democrats so often take credit for. Considering the sheer number of Democrats who opposed it, Republicans were the ones who helped carry it in both the House and Senate, without a single Southern Democrat supporting the Act. It was also a culmination of earlier Republican Civil Rights Acts in the 1960s that Democrats had previously stopped. On December 17, 2018, the Daily Signal, published an article by Brad Sylvester, Fact Check: ‘More Republicans Voted for the Civil Rights Act as a Percentage Than Democrats Did’ stating:

Congress later passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, also known as the Fair Housing Act . It initially passed the House in a 327-93 vote, with 68 percent support from Democrats and 87 percent support from Republicans. It then went to the Senate, where it was amended and voted upon, passing in a 71-20 vote in which 42 Democrats (66 percent) and 29 Republicans (81 percent) voted in favor.

If the parties changed by 1968, why was the Democratic National Convention held in Chicago a place of police dogs and firehoses being turned on what had been mostly peaceful protests by black Americans?  Richard Daley, the notorious racist, was the Democrat mayor of Chicago in 1968. He was the one to give the order that resulted in protests turning to riots. There were known agitators who could have been delt with differently; instead they shut down the city before a single protest began.

On August 26, 2018, CBS News, released the report, Remembering 1968: Chicago’s bloody Democratic Convention, which states:

On August 25, Walter Cronkite noted on air, "The Democratic Convention is about to begin in a police state. There just doesn't seem to be any other way to say it."

The Democrat party, not the Republicans, turned Chicago into a police state. They unleashed everything they could to keep black protestors from being heard and seen by those attending the convention. If the parties switched, why was there nothing close to a single Republican National Convention that had similar results?

So much for the parties changing places prior to 1969. Violence against black people was in line with Democrats’ history.

Perhaps it was the Nixon’s Southern Strategy. That does seem to be a more common explanation these days than the Dixiecrats.  But Nixon’s Southern Strategy never actually happened. He did not campaign in the Deep South, but on the outskirts of the South. His strategy was the Sunbelt Strategy, which went from parts of Florida to California. Much of the south was outside where he actually campaigned.

On August 23, 2018, The Hill, published an opinion piece by Dinesh D’Souza, The myth of Nixon’s ‘Southern Strategy’ which stated:

Nixon recognized the South was changing. It was becoming more industrialized, with many northerners moving to the Sunbelt. Nixon’s focus, Phillips writes, was on the non-racist, upwardly-mobile, largely urban voters of the Outer or Peripheral South. Nixon won these voters, and he lost the Deep South, which went to Democratic segregationist George Wallace.

In 1968, Nixon did not take a single state considered Deep South. Segregationist, George Wallace, took the Deep South. Hubert Humphry, the Democrats’ nominee, took Texas. This map shows just how well Nixon’s strategy worked and exactly who the Deep South voted for.

Reagan is claimed to have used a continuation of Nixon’s Southern Strategy that never was. For Reagan, considering the states he won, it was more of an American strategy, beating Carter 489 electoral votes to 49.

Every claim Democrats make about the parties switching is not based on truth. Divisiveness and propaganda are the only things the Democrats have, and it continues to be very effective.

Next time someone says the parties switched, challenge that person, and use history as it happened, not as it was perceived to have happened. Republicans should never back down from this fight. The evidence supports the parties never changed and Republicans remain the party of Civil Rights.