On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 JBrown72073 at cs.com wrote:
>> I wonder if they became Republicans under Reagan. It was a time of
>> transition that way.
>
> The Democrats who were anti-labor didn't need to actually leave the
> Democratic party, the DLC made sure that the tent was big enough for
> them.
Afaik, the DLC wasn't founded until 1985. And I think it was partially very much in reaction to Democrats in the South becoming Republicans. They thought that as conservative Democratic representatives abandonned the party and became Republicans, the center of gravity of the party that remained would shift correspondingly left even as the population in the south was continuing to shift parties -- which would screw people like them when they sought reelection.
The point is that up until 1964, the Democratic party had, for reasons of historical arbitrarity, a Dixiecrat wing that was more conservative than the Republicans -- they basically only voted Democratic because of the civil war. After the National Civil Rights Act, they started filing out, starting with Strom, and eventually they were all gone. But a veto-proof Democratic majority could never reasonably be defined as including them. The Dems had a bigger majority than 61 in 1964, and a more expansive attitude towards both the welfare state and full employment. But everyone knew that was only a nominal and not a real majority. The real majority never included people like Strom.
So in evaluating this Mazzochi story, I'm just wondering if any of those guys were left, and shouldn't have been counted, or whether it's a fair cop, and really does disprove Nathan's long held thesis. I was kind of hoping he'd weigh in by now, to be honest.
Michael