The utter irrelevance of "more Republicans than Democrats voted for the CRA"

[RFayette]

White Southerners have always been fairly conservative, New Deal support notwithstanding.  Once the Dems stopped being firmly anti-civil rights (starting in 1948), the firewall began to crack.  Once the Democrats became fully liberal on the race issue (1964), they went to the Republicans, who they probably should've been voting for decades earlier.

[RFayette]

Waiting for RINO Tom and/or Oldiesfreak to come in and "educate" all of us ignorant Democrats, liberals and Southerners about our own history. Any minute now.

Have you met Rockefeller GOP?  He probably does this the most of the bunch.  A couple years ago he was still referring to Arkansas and West Virginia as "Democrat states" which had a great chance of going for Hillary; granted, he wasn't the only one (many Dem hacks did too), but he seemed to be wistfully yearning for the Dixiecrats to go away.  Honestly, I like the Dixiecrats.  Sure, they used to be on the wrong side of history, but I like their values for the most part:  love God and country, not PC, want to keep their own money, and don't want the country flooded with illegals.  I'm glad they're on our team.

[RFayette]

Waiting for RINO Tom and/or Oldiesfreak to come in and "educate" all of us ignorant Democrats, liberals and Southerners about our own history. Any minute now.

Have you met Rockefeller GOP?  He probably does this the most of the bunch.  A couple years ago he was still referring to Arkansas and West Virginia as "Democrat states" which had a great chance of going for Hillary; granted, he wasn't the only one (many Dem hacks did too), but he seemed to be wistfully yearning for the Dixiecrats to go away.  Honestly, I like the Dixiecrats.  Sure, they used to be on the wrong side of history, but I like their values for the most part:  love God and country, not PC, want to keep their own money, and don't want the country flooded with illegals.  I'm glad they're on our team.

Sadly, this meme of Dixiexrats becoming loyal Republicans after 1964 is comfortable and serves the interests of several groups (aka it's pushed as truth constantly), as it absolves liberal Northern Democrats of pandering to racists for years, it justifies to Black voters why they vote the way they do and I suppose it could be spun as a nice little justification for regressive voters like yourself whose main ideology is being uncomfortable with people who ain't like you.

Blacks can vote for whoever damn well they please.  I certainly don't share their political philosophy, but let's be real, most of them are voting in their own self-interest, either for economic self-advancement or for advancement of a larger group they are part of, whether it be redistributive projects like affirmative action or higher levels of public spending.

Liberal Northern Democrats pandered to racists for many years, and Republicans pandered to racists in the '60s as part of the Southern strategy, though generally in a more "coded" way.  But here's the thing: groups vote the way they do now, in 2016, based on the policies of the current platforms.  I really don't think white Southerners or blacks are voting based on the shenanigans of the '50s-'70s.  They are voting based on which party they think is right now. 

But I don't see how it can be argued that Southern whites - particularly Deep South Whites -used to be anything but largely conservative, outside of the New Deal Era of say, 1935-1950.  Unfortunately, this conservatism manifested itself in a bad way - racial segregation, along with many good ways - high religiosity, love of country, etc.  These demographic trends existed before the South was solid R, and I think it's safe to say these states were conservative for a long long time. 

[RFayette]

Unless you're fine with calling their racism strictly conservative (which I'm simply not, so we can chalk this conversation up as pointless), then I'm not seein' it.  Compared to Northern Whites (where the blue laws originated, where prohibition was huge), they weren't markedly more conservative.  They certainly weren't more "conservative" on economic issues.

Eh, I'd disagree.  Outside of that New Deal Window, the South has always been fairly right-wing economically.  It is true that the South send economic leftists to Congress during that time (and some Populists earlier), but those often did not reflect the actual view of Southerners themselves, which I'd posit is best reflected at the state governance level.

The evidence at the state level shows that even during the New Deal, the South had more conservative policy positions at a state level:
http://news.mit.edu/2015/map-history-us-state-politics-1202

Plus, think of who the Dems nominated in the late 1800's besides the admittedly liberal WJB:  Grover Cleveland, Horatio Seymour, Winfield Hancock, Samuel Tilden, etc.  Most of them were more right-wing than their opponents, I'd argue; if not, then you certainly couldn't call them left-wing by any stretch of the imagination.

[RFayette]

All four of them (Cleveland, Seymour, Hancock, and Tilden) were Northerners from New York.

But they were all overwhelmingly voted for by the South.  The South was completely shut out of contention as far as Presidential candidates went all the way up until Wilson, who was considered at least somewhat Southern (raised in the South, but then became professor at Princeton).

That being said, I think the state-level policy data is more illuminative concerning my point.  People voting for state legislators seemed to definitely want small government and local control, and most "progressive" movements were slower-going in the South than other parts of the country, such as prison reform and child labor reform.

[RFayette]

Okay, then you're operating under the assumption that small government and local control is inherently conservative, another premise I wholeheartedly reject.  It's that kind of thinking that places Hamilton to the left of Jefferson, completely ignoring motive and totally focusing on method.  Arguing that increased infrastructure spending like the transcontinental railroad will only help elite business types at the expense of the people IS NOT in the same vein as arguing increased public funding for roads in 21st Century America is excessive spending.  That's just one example of how a small or big government METHOD can be attractive to opposing groups depending on the circumstances, another being how the business community of the 1800s pushed protectionism while the business community of today pushes free trade - they're opposite "policies" pushed for the exact same reason/motive.

Fair enough, but I think that MIT's operational definition of conservative for the purpose of that study was still considered conservative in the 1930's.  Also, your definition of conservative = what the business community wants doesn't always hold up either.  Business interests tend to be for more public investment in infrastructure (look at US Chamber of Commerce) and often (see WalMart) increases in the federal minimum wage.  Eminent domain is another example where conservative orthodoxy differs from business interests, along with a myriad of social issues.  I tend to prefer the definition of conservative as preserving traditions and reverting to older ways, which almost invariably means a smaller federal government, especially outside of military expenditures (given how large domestic spending is federally, relative to historical averages).  

Keep in mind that Hamilton v. Jefferson was at a time where the nation had just undergone a revolution and a "small federal government" wasn't a firmly conservative tradition yet.  However, by the late 1800's, I absolutely think it was.  

Furthermore, I think efforts at "reformism" - such as child labor reform, prison reform, maximum workweeks, etc. - are almost inherently liberal or left-wing, and the southern states have always been less likely to adapt those reforms than the Northern ones.

[RFayette]

There is inherent stability that is fundemental to Conservativism and therefore it would not be inconsistent for Conservatives to embrace stabilizing measures to the wild environment of the period. It depends on what type of Conservative you are. This was certainly the approach of Bismarck in Germany for instance and the GOP had a good number of German advisers on economic policy and so forth during its first few decades.

This is fair.  Perhaps I'm thinking of conservatism too much as "reactionary," but that seems to have been the predominant tenor of the right-wing for a long time.  Most of us are more concerned with reversing existing changes rather than preventing future ones.

[RFayette]

There is inherent stability that is fundemental to Conservativism and therefore it would not be inconsistent for Conservatives to embrace stabilizing measures to the wild environment of the period. It depends on what type of Conservative you are. This was certainly the approach of Bismarck in Germany for instance and the GOP had a good number of German advisers on economic policy and so forth during its first few decades.

This is fair.  Perhaps I'm thinking of conservatism too much as "reactionary," but that seems to have been the predominant tenor of the right-wing for a long time.  Most of us are more concerned with reversing existing changes rather than preventing future ones.

Using international colors, a blue-red (black-red in today's German colors) alliance seems unthinkable now, but it was certainly present in places like Germany, France under Louis Napoleon III (Socialist on Horseback as he was called).

 I got into it with Einzige over when Conservativism began to embrace classical liberalism. He insisted it was the 1850's and earlier, but I think it was a slower, more gradual process with a defining turning point in 1896, with it being set in stone by the New Deal. When Gov't becomes the threat to stability (or that of your interests) is when limited government becomes the desired approach to policy.

Prior to that, Conservatism had a strong strain of pro-gov't economic nationalism as well as the stabilization factor (with a strong Puritanical motivation, get rid of the booze to strengthen communites and help children and women. Build churches and drive out the saloons and brothels) and within that umbrella, Progressives and even some socialists found operating space. Progressivism itself was not as defined either as being left or right, but was considered to be advancing in whatever direction you supported. Business considered growth to be "Progressive" for instance. It came to adopt it's modern definition by being most closely associated with stability desiring social reformers, who were mostly Puritanical women seeking to secure the wilds for faith, family and community. This made them the enemies of the individualist nature of the wilderness, the Libertarian ideal of today.

If the alliance was "blue-red," are we saying that libertarians were the "true" left-wingers of the time?