What changed in Vermont over the past century?

[All Along The Watchtower]

Mechaman has the right idea. Vermont has gone from a traditionally "conservative" mostly WASP state to a state with a large proportion of Catholics and an even larger (and growing) proportion of secular types who are often very liberal in their politics, while the (affiliated) Protestant population has declined.

Also, keep in mind that many of the mainline Protestant churches like the UCC, the Episcopalians, etc. have either become more actively progressive or have divided along regional lines; either way, the Vermont population of Protestants is a far cry from the population even in Ohio, let alone in Alabama.

Self-selection and sorting is also part of the story here (as it is everywhere, frankly). Once a few waves of people who were more liberal than the long-timers moved to Vermont (a lot of this starting to happen in the 1960s, when Phillip Hoff became the first Democrat elected Governor of the state in 80 years), the liberal transformation developed a momentum of its own. Plus, as indicated in other posts in this thread, Vermont residents were always fairly dovish on foreign policy; Governor Hoff prominently opposed LBJ on Vietnam. And the Democrats becoming associated with Civil Rights and, more broadly, the idea of social justice, all tied in well with Vermont residents conceptions of themselves, in terms of religion, politics, and history.

Combine all this with the Southern and Western states becoming the new base of the Republican Party, the  ideological evolution that was part of that process, and the sense of ideological and religious fundamentalism in the modern GOP, and you have a recipe for Vermont voting the way it does nowadays.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Another thing to consider, is that today when people think of Conservatism, they think of the South. 100 years ago you probably would find more Conservatives (depending on your definitions) in New England and the Midwest then in the South, which was overrun by aggrarian populists and such, especially after an "age-wave" washed out most of the Bourbons between 1890 and 1910 in many deep south states. They were replaced by populist/progressive and to an extent even more racists politicians and managed to ratchet the insignificant black voting that remained all the way down to below zero, so much was there zeal. Any conservativism that could be associated with these people was either 1) dial based conservatism by virtue of a opposing a reform to something, 2) a calculated association to provide some kind of legal/political defense that wasn't, atleast on the surface, pure racism. New York even had an anti-Suffrage Senator in James Wadsworth. Imagine Todd Akin not only running, but winning in New York and even further, getting reelected. Anti-Catholic, anti-urban, nativist, prostestant officeholders were common in base GOP territory, yes, even in Vermont.

Before unionization, the New Deal and the changes of the 1960's culturally, just think how various groups were so different and thus voted differently. Blacks were 70%-90% Republican, working class voters shifted back and forth between the parties based on the economy, and women were more Republican than men (Harding and Ike benefitted from a pro-GOP Gender gap amongst women). Middle class professionals still lived in Manhattan, rather than as far off as Orange and Rockland counties. There wasn't an ideologically basis for either party, just a partisan set of issues based on the political divide stretching back to the 1790's for the most part on economics, that was taylored to the interests of their party's regional base. Since the regional political devide remained, the broad issues of currency and trade policy remained the same.

If a GOP primary produced a conservative rather than a progressive, he was just as apt to get 75% in Vermont, 55% in New York and 5% in South Carolina as his progressive opponent. 

Good post. Would you reckon that the decline of the influence of the local political machines (and the rise of social liberalism and progressivism in the Democratic Party, and "movement conservatism" in the Republican Party) are all reasons why the parties have become increasingly polarized on ideological lines?