WaPo: The GOP is no party for blacks, Latinos, and gays

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

It's weird, I no longer view elections as Republicans versus Democrats, or conservatives versus liberals. No, instead I see it as people who welcome progress versus those who struggle to hold it back at any cost even as it applies to bias against women and minorities.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

No act. I'm a Republican, albeit definitely in the moderate wing on most issues.

He has to be, now that I'm a bitterly partisan Democrat! Otherwise U.S. General wouldn't have balanced moderation! 

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

At first, it was kind of funny watching Republicans try and pretend there's any real connection between their party in 1860 and 2012 with regard to civil rights. Besides, civil rights weren't supported or opposed by a party so much as they were a region — a culture.

That culture that supported slavery still exists. Perhaps you've heard of it? It's the same culture that thought that a skin color makes you 3/5 a human, supported Jim Crow laws, opposed women's right to vote, opposed interracial marriage, held KKK potluck dinners, despises immigration, and now wants to make sure gays are properly oppressed to make up for all the other groups they weren't able to dick over.

Southerners may have switched parties, but not cultures. It's like saying a cereal is "new and improved" when all the manufacturer really did was change its name.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Southern white racists did not join the party between 1964 and 1968.  They may have voted for Goldwater in 1964, but after that, they went right back to voting Democrat, as evidenced by George Wallace running in 1968 (albeit as an Independent) and candidates like George Mahoney, Herman Talmadge, and Lester Maddox.  You seem like a smart guy; does being a member of one party and voting for one candidate of the opposing party suddenly make you a member of that person's party?  

Obviously, it's more complicated than one party was racist or the other party was racist.  Basically, the white establishment in the South was historically part of the Democratic party and they were historically racist.  But, they weren't racist because they were Democrats.  

Outside the South during the 50s-70s, the Democrats were more supportive of civil rights than Republicans.  If you take out the South, a higher percentage of Democrats voted for the civil rights act in Congress. Or look at Harry Truman desegregating the military.  Or just look at the black vote during this time.  Democrats won the black vote for President every time by a large margin.

Post 1972, direct appeals to racism and segregation were a net negative for politicians at the national level.  Neither party was going to repeal the civil rights act, segregation was over as a political issue.  Racism still existed though.  Republicans made inroads with white votes in the South during the 70s-90s mainly by playing up morals/family values issues and anti-Communism.  However, some Republicans also used racist appeals and talked about "state's rights."  Not a huge percentage of racist whites changed their registration to Republicans.  But, the gains Republicans made in the South were among the white racist establishment and not blacks, the Wallace voters, not the Humphrey voters.  

"State's rights" was not used by Republicans as a code word.  By then, nobody wanted to bring segregation back, so there were clearly no racist appeals in that.

You do the truth no favors by pretending that "nobody wanted to bring segregation back" when there are still people who would love segregation today. After all, over 40% of Alabama voters cast a ballot in support of an interracial marriage ban as recently as 2000.