Not true. The vast majority of Dixiecrats never became Republicans. George Wallace, Bull Connor, Bob Byrd, Lester Maddox, Orval Faubus, Sam Ervin, Herman Talmadge, Fritz Hollings, etc. remained Democrats for life.
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The Southern strategy had nothing to do with race. It would have made no sense to do that in 1968 because George Wallace was running. And although a few Dixiecrats became Republicans, most of the did not
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Wrong again. The vast majority of the segregationists never became Republicans. George Wallace never became a Republican; Bob Byrd was a Democrat as recently as 2010, when he died.
Frederick Douglass was liberal for his time, and George Wallace was conservative for his time, but that doesn't change the fact that Douglass was a Republican and Wallace a Democrat. Anyway, this guy clearly does not represent the majority of conservatives now, and most people, liberal or conservative, would consider him to just be an extremist.
George Wallace stayed a Democrat, but he also recanted his racist views.
Bull Connor? A town sheriff qualifies as a prominent representative of a national party?
Robert Byrd repudiated his former KKK affiliation.
Orval Faubus and Sam Ervin retired or lost election well before it would have made any sense for them to switch parties.
Fritz Hollings is your idea of what a racist Dixiecrat looks like? Why don't you look at the guy he served with for decades? You know, the one who joined your party in 1964. I can't imagine what might have happened in 1964 that might have prompted that switch.
The Southern Strategy had to be about race precisely
because George Wallace was running! Nixon needed those votes. Third parties never exist to win elections in America. They're like viruses - they inject a little bit of their DNA into one of the major parties and then die off. And Wallace's ticket forced Nixon to inject a small strain of virulent racist resentment into the GOP to persuade some people who were leaning to Wallace that they'd be throwing their vote away and would be getting a similar package if they just voted for Nixon.
I know you mean well, OldiesFreak, really I do. But I don't know why you cling so fervently to a party that has left you behind. It's like listening to my grandmother, a lifelong Republican, complain about the Tea Party and Rick Perry, and having to resist the urge to tell her the ugly truth that it's 2013 and she's never going to be able to vote for Republicans like Eisenhower and Ford again in her lifetime. It's just not going to happen.
