Who are the Dixiecrats?

I don't understand this Dixiecrat phenomena. Why would anyone stay registered in a party they don't identify with for TWENTY YEARS?! It just sounds so weird to me.

Do any of you personally know any of these people?

http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/Dixiecrats.htm

They have mostly moved into the Republican party by now. Some still claim to be Democrats, Bob Novak swears he's a Dem. Jim Johnson, a racist old bastard that was behind much of the early Clinton conspiracy still claims to be a Dem.

I just don't understand why anyone would STAY registered to a party they don't believe in. It sounded like there were a lot of them.

They didn't start to switch over to the Republican party until it adopted the racist policies the Dixiecrats supported. Dixiecrats don't exist much anymore - well except Zell Miller.

or very old?

that 'peculiar institution' and to the Civil War as the 'late unpleasantness'.

They refuse to join the Repukes because of Lincoln, but they vote for the Repukes at every turn.

and was stolen from them by liberals.

Where 'bouts in central Illinois? (I'm from Charleston). Boy, it always does my heart good to know there are Democrats in that part of of State. :)

You're absolutely correct about the 'stolen from "liberals".

:hi:

it's the only reason I can see.

The guy claimed he was a democrat, yet never voted along party lines. Racist, no good person, that always got brought up by the freepers as "proof" that Democrats were racists.

EWWWWW!!!!! :puke:

if they're registered Dems, they can vote in the Democratic primaries, and they can vote for the candidate they think is most likely to lose against the Republican opponent in the general election. In the general election they can vote for whomever they want.

This was a big topic of discussion in my office on Nov. 3.

Remember that the south fought the civil war against not only the north, but also against the 'black republicans'. The whole reconstruction era in the south was and is still blamed on the republicans. To get elected to any political office one had to be a registered Democrat. This phenomenon holds true of not only Florida, but in many places of the rural south even today. Imagine if you will southern religious conservatism mixed with much more than a century of traditional voting patterns, According to the 1990 and 2000 census figures only 31% of Floridians are native born. Most of the 'yankee' influx has been to eastern and southern Florida. Republicanism can now be openly avowed in most parts of this state, but the northern section is still a traditionally conservative and Democrat area. Although dixiecratism is dying out, and will most likely disappear in a few decades, the main aspect to grasp is conservatism against liberalism and not just the party 'label'. Jus 'member cuz, don fuck with my rebel flag, don call me no damn swamp rat, an the souths aready risin agin.

:D

I lived in north Florida from 86 to 2000, and there are still Dixiecrats. When you would go to register to vote, if you weren't a Democrat then you couldn't hardly vote in local elections or the primary because the democrats had candidates when other parties might not have had them.

I think that time has long gone by that we not only reformed our election process but our parties as well. I consider myself a moderate Democrat, but our party can't afford to move any more to the right. But I don't know what the solution is either, perhaps we need to abandon those that are so far to the right that they don't really fit into our party instead of trying so hard to please them.

The last two elections have shown me that our party just doesn't seem to be able to produce a clear message because we are such a big tent. There are so many messages, that we fail to capture voters, who seemed to be voting on what they see a a single major issue, more than looking at the bigger picture, and this has been exploited by people on the right, when they play on peoples emotions and fears, with sensational issues, like flag burning, gay marriage and abortion.
The right seems to succeed where we don't by motivating different groups with whatever issue it is will get them active, and then moving on to the next group with another message of segregation to the next group, I guess it is a divide and conquer strategy that has proved effective.

The difference seems to be that the right claims that they have a unified message, but it is really a house of cards, supported by buzz words like moral or family values, this acts like a facade for their campaign, but if you look below the surface there isn't really any consistent message. Because you can't be Christian and pro-life and then also support a policy that promotes democracy at the point of a gun, you can't be pro-family, and deny same sex couples the benefits that a family unit deserves, you can't be for less government but have more and more oversight into the what is taught in schools and what books are and are not allowed in libraries. if you look at their messages as a whole then you can clearly see it is a message of hypocrisy.

We keep losing elections because they can play the trump cards like fear, racism, bigotry, and taxes, no matter what real policies they enact, what they say they will do, seem to win elections over what they really do, once elected. Our country seems to suffer from attention deficit disorder when it comes to holding our politicians accountable for their past actions, and the media seems to be the largest part of that problem, because they fail to discuss real issues in depth, and instead favor sensationalism.

I keep remembering something that a friend of mine once said to be over a beer back in college. "You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make them think?"

Actually my ex-Father in law was one too.

My mother in law is now 82 and has always been a registered Dem, always voted Dem on local and state races and always voted rep on national races.

After a LONG tug-of-war her the only things I learned are:

1.She feels that the local Dem's are more on her side but doesn't trust them in Washington.
2. Don't attempt to reason with an 82 year old who is firmly set in her ways.

the only races that matter are the primaries.

If you want to have a say in who the next sheriff or county commissioner will be, you better be a registered Democrat. Usually it will take some of the key office-holders to switch before the local voters switch.