Comments by "" (@TheHuxleyAgnostic) on "How MAGA Was Born: Inside The Rotten Core Of American's Conservative Movement w/ Joe Conason" video.

  1. It all has to do with the parties switching, which has happened over time. Teddy Roosevelt was the last progressive, and somewhat worker friendly, Republican, with his Square Deal. When he saw the party was going to make a hard right, he tried coming back for a third run, but they didn't want him anymore. He then ran under his own Progressive Party. That was the major economic turning point, for Republicans. They then drove the economy into the Great Depression. Also, with Jim Crow laws in the South, and industrialization in the North (which needed more manpower), millions of black Americans began moving North. That left the Southern states even more rcst, by percentage. And, as the Democratic party became the party of workers, Northern black Americans started voting for them, and running for office as Democrats. The South was so rcst that the Republicans had to run their own rcst candidates, just to win seats. By the time of Civil Rights, the divisions on the topic were North vs South, not by party. Southern Republicans voted against, just like Southern Democrats. In 1968, fed up with the Northerners of both parties, much of the Southern rcst majority voted for a third party resegregationist, winning 5 Southern states. Nixon, already far right economically (youngest member of the House unAmerican Activities Commission, and ran a red scare campaign against his California senate opponent), then won that Southern rcst majority over to the Republican party, in 1972. Aside from giving fellow Southern boy, Jimmy Carter, one shot, that Southern rcst majority has largely been voting Republican ever since. The party was then far right and rcst. Reagan, a former FDR voting union leader, had been put on the road to crazytown during Nixon's California senate run. He then appealed to the religious xtrmsts. Plus, the NRA took its turn, away from earlier support for firearm laws, and the Republican party also started taking in the firearm fanatics. The party was then far right, rcst, religious xtrmsts, and firearm xtrmsts. All that being said ... they were still somewhat sane enough to work together, to keep the government functioning properly. Then came the Tea Party, and even more extreme Ayn Rand types. They didn't want government to function properly. They would like to end almost all government departments, aside from the justice system and the military. They won over the House Republicans. And, in the senate, McConnell did his obstructionism on key issues and the justice system. All the parts were in place for someone to capitalize on all the xtrmsts having been previously gathered into one basket.
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  2.  @josephgonzalez4380  The polarity was still North vs South. They were all the same Democratic-Republican Party, just a few decades earlier, and dominated the whole country. Before the Republicans split off, the Northerners had already abolished slvry. They split off to become the National Republicans, then the Whigs, then the Republicans. They came to dominate the North. So, the main reason there was party polarity, going into the CW was because the parties were largely split by North-South geography. There were no Southern Republicans. As per my OP, that changed after the CW, when they started running their own rcst candidates, to win Southern seats. It then was still North vs South, only it was Northern Dems and Reps vs Southern Dems and Reps. If you look at a CW North-South map, and a current Red-Blue map, blue states are pretty much the CW North states. Red states are the CW South states, plus what had been territories at the time of the CW. The most rcst colonies/states, for centuries, didn't up and magically become the least rcst states. The more rcst states simply started voting red, while the less rcst states started voting blue.
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