A rather vocal and irritating Leftist I have the misfortune to encounter on social media threw this comment at me the other day:
"Democrats used to be the Conservative party and Republicans the Progressives."
I thought about it for a moment, and I admit, I agreed with her.
To be “Conservative,” one must want to keep things the way they are currently (socially, economically, etc.). To do what works because it has worked before.
A Progressive, on the other hand, wants to change things, with or without due consideration of Chesterton’s Fences, or the consent of the rest of the society.
In 1861, it was an accepted societal norm that one person could control the entire economic output of another person, the person being controlled was called a slave. During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, slavery was a hotly debated issue, leading to things like the “Three-Fifths” Compromise in the Constitution, specifically Article I, Section 2, Clause 3.
At that time, the Democrats were Conservative. They wanted to keep things just like the way they were at that moment, i.e., one person could own another.
The Republicans, at that time, were the Progressives. They had a radical notion that no man should own another. The Republican Party was formed specifically to get into power and end the institution of slavery.
And if you didn’t know it, Republicans elected twenty-three Black men to Congress (21 to the House and 2 in the Senate) between 1865 and 1928. The first Black Democrat was elected to the House in 1934.
The Democrats were so tenacious to keep things “the way they were” we passed four Amendments to the Constitution. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments passed after the Civil War, then in 1964 the Twenty-Fourth Amendment was enacted, ending the Poll Tax in the Southern States.
Jim Crow laws were the work of Democrats, as well as a majority of the lynching of Black people in the South as well.
Thanks to Democrats filibustering of the 1964 Civil Rights Act from March 30th to June 10th. This filibuster was so terrible the Senate changed their Cloture standard from 67 to 60 votes.
It was after the passage of the 1964 and 1968 Civil Rights Acts were passed that the Republicans took on the mantle of “Conservative.” Republicans became Conservative because the objective the Republican Party was created to achieve had been reached. Black people now had real equality in the eyes of the government. Laws had been passed and enforced to end the social and economic discrimination Black people had faced. Decades of work remained, and continue to this day, because the “benevolent busybodies” that Democrats inevitably are, who deeply and sincerely believe Blacks are like children, who cannot make it without “their” help.
The racism of the Democrats still exists today, however it has transformed into the “bigotry of low expectations.” Here is a typical Leftist, Tweeting on the 2023 SCOTUS case Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.
You cannot say things like that without having a core belief that Black people are inferior to you. ICYMI, here's my comments on this particular case: Death knell of Affirmative Action.