The Republican Party in the 1980s was just starting to get taken over by Evangelicals and the NRA, and was firmly behind the Southern Strategy. It was definitely getting pulled right at that time.
On the topic of the Southern Strategy, it is also such a weird transition because you still had some lingering vestiges of the Dixiecrats who turned Republican existing within the Democratic party, while other Dems, suddenly free of the conservative members of their party, were trying to figure out what they were all about.
A lot of Dems were all aboard the “Christian family values” train back then. I’d imagine some even still are, but you don’t see public figures from the Dems these days like Tipper Gore trying to ban rock and roll music because references to sex and the occult might corrupt the youth.
Satanic Panic was a bipartisan movement back then, but today it really only survives in one party (the Republicans), which I would attribute less towards general sentiment changing and more towards those voters consolidating into the Republican party as they turned into elder boomers, giving better definition to the partisan politics we have today.
The Republican Party in the 1980s was just starting to get taken over by Evangelicals and the NRA, and was firmly behind the Southern Strategy. It was definitely getting pulled right at that time.
On the topic of the Southern Strategy, it is also such a weird transition because you still had some lingering vestiges of the Dixiecrats who turned Republican existing within the Democratic party, while other Dems, suddenly free of the conservative members of their party, were trying to figure out what they were all about.
A lot of Dems were all aboard the “Christian family values” train back then. I’d imagine some even still are, but you don’t see public figures from the Dems these days like Tipper Gore trying to ban rock and roll music because references to sex and the occult might corrupt the youth.
Satanic Panic was a bipartisan movement back then, but today it really only survives in one party (the Republicans), which I would attribute less towards general sentiment changing and more towards those voters consolidating into the Republican party as they turned into elder boomers, giving better definition to the partisan politics we have today.
This isn’t a particularly new chart but I think it illustrates the shift well.