I love how Republicans pat themselves on the back for being the party of Lincoln while waving the Confederate flag. Nothing weird there.
The reason things didn’t change overnight is because people don’t change that quickly and parties don’t pivot that fast.
Let’s pretend that something equally momentous happened, but instead of it being the Supreme Court that legalized gay marriage, it was Republicans under Trump in 2016. For whatever reason, they thought it was right and did it. Let’s also pretend that Democrats had never really warmed to the idea and it was still a fringe thing for them.
Now, would Republicans move en masse to the Democratic Party? Of course not. Certainly, some would stay home and some would bitch that the party had lost its mind. But for most people, this isn’t their one issue. The other side is the same — they don’t care enough about gay rights to abandon the party wholesale even if they think it was the right thing to do.
Now over time, you keep seeing the Republicans pushing harder and harder for equal rights for the LGBT. And the Democratic Party is taking the idea that things were just fine the way they were and trying to make sure America didn’t lose its moral compass just because gays could go and get married now. Eventually, you would expect to see a shift. Eventually, the Democratic Party is either going to cater to their new voters or exposure to that element is going to shift the party. Over a decade or two or three, there will be a realignment.
Which is exactly what you see in America post 1965.
Look, I was born in 1973. I grew up through a lot of that transition. Let me say that even though I never thought I was racist, I was just blind to it. I wasn’t racist compared to the racists I knew and I did believe all people were equal, but that doesn’t mean I actually behaved that way.
When people said “thugs” on television, I knew what they meant and the word certainly didn’t conjure up a rowdy group of white hoodlums. Nope, it was Compton style gang bangers who didn’t have a white face in the group. When we talked about bussing black kids to our school, I let myself believe it was about the cost of it all and that I couldn’t understand why some of the kids that lived near me had to go to THAT (inferior) school across town. I may have believed black kids and white kids were equally as smart and capable but I just KNEW they were going to bring their “culture” to our school and turn it into the crappy one they left. Meanwhile, my friends had to go to their crappy school and get an inferior education because kids over there couldn’t be bothered to learn.
It pains me to type that now. To remember the way I used to think. But I need to because others believe that way still.
Many racists today don’t believe they’re racist. We have made it clear racists are bad people and everyone believes they’re the hero of their own story. We’ve also done a pretty good job of erasing all the really overt racism. Understand that the brain is really good at figuring out rationalizations for irrational thoughts. It’s one thing to believe something, but it doesn’t necessarily change the way you feel — and you will rationalize that feeling.
I never saw that those schools were bad because no one ever put money into minority dominated schools. I never saw the way the system had institutionalized racism into its very core and it was going to take hard work and real sacrifice to make things better. I didn’t have to because as a white male, I wasn’t exposed to it. It wasn’t necessary for me to understand it because it didn’t directly affect me. It took a lot of hard work and introspection to get here and a lot of cringe worthy conversations with minorities willing to take the time to educate me.