We have largely come to accept that our political parties are ideologically driven and geographically aligned. Yet, only a short time ago these stark divisions did not exist. The 1994 wave election marked the beginning of a Neo-Confederate renaissance that…
Alabama’s Chief Justice, Roy “Standing in the Courthouse Door” Moore, has instructed the state’s probate officials to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The move comes in response to the Supreme Court’s refusal to stay a lower court’s decision striking…
Let’s recite the myth together. Richard Nixon, on the campaign trail in 1968, visits a Southern state and is shocked by the enthusiastic reception he receives. His campaign team scrambles to build a strategy that will tap into Southerner’s rage…
There is still today a Southern Baptist Church. More than a century and a half after the Civil War, decades after the Methodists and Presbyterians reunited with their Yankee neighbors, America’s largest Protestant denomination remains defined, right down to the…
Last year’s mid-term elections marked the end of a decades-long transition as white Southerners abandoned the Democratic Party en masse. For a decade or so as this process gained momentum, it looked as though the South might, for the first…
Mississippi’s first Governor was a Democrat. Apart from the period of occupation after the Civil War, every subsequent Governor of Mississippi was a Democrat across a stretch of nearly 200 years. With a handful of caveats and outliers, that pattern…
In 1973 the Illinois Legislature was the first in the nation to create an official holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday. That same year, the Texas Legislature responded to calls for a celebration of MLK’s life and work in…
Democrats are seeing a steady erosion of their traditional support among low and middle-earning white families. That drift contributed heavily to the outcome of the 2014 mid-terms, but it has been in motion since the Civil Rights Acts of the…
When Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke at the funeral of slain New York City police officers, thousands of officers in attendance turned their back on him. Since then they have engaged in a series of work stoppages. Their grievance?…
Ted Cruz is officially the most hated man in Washington. His effort to hijack the budget deal was doomed from the start, but that didn’t deter him from engineering a high-profile political stunt to obstruct the process and gain a…
GOPLifer 