“The Republicans came up with a strategy to draw in as many of the southern Dixiecrat voters as possible into the now-conservative Republican Party, by using their anti-Civil Rights policies and "state's rights" rhetoric, called the Southern Strategy, which ended up successfully absorbing the Dixiecrat Party into the Republican base (which is also why the KKK and white supremacist groups today overwhelmingly support and endorse the Republican Party). This was the fundamental "party switch" until it was finally cemented by the neoliberal conservative Reagan administration, which began the modern duopoly we have today.”

One example that supports the Southern Strategy's impact on the party switch can be seen in the political career of Strom Thurmond. Thurmond, a former Dixiecrat who ran as a third party candidate in the 1948 presidential election, eventually joined the Republican Party in 1964. His switch was mainly attributed to his opposition to the Civil Rights Act, which was signed into law by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson. Thurmond's shift from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party is a clear example of the realignment that took place during the Southern Strategy era.

Furtherm…  Read moreore, when the Civil Rights Act was signed into law, it led to a significant change in voting patterns of the South. Prior to the Act, the South had been a Democratic stronghold, but following its passage, the region began to vote increasingly Republican. This shift was most evident in the 1968 presidential election when Republican candidate Richard Nixon won several southern states, using his "law and order" rhetoric to appeal to those who opposed the civil rights movement. This was a key component of his Southern Strategy, which aimed to capitalize on the racial tensions and resentments that were prevalent at the time.

Considering these developments during the Southern Strategy and the realignment of political parties, do you think there were any other factors that contributed to the party switch or do you believe that this change was solely driven by the events and policies mentioned above?

One specific example of state's rights being used to defend Jim Crow policies was the case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. The Supreme Court's decision in this case upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine, which essentially allowed states to maintain racially segregated facilities as long as they provided equal access to services. This ruling provided legal justification for the continuation of segregation, with Southern states using the state's rights argument to maintain their discriminatory systems. It wasn't…  Read more until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that this ruling was overturned in practice.

In the context of the party switch, it is crucial to emphasize the role of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This legislation aimed to prevent racial discrimination in voting by prohibiting the use of literacy tests and other discriminatory tactics, primarily used in Southern states, to disenfranchise African American voters. As a result, African Americans, who were predominantly aligned with the Republican Party since the Civil War, began to shift their support to the Democratic Party, which was advocating for their voting rights. The Republicans, on the other hand, started to use the state's rights argument as a way to appeal to Southern white voters who opposed the federal government's intervention in state affairs.

Given these historical examples, do you think that the state's rights argument has been used more often to oppose or defend civil rights throughout American history? And how do you think the state's rights argument will continue to evolve in the future?