Irene Said:

What is the bigger mistake in the history of America, worker unions or the Democratic party?

We Answered:

Very few unions are needed in this day and age. Just about the only one I can think of is the United Mine Workers. It seems odd that auto workers and miners require about the same amount of job skills and the auto workers make more money where the miners job is very dangerous and extremely poor working conditions.

Casey Said:

History lesson needed...Why do Afro Americans to such a large extent support the Democratic Party?

We Answered:

Great question.

At the time of Lincoln and the American Civil War (1861-1865), the democratic party was firmly the conservative party in American politics and the republican party (which was new -it was just started in 1856) was just as firmly the liberal party.

Generally, slave owners and other southerners were democrats and northerners were republicans. At that time, blacks identified with the republican party because the republican party was for emancipation and the democratic party was for continued slave ownership.

However, as time passed, the parties began to slowly change political philosophies. Teddy Roosevelt split the republican party into two factions in 1912. Liberal or progressive republicans followed him into his new Bull Moose party (which soon disappeared after the election). Conservative republicans remained loyal to the republican party.

When the republican party elected Warren G. Harding to the presidency in 1920, it was primarily as a conservative party. However, the democratic party was also a traditionally conservative party, particularly in the south.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt changed that old order in 1932. The democratic party clearly emerged as the liberal or progressive party and the republican party became the clear conservative party. Blacks began to solidly identify with the democratic party around this time.

However, conservatives in the south generally remained democrats. They passed and enforced most of the Jim Crow laws. Importantly, there were huge struggles in the democratic party for identity and control at this time. Strom Thurmond led what were called "Dixiecrat's" (conservative southern democrats) in 1948 out of the democratic party and eventually into the republican party. By 1968, the Dixiecrat movement picked up steam under George Wallace and by 1972, the south had solidly realigned as republican and conservative.

That basically is still the situation today. The democratic party is identified as the liberal party and is strongest in the northeast, midwest, and on the west coast. The republican party is idendtified as the conservative party and is strongest in the south, plains midwest, and rocky mountain west.

African-Americans have always identified with the socially more liberal party in American politics. That was once the republican party, but it is now the democratic party. Essentially, over the past 100 years, the parties have completely flipped.

Republicans today are fond of calling themselves "the party of Lincoln." This is a curious and surprisingly uneducated claim. Were Lincoln alive today, he would surely be a democrat.

It would be far more historically accurate for republicans to call themselves "the party of Warren G. Harding." However, I doubt this will ever happen sice Harding was one of the worst, if not the worst, president in American history - at least until George W. Bush darkened the White House doors.