I heard that the Republicain party and the Democrat Party fliped floped.

[Neoma]

As in what they stand for..
When? (round the 60s-70s?)
How did it happen?

[Jack Rabbit]

1. You tell me and we'll both know

[Neoma]

4. As in..

Lincoln was a Republican. He was a republican, yes. But he was a republican that shared the views of todays democratic party.

right?

[mattclearing]

2. You heard wrong.

Nixon implemented a southern strategy to encourage pro-segregation dixiecrats to join the Republican Party.

Other than that, nothing really changed.

[davepc]

3. They've flipped on some ideological issues many times

The republican party was originally a coalition between abolitionists and homesteaders.

Around the turn of the century there was another ideological flip flop, and again to an extent in the late 50's.

It happens because politicians readily abandon principles to follow popular opinion, and as the winds blow peoples positions shift.

The Democratic party wasn't a free trade party until 1994, for example, and from 1850something to about 1960 the Republicans were a civil rights party.

Teddy Roosevelt was one of the earliest progressives, and a Republican, but that was in the early 1900's.

[Neoma]

5. Yeah thats what i'm talking about

Flip flopping.

[Jack Rabbit]

6. I would say in the seventies and eighties . . .

. . . the Democrats, once the party of tax and spend, became the party of fiscal responsibility; the GOP, once the party of fiscal responsibility, became the party of budget deficits generated by gratuitous tax cuts.