>>1288168
During the civil rights era, the parties switched.

>>1288173
In what way though? Did the republicans believe in abortion rights and gun control? Were democrats against big government and spending? i don't know in what "conservative" or liberal even looked like back then.

>>1288234
Look up "dixiecrat" and "southern strategy".

This isn't to say it was a clear turnaround, but some major stuff did got flipped. Your parties are more similar than you Americans care to admit, anyway.

The founding fathers were very liberal for their time

Both American parties are liberal in the original sense of the term

>>1288294
>Your parties are more similar than you Americans care to admit, anyway
Mostly this.


They're two sides of the same coin, Anon. Look at immigration. Sure, everyone's generally opposed to people illegally inhabiting the country, but Repubs are cool with it because >cheap labor
and Libs are cool with it because >cheap votes

>>1288168
It's entirely true. Just look up the founding of both parties, it's not that hard. To give you a perspective, the first Republican president was Lincoln, and Jefferson founded the Democrats, and they used to be given the name of Southern Democrats.

>>1288409
Uh, no, Andrew Jackson founded the Democratic party

>>1288408
>Sure, everyone's generally opposed to people illegally inhabiting the country
kek

>Repubs are cool with it because >cheap labor
KEK

Try learning things before you try commenting on another country's politics.

>>1288415
Well honestly that does even more to further the point

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

>>1288168
Those terms in their modern implications hardly relevent when going back past the progressive era.

>>1288168
That's not really accurate. The characterization of the Dem. party platform as 'liberal' and the Rep. party platform as 'conservative' was never really correct and this year's presidential campaign season has revealed just how false it really was. There isn't really any reason why believing in the right to bear arms and opposing abortion logically go together, or their opposite. The American terms are just conglomerations of different, smaller, ideological movements.

The modern political dichotomy started in 1965 with the Voting Rights Act, which had the strong public support of Democratic president Lyndon Johnson. The Republicans, esp. in Nixon's 1968 campaign, adopted a Southern Strategy to court the disaffected white majority in the south: previously the 'Solid South' voted reliably for the Democrats (i.e. against the perceived 'Party of Lincoln') since the end of the Reconstruction movement. Over the course of the Nixon administration the Democrats increasingly aligned themselves with progressive movements, and this was expressed in the Carter presidency.

In the late 70s Jerry Falwell and the religious right became very organized and mobilized grassroots support to become a very powerful force in the Republican party, and then carry Reagan to two overwhelming electoral victories and under the leadership of Newt Gingrich to take over Congress in 1994. Gingrich's 'Republican Revolution' was in part so successful because the previous Congress had passed the Federal Assault Weapons Ban with Dem. authorship and Dem. control of both Houses (though many Reps., incl. Reagan, supported the AWB).

So by the mid '90s the Dems. and Reps. became pretty much associated with the same political agendas as c. 2010. Gay rights really became a big issue for the Dems. since then, and of course in the last year the table has been flipped, and God only knows where the two parties will stand in a decade, assuming they both still do.

>>1288234
When most people say the parties switched, they mean on civil rights issues. The Democrats used to be the party of racists. However, as >>1288294 pointed out, Johnson and Nixon switched everything up. As for the other issues, Democrats have generally supported more government involvement for the poor, but less tariffs.

Gun control wasn't much of an issue until the late 1970's when there was a coup in the NRA and they converted from a gentleman's shooting club to a neoconfederate lobbying group.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Association#Contemporary_history

As for the religious nuts in America, they used to be lefties, but the televangelists started getting butthurt about giving up their money as they got more and more. So in swoops Reagan and now all you hear about is the Religious Right. Contrast that with, for example, William Jennings Bryan, who was a diehard Creationist but also wanted to abandon the gold standard.

Both parties believe in spending though. When they pass laws, they mostly just disagree whether they should spend it on
>muh guns
or
>muh welfare