Building national political power requires appealing to complicated constituencies with complicated histories; Democratic presidents through the 1960s had to manage a southern segregationist wing, and LBJ recognized he would 'lose the South for a generation' by signing civil rights legislation, yet the alternative to compromise with illiberal impulses was to cede power to those impulses entirely.
normativepending
Speaker
Stephen AnbinderEvidence Quote
“people in the Democratic party through the 1960s you know had the southern wing of the party that they had to appease...Johnson famously said when he was signing either the civil rights or the voting rights you know we now we've lost the south for a generation and that was true.”
Created: 8/11/2026, 6:26:44 AM
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