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The whole party switch thing is a bit of a misnomer, or mislead - the fact is, you had completely different worlds at the time. For example, Lincoln’s republicans supported the abolition of slavery, the abolition of alcohol, and westward expansion. The opposing democrats at the time supported white supremacy and protections of religious minorities. Then go forward a few years, and Democrats (like Wilson) wanted income taxes and silver-based money, while Republicans (like McKinley) wanted tariffs and gold-based money. Then after that, you get closer to what we know now, which is Democrats wanting larger government and welfare for the poor, while Republicans wanted less government and anti-communist foreign policy.

So there’s less of a switch and more of different gradual challenges to different shifting groups of ideologies. It just looks like a switch when you look at individual issues that look like they hold the same water as other issues today.

For example, you can have people that are absolutely for welfare, but also against religious freedoms; the poor need to be housed and fed, but everyone needs to be Christian. You could have then an opposing party that absolutely hates the idea of being theocratic, because they believe in the individual person’s freedom to be themselves, but at the expense of people who need support. Sort of the same way how Libertarians and mostly left circles can all agree that drugs shouldn’t be criminalized today, but have polar opposite beliefs for economic policies and government services.

Or smth idk I’m not an expert, I’m just taking a rly long shit