I keep remembering - it wasn't so very long ago - when the articles one read had to do with whether the REPUBLICAN party could survive. Hard to believe now. And according to an article I read recently, the main reason they were able to get so strong was that they opened their arms to the reactionary elements. It's scary to imagine hte corollary for what the Democrats might do- or feel compelled to do.

The Democratic party losing the American South - where it had had a comfortable hold for generations- stems from LBJ's action in the 60s. When he signed the Civil Rights Act, he is supposed to have said, 'The Democratic Party has just lost the white Southerner vote for decades to come.'