Interesting read re: the alleged Democrat/Republican "switch."
https://areomagazine.com/2019/04/03/the-party-switch-myth/
If by "interesting," you mean "extremely poorly written and researched," then I'd agree.
I've read about the first seven paragraphs of your first link and already gave up based on two extremely poorly researched and misleading comments.
First, in just his third paragraph, the author argues that blacks didn't switch to the Democratic Party due to LBJ signing the Civil Rights Act. His support for this is that blacks were already Democrats by the time LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act, and he claims they "had been for some time." His support for this claim is that JFK won 68% of the black vote in 1960 which was four years before LBJ supporting and signing the Civil Rights Act. But that isn't the important aspect of the party switch. The party switch dealt more with the Democrats losing the south after southern white males flipped due to LBJ signing the Civil Rights Act. Yes, blacks already had been leaning Democrat for many decades. But once the Democrats supported the Civil Rights Act, the black vote overwhelmingly shifted even more to Democrats and the white southern vote flipped Republican.
Where is the proof of this? This is the black party Democratic affiliation for each year of presidential races:
1936: 44%
1940: 42%
1944: 40%
1948: 56%
1952: 66%
1956: 56%
1960: 58%
1964: 82%
1968: 92%
1972: 75%
1976: 84%
As you can see, though blacks were supporting Dems more than Republicans, the shift turned drastic in the same year as the Civil Rights legislation. So the author's downplaying of this by claiming blacks already supported the Dem Party is misleading. Due to the Civil Rights Act support by the Dems, blacks drastically jumped over to the Democratic Party (
https://blackdemographics.com/culture/black-politics/)
The second misleading claim he made on this deals with the most important factor of this party switch: the southern whites jumping from Democratic to Republican.
Let's first define southern: in this respect, it was more the "deep south" states of Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Arkansas, Louisiana, and South Carolina. From 1880 - 1960 (remember, the LBJ Civil Rights legislation was signed in 1964) there were 21 presidential elections. In 20 of those 21 presidential elections, all six of those Deep South states voted Democrat. In other words, the Deep South was about as solid Democratic as could possibly be.
Let me rephrase that: For 80 years, over 21 straight presidential elections, all six of those Deep South states voted Democrat except for one single year. That year was 1948. Want to know what happened in that one election where the Deep South didn't vote Democrat? It was when Strom Thurmond (yes, that notoriously racist South Carolina politician) splintered from the Democratic Party and led a group called the States' Right Democratic Party. Why did that party form? It was due to southern whites being angry with the Democratic Party for their growing support of Civil Rights. So what happened in this only year out of the previous 80 that the Deep South states didn't vote Democrat? Every single one of those Deep South states voted for Storm Thurmond and his States' Right Democratic Party.
Just in case you forgot, all of those six Deep South states voted for a Democrat in 20 of 21 the previous elections with the one deviation being in 1948 when a candidate ran on a third-party platform vehemently against civil rights.
Then, 1964 happened. This was the year of LBJ's support and signing of the Civil Rights Act. So after overwhelming support of the Dem Party by the Deep South, what happened? They immediately switched away from The Democratic Party. Five of the six states voted Republican. There were only six states out of 50 that voted Republican, and five of them were the Deep South states. Well, maybe they flipped back in the next election in 1968? Nope. Five of the six voted for yet another third-party candidate - the infamous George Wallace who was vehemently in support of segregation. Since then, there have been 12 more presidential elections, so 72 opportunities for one of those Deep South states to vote Democrat. Out of those 72 opportunities, only 12 times have any of those Deep South states voted Democrat (and that is thanks to Bill Clinton being from one of those Deep South states).
So again, before the Civil Rights Act, the previous 21 presidential elections resulted in 0 of those Deep South states voting Republican out of 126 opportunities (21 x 6). Starting in the year of the Civil Rights Act, those same Deep South states have voted just 12 times for a Democratic candidate out of 84 opportunities.
All six of those states went from an absolute sure-thing Democratic vote to an almost absolute sure-thing Republican vote. The one hiccup in the pre-Civil Rights legislation voting was when Strom Thurmond ran on an anti-Civil Rights tickets and won those Deep South states and then when George Wallace, a huge supporter of segregation, also ran and won those Deep South States.
I mean, really - take your bias out of this and look at this voting map. Notice how drastic of a switch happened in the Deep South starting exactly in the Civil Rights legislation election:
https://www.270towin.com/historical-presidential-elections/
