argexpat said:
That they ended child labor and segregation and gave us the eight hour work day and overtime pay and worker safety regulation and electricity to rural America and mass transit and VA loans and the GI Bill and programs that help regular people buy homes and get an education and save for retirement and a host of economic and social benefits that Republicans take for granted? Yeah, I know that history, but thanks for checking.
I won't bore readers by taking the statement apart point by point. I'll limit my hatchet job to just one element: 'segregation'.
Any serious student of history should know that regardless of how a piece of legislation is enacted, it is the President, at the time, and by extension, his party, who recieves credit for it.
Lyndon Johnson (D) signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the daddy of them all, into law.
However, the fact is that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed largely due to the support of Republicans. According to Congressional Quarterly, in the Senate, 82% of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act, while only 69% of Democrats did. All southern Democratic senators voted against the Act. In the House, 80% of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act versus 61% of Democrats. Ninety-two of the 103 southern Democrats voted against it. As one can plainly see, without Republican support, the act, and Johnson along with it, would have gone down in flames.
Among the senators voting against the legislation was Albert Gore (D) TN, the father whose son would later occupy his senate seat and go on to the Vice-presidency.
It was the Republicans who got the job done, and saved Johnson's bacon, too, wasn't it?
Now you know.