alt Hacker News> What MAGA is today is what the bulk of the GOP has always been: a coalition of social conservatives and business owners.
I'm skeptical of this historical analysis.
The two major political parties fundamentally realigned during the civil rights era of the 1960s. Before then, Democrats controlled the south. Strom Thurmond switched from Democrat to Republican in 1964. George Wallace ran for President as a Democrat 3 times before he became an independent. Robert Byrd was a Democrat until the end. Who were the "social conservatives"? Both Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon (Californians, by the way) made their names as staunch Cold Warrior anti-Communists during the McCarthy era.
I don't think there's any such thing as what "the GOP has always been", or what the Democrats have always been, for that matter. I'm old enough to have seen the parties change several times, and the definitions of "conservative", "liberal", "left", "right" morph into something unrecognizable to former adherents.
The only constant is change.
> The two major political parties fundamentally realigned during the civil rights era of the 1960s.
This is an incorrect analysis looking at the wrong causal factor (civil rights rather than economics). Even in 1976, Carter did great in the deep south. The realignment happened in the 1980s, due to economic growth in the south. The south went from being poor and agrarian in the 1930s to being newly industrialized in the 1980s.
> Who were the "social conservatives"?
The 19th century GOP was a coalition of religious conservatives and protectionist industrialists. MAGA is a coalition of religious/cultural conservatives and protectionist industrialists.