Denial of basic history. Those right winger Democrats were ONLY democrats as a hangover from the Civil War and Reconstruction. They were Democrats ONLY because Lincoln, the Republican, crushed their breakaway slave country. When LBJ passed the Civil Rights Bill and the Voting Rights Act they realized they were actually Republicans and switched. Overlay the map of the Confederacy on the map of "red states", you will see that they are still fighting the Civil War.