- Boll weevil (politics)
Boll weevils was an American political term used in the mid- and late-20th century to describe conservative Southern Democrats.
During and after the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 'boll weevils' were part of the coalition generally in support of Roosevelt's
New Deal andHarry Truman 'sFair Deal economic policies, but were opposed todesegregation and theAmerican civil rights movement . On several occasions between 1948 and 1968, a prominent conservative Southern Democrat broke from the Democrats to run a third party campaign for President on a platform ofstates' rights :Strom Thurmond in 1948,Harry F. Byrd in 1960, andGeorge Wallace in 1968. In the 1964 presidential election, 5 states in theDeep South (then a Democratic stronghold) voted for RepublicanBarry Goldwater over Southern DemocratLyndon B. Johnson , partly due to Johnson's support of theCivil Rights Act of 1964 and Goldwater's opposition to it. After 1968, with desegregation a settled issue, the Republican Party began a strategy of trying to win conservative Southerners away from the Democrats and into the Republican Party (seeSouthern strategy and Silent Majority).Nonetheless, a bloc of conservative Democrats, mostly Southerners, remained in the
United States Congress throughout the 1970s and 1980s (Conservative Coalition ). These included Democratic House members as conservative asLarry McDonald , who was also a leader in theJohn Birch Society . During the administration ofRonald Reagan , the term "boll weevils" was applied to this bloc of conservative Democrats, who consistently voted in favor of tax cuts, increases in military spending, andderegulation favored by the Reagan administration."Boll weevils" was sometimes used as a political epithet by Democratic Party leaders, implying that the boll weevils were unreliable on key votes or not team players.
Most of the boll weevils eventually retired from office, or in the case of some such as Senators
Phil Gramm andRichard Shelby , switched parties and joined the Republicans. Since 1988 the term "boll weevils" has fallen out of favor. A bloc of conservative Democrats in the House, including some younger or newer members as well as the remaining boll weevils who refused to bow to pressure to switch parties, organized themselves as the "Blue Dogs" in the early 1990s. A different bloc of Democrats also emerged in the 1990s, under theDemocratic Leadership Council (DLC), espousing conservative pro-business views on economic issues andmoderate views on social issues. Neither the DLC nor the Blue Dogs are known as "boll weevils," and are considered by most observers to not be nearly as conservative, or as concentrated in the South, as the boll weevils were in their heyday.ee also
*
Blue Dog Democrats
*Conservative Democrat
*Dixiecrats
*New Democrats
*Reagan Democrat
* Republican/Democrat In Name Only
*Southern Democrat
*Yellow dog Democrat s
*Gypsy moth Republican s
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