You make some excellent points. Your graph on the county-by-county voting is instructive. However, there are other factors at play, which I'd like to address.
First, I'd be interested to know whether the margins of Republican victory in white southern counties are greater than in rural northern counties. Given that cities like Atlanta aren't preventing massive Republican victories in Georgia in national elections, whereas Portland can hand Oregon to the Dems (for instance), this is a question worth pursuing.
Second, you ask, what's the racist wing of the Republican Party? It's people who subscribe to the views espoused by groups like the Council of Conservative Citizens: www.cofcc.org. Those folks ain't voting Democrat.
You say no racist Democrat switched parties other than Thurmond. The Dixiecrats were a party, not just one man. And the Dixiecrats were Democrats who had, yes, switched parties. Not necessarily to the Reps, but not Dems.
Plus, it's hard to deny that the South started going Republican as a result of the civil rights movement, which was propelled by northern Dems (and voted for by northern Reps). Remember, non-southern House Dems voted for the CRA 141-4. That's not the only factor, but it certainly matters. The sheer strength of Strom Thurmond's candidacy demonstrates that many southern Democrats were not content with their party and were looking to switch. And do you count people like Jesse Helms? Or Whitten? Albert Watson? Or even Trent Lott, who opposed integration at his college and was affiliated with the Council for Conservative Citizens? Besides, why not consider folks like David Duke, a Republican?
Again, I'm not saying I support the Democrats. I don't. But there IS a racist wing of the Republican Party, and it is significant.
I do not appreciate the generalized unfounded associations you make between the Republican party and white racists, no matter how well written they are! NO, the influence of racists in the party is NOT significant!
You provided no names of any "dixiecrats" who switched parties to become republicans. The best you could do was a generalized pronouncement and present a racist stereotype of southerners.
You could provide no facts because, on the contrary, all of the Democrats who fought against the Civil Rights amendment in 1964---STAYED DEMOCRAT---INCLUDING AL GORE SR and Robert Byrd!...only Thurmond switched parties.
The COFCC ain't voting republican either! They have an article smearing the republicans on their site, which you posted. And they certainly don't have any links to republican sites or candidates on their site, so your attempt to group them as the "racist wing" of the republican party, just doesn't fly!
Using your reasoning, I suppose that one could say that since radical Muslim terrorists are not going to vote for republicans, they are democrats!
David Duke is NOT a part of the National Republican Party, and so I do not believe that he defines the party in even the smallest way-although the Democrats would like him to. They like to ignore United States Senator Byrd and focus on some lowly county executive in Louisiana! Ignore Dodd's comments, and focus on Lott's......who, by the way, was punished by his party for his comments, while the democrats did nothing about Dodd's comments!
How many black Democratic Senators have there been? How about NONE. Republicans have had 3. How many black Democrats have been appointed to power positions in a Presidential administration? (attorney general, secretary of state, secretary of defense, chief of staff, press secretary, national security adviser, White House counsel) Bush appointed 6 minorities to his cabinet, (one was even a Democrat) and two blacks and a hispanic in the "power" positions---as a matter of fact minorities have filled 45 percent of the Bush administration's highest policy positions!
You are reguritating oft repeated Democratic false propaganda, and I am not going for it.