[ChristianBundy]

> Data scientist fired for retweeting study showing non-violent protests are more effective

This is a blatant misrepresentation. The tweet talked about "race riots" and Democrat election results. Many people would argue that the point of direct action is not to sway electoral votes toward the Democratic party.

[monocasa]

And particularly, that election was in the middle of the southern strategy switch, and the Democratic party didn't define itself as the left wing of acceptable politics in the nation as it does today. Particularly the Southern Democrats hadn't overwhelmingly converted over to Republicans yet. It was only after the Civil Rights Act was passed (which was six days into the race riots mentioned, so real actionable change that came from them) that the Dixiecrats really started switching, and that took time (a few elections worth).

[zeveb]

> It was only after the Civil Rights Act was passed (which was six days into the race riots mentioned, so real actionable change that came from them)

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, signed into law on the second of July 1964, had been in the works since before Mr. Kennedy's (unrelated) assassination in 1963; it passed the House 290–130 and the Senate 73–27: I really doubt that six days' rioting can be credited with passing it.

[burfog]

There was no switch. Go look up members of congress who switched political party during that era. Wikipedia has a list. You'll find two, one in the house and one in the senate.

Had there been an actual switch, you'd expect to see numerous members of congress switching sides.

The "party switch" narrative is a lie. It's to cover for the fact that the republicans kept voting for civil rights until they were finally able to pass it. Today, being the party in opposition to civil rights wouldn't be seen as OK, so a false version of history is pushed to cover up the truth.

A better explanation for the change in voting is that party preferences changed once the issue of civil rights was no longer under consideration. With that gone, other political goals were able to determine party preference.