In the 1920s, the Republican Party was dominant and worked to undermine immigration to the United States, which had reached record levels from 1880-1920, bringing into America millions of immigrants of Catholic and Jewish origin, as well as smaller numbers from Asia, particularly Japan.
In the early 1920s, under Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge, stringent immigration laws were put into place, cutting down the so called “new” immigration of these groups, who mostly had settled in the major urban centers, and become Democratic strongholds.
The growth of these Democratic strongholds in the cities helped to bring about a Democratic majority during the Great Depression, and led to the rise of the Democratic Party as the majority party, with the Republicans seen as the party of white Anglo Saxon Protestants.
While in future generations, the Republicans would gain a percentage of about one third to 40 percent of the Jewish and Catholic vote, they never were able to appeal to these groups and gain a majority, due to their clear cut nativism. This was a major blunder on their part, which undermined their ability to become the majority party that they had once been from the Civil War to the Great Depression.
Now in recent years, the new nativism has occurred, as the Republicans promote and advocate anti Hispanic and anti Asian propaganda, and therefore, those groups overwhelmingly support the Democrats, along with African Americans, who realize that while some Republicans supported the Civil Rights Acts in the 1960s, no longer do Republicans concern themselves with the plight of African Americans.
So the new nativism is in play, and the Republicans cannot win the White House, and will have trouble retaining control of the US Senate, as long as they spew forth nativist propaganda.
The Republican Party knows they are in a bind, but with Donald Trump using anti Hispanic propaganda, and other candidates showing insensitivity toward legal immigrants and undocumented immigrants, they are definitely doomed to fail, and lose the White House for the long term, with the growing number of people of Hispanic and Asian ancestry, who are not about to vote for the party that trashes them.
Once Texas turns “Blue”, and Georgia and North Carolina eventually, and with Virginia and Florida becoming more reliably “Blue” in Presidential elections, the Electoral College will favor the Democrats. The Republican Party, if it survives in is present form, will be doomed for many decades to be unable to win the Presidency!
1876 Democrat Party Platform:
Reform is necessary to correct the omissions of a Republican Congress and the errors of our treaties and our diplomacy, which has stripped our fellow-citizens of foreign birth and kindred race, re-erasing [re-crossing] the Atlantic from the shield of American citizenship, and has exposed our brethren of the Pacific coast to the incursions of a race not sprung from the same great parent stock, and in fact now by law denied citizenship through naturalization as being unaccustomed to the traditions of a progressive civilization, one exercised in liberty under equal laws; and we denounce the policy which thus discards the liberty-loving German and tolerates the revival of the coolie-trade in Mongolian women for immoral purposes, and Mongolian men held to perform servile labor contracts, and demand such modification of the treaty with the Chinese Empire, or such legislation within constitutional limitations, as shall prevent further importation or immigration of the Mongolian race.
1880 Democrat Party Platform:
Amendment of the Burlingame Treaty. No more Chinese immigration, except for travel, education, and foreign commerce, and that even carefully guarded.
1884 Democrat Party Platform:
In reaffirming the declaration of the Democratic platform of 1856, that, “the liberal principles embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, and sanctioned in the Constitution, which make ours the land of liberty and the asylum of the oppressed of every Nation, have ever been cardinal principles in the Democratic faith,” we nevertheless do not sanction the importation of foreign labor, or the admission of servile races, unfitted by habits, training, religion, or kindred, for absorption into the great body of our people, or for the citizenship which our laws confer. American civilization demands that against the immigration or importation of Mongolians to these shores our gates be closed.
We heartily approve all legitimate efforts to prevent the United States from being used as the dumping ground for the known criminals and professional paupers of Europe; and we demand the rigid enforcement of the laws against Chinese immigration and the importation of foreign workmen under contract, to degrade American labor and lessen its wages; but we condemn and denounce any and all attempts to restrict the immigration of the industrious and worthy of foreign lands.
1900 Democrat Party Platform:
We favor the continuance and strict enforcement of the Chinese exclusion law, and its application to the same classes of all Asiatic races.
1908 Democrat Party Platform:
We favor full protection, by both National and State governments within their respective spheres, of all foreigners residing in the United States under treaty, but we are opposed to the admission of Asiatic immigrants who cannot be amalgamated with our population, or whose presence among us would raise a race issue and involve us in diplomatic controversies with Oriental powers.
1920
Democrat Democrat Party Platform:
We pledge ourselves to maintain our established position in favor of the exclusion of Asiatic immigration.
Republican Party Platform:
We urge Congress to consider the most effective means to end lynching in this country which continues to be a terrible blot on our American civilization.
1928
Democrat Party Platform:
SILENCE!
Republican Party Platform:
The Negro
We renew our recommendation that the Congress enact at the earliest possible date a Federal Anti-Lynching Law so that the full influence of the Federal Government may be wielded to exterminate this hideous crime.
1932
Democrat Party Platform:
SILENCE!
Republican Party Platform:
The Negro
For seventy years the Republican Party has been the friend of the American Negro. Vindication of the rights of the Negro citizen to enjoy the full benefits of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is traditional in the Republican Party, and our party stands pledged to maintain equal opportunity and rights for Negro citizens. We do not propose to depart from that tradition nor to alter the spirit or letter of that pledge.
1940
Democrat Party Platform:
SILENCE!
Republican Party Platform:
Negroes
Our Negro citizens have participated actively in the economic and social advances launched by this Administration, including fair labor standards, social security benefits, health protection, work relief projects, decent housing, aid to education, and the rehabilitation of low-income farm families. We have aided more than half a million Negro youths in vocational training, education and employment. We shall continue to strive for complete legislative safeguards against discrimination in government service and benefits, and in the national defense forces. We pledge to uphold due process and the equal protection of the laws for every citizen, regardless of race, creed or color.
1944
Democrat Party Platform:
SILENCE
Republican Party Platform:
Racial and Religious Intolerance
We unreservedly condemn the injection into American life of appeals to racial or religious prejudice.
We pledge an immediate Congressional inquiry to ascertain the extent to which mistreatment, segregation and discrimination against Negroes who are in our armed forces are impairing morale and efficiency, and the adoption of corrective legislation.
We pledge the establishment by Federal legislation of a permanent Fair Employment Practice Commission.
1948
Democrat Party Platform:
SILENCE!
Republican Party Platform:
Lynching or any other form of mob violence anywhere is a disgrace to any civilized state, and we favor the prompt enactment of legislation to end this infamy.
One of the basic principles of this Republic is the equality of all individuals in their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This principle is enunciated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Constitution of the United States; it was vindicated on the field of battle and became the cornerstone of this Republic. This right of equal opportunity to work and to advance in life should never be limited in any individual because of race, religion, color, or country of origin. We favor the enactment and just enforcement of such Federal legislation as may be necessary to maintain this right at all times in every part of this Republic.
We favor the abolition of the poll tax as a requisite to voting.
We are opposed to the idea of racial segregation in the armed services of the United States.
Democrats! They were racist and hateful of “inferior” immigrants in their origins, during the Wilsonian Progressive Era all the way through the FDR “Liberal” era! And today they continue dividing Americans bases on race, income , gender and what have you.
Ariel,. I am well aware of the deleterious effect of Southern Democrats on the party platform and actions, and thanks to Truman and LBJ for forcing these despicable racists and nativists to the Republican Party, where they now reside.
On the issue of African Americans, and Asian Americans, both parties were disgraceful, including Republican State Attorney General Earl Warren of California, who advocated internment of Japanese Americans in World War II, but we saw him realize the wrongs of his ways and apologize for what he had advocated, and become the leading advocate of civil rights and civil liberties.
The point is that the the GOP did nothing for African Americans in the years after Reconstruction, and they finally went to the Democratic Party beginning with FDR years.
And other minorities saw that the GOP was a WASP party despite their party platforms as actions speak louder than words.