The American Cultural War and the Restructuring of Kentucky Politics

Abstract

The study is an integration of the last six decades’ local, state, and national history concerning the correlation of border state Kentucky’s partisan politics with the events and themes of the country’s long cultural war. Beginning in the 1960s, the two national parties gradually became far more distinct from one another concerning cultural values. The Democratic Party supported results-oriented affirmative action, a woman’s right to choose, gay marriage, and the need for a powerful, active federal government to protect and encourage all the above. The Republican Party took none of these positions. This led to a new political configuration along rearranged racial, demographic, geographic, and party lines. Where once Kentucky’s Democratic Party had near total control of state offices and Republicans had won federal offices now and then, the new configuration had Republicans threatening to control both federal and state offices.