A design feature

"Some may not remember, but the Republican Party was founded to oppose slavery. Some may not remember, but for generations Southern conservatives remained Democrats because they wanted nothing to do with the Party of Lincoln. Some may not remember, but those grand Democratic majorities supposedly enjoyed by Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson included many racist conservatives who remained Democrats precisely because they remained racist, and still couldn't forgive even the increasingly conservative Republican Party for what they deemed to have been the sins of its past, such as the Civil War. Some may not remember, but the moderate Republican of the recent past was met and perhaps surpassed by the truly conservative Democrat of that recent past."