Crespino argues, convincingly, that Thurmond should be seen as a forefather of modern conservatism. “In 1948, when Goldwater was still a year away from running for the Phoenix City council and Reagan was still an actor, Thurmond was a presidential candidate denouncing federal meddling in private business, the growing socialist impulse in American politics, and the dangers of statism,” he writes. But until a few months prior to that 1965 filibuster, Thurmond had been a Democrat. He was elected to the Senate as a Democrat in 1954, and he wouldn’t switch to the Republican Party until 1964.
