Back to the Big Switch: the basic idea is that starting with the Civil Rights Movement, Democrats saw the light and became the good guys, while Republicans became the bad guys. What happened to all the racist southern Democrats? Look, say the progressives, they all became Republicans! That's why the South today is largely Republican.13 This would seem to support the progressive story line. The narrative of the Big Switch has one more thing going for it: blacks, who once voted overwhelmingly Republican, now vote overwhelmingly Democratic. This is a switch, and it would seem to go along with the idea that Republicans used to be friendly to black interests but now Democrats are. Why else would 90 percent of blacks today support the Democratic Party?