The Democrats of the Civil War era do not hold the same values as the Democrats of today, same as the Republicans of each era. It is pointless for anyone to act like the name of a party a given politician belonged to 160 years ago means anything in 2025 terms.

In American politics, the Southern strategy was a Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans.As the civil rights movement and dismantling of Jim Crow laws in the 1950s and 1960s visibly deepened existing racial tensions in much of the Southern United States, Republican politicians such as presidential candidates Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater developed strategies that successfully contributed to the political realignment of many white, conservative voters in the South who had traditionally supported the Democratic Party so consistently that the voting pattern was named the Solid South. The strategy also helped to push the Republican Party much more to the right. By winning all of the South, a presidential candidate could obtain the presidency with minimal support elsewhere.

Try harder.

The parties basically flip flopped starting with FDR and the new deal era.

As someone else commented this was also exacerbated later on with the "Southern strategy"

Maybe confusing if you think party labels are the important thing rather than ideology and how you treat fellow human beings.

I mean about as confusing as the Tory / Conservative cross over in the uk.