> many senators blamed the democrats, explicitly switched to the republican party, and the south has been anti-democrat since.

In this case, "many" is at most 2.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_senators... Thurmond was the only US senator who switched parties in the 60s. Harry Byrd (from Virginia, not Robert from West Virginia) stopped caucusing with Dems in 1970.

No other US senators switched parties until 94.

Before Thurmond, the previous switch was by Morse (Oregon) who went from Republican to Democrat in 53-55.

The same seems to be true of the House of Representatives - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_represen... .

Pretty much every prominent Dem segregationist only left office when he retired.

That's why the "first Republican elected since Reconstruction" events didn't start until the mid 70s and didn't really get going until the mid 80s.