Bronze-level articleRepublican Party

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The Republican Party animal. Refusing to adapt to a more sustainable lifestyle to cope with global warming, and having faith that it doesn't exist, threatens the party's existence.
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U.S. Politics

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Hail to the Chief?
Persons of interest
What happened?
—Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein[1]
If conservatives and Republicans desire a return to relevancy, then they can't offer today's voters reruns from the '80s and '90s in an attempt at solving yesterday's problems.
—James Pethokoukis, AEI fellow[2]

The Republican Party is a right wing political party in the United States of America. Once the party of civil rights and Abraham Lincoln, and later to become known as the party of personal responsibility and restricted government, in the latter half of the 20th century it became a party dominated primarily by people who can afford seven-figure bribes, the psychotically religious, and experts in framing issues to play to constituents' prejudices.

After 2000, the Bush-McCain wing of the party ballooned the national debt to its highest level in American history. Their successor, Barack Obama (not a Republican) seeks to clean up the mess by spending more money.

The Republican Party is also known as the "Grand Old Party" (GOP) although it is, in fact, younger than the Democratic Party and not that grand. Since the election of President Obama, the party has done everything in its powers to become known as the 'Party of No.'

Some argue that plenty of mildly progressive or centrist-oriented Liberal Republicans still exist, and are just waiting for a suitable figure to lead them. If so, it is hard to tell them from the faux-rebels running around. Most commentators just assume they're either endangered, extinct or on acid. (Otherwise, they're most likely hanging out in the Democratic Party.)

Contents

[edit] Timeline

What we’re seeing is the collapse of institutional Republican power. It’s not so much about Boehner. It’s things like the end of earmarks. They move away from Tom DeLay and they think they’re improving the House, but now they have nothing to offer their members. The outside groups don’t always move votes directly but they create an atmosphere of fear among the members. And so many of these members now live in the conservative world of talk radio and Tea Party conventions and Fox News invitations. And so the conservative strategy of the moment, no matter how unrealistic it might be, catches fire.
—Robert Costa, National Review[3]
  • 1854 - The party is founded.[4] Times are very different from today, and people look to the Republican Party for positive policies concerning slavery and trade as opposed to the Democratic Party, which, at the time, favored the interests of planter-slaveholders and the South.[5]
  • 1860 - Abraham Lincoln, possibly the greatest president ever, is elected. He is remarkably bipartisan and agreeable, acting on what he feels is best for America rather than what is best for his party. Unfortunately he was not bipartisan enough to escape the ire of a certain Confederate sympathizer, who assassinated him on April 14, 1865.
  • 1868 - Ulysses Grant gets elected, and is arguably the first person to take the party in a clear fiscally conservative direction, having policies tough on inflation, and focusing government resources to aid industry.
  • 1896 - William McKinley battles his famous campaign with William Jennings Bryan, clearly setting in the party positions of the pro-populist Democrats and pro-business Republicans for the next century. McKinley backs a strong gold standard, which was cited by his opponents as favoring debt-holders and banks. McKinley is backed (and arguably elected because of) powerful interests such as Standard Oil and JP Morgan. His foreign policy also pursues a course of imperialism that included the annexation of Hawaii and naval war with Spain. While opposed by the Democrats at the time, this policy is eventually followed by both parties post-WWI.
  • 1901 - Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt becomes president following the assassination of McKinley. While overall more conservative than his opponents, he goes on to do many things that would be anathema to modern Republicans, including fighting big business and protecting the environment, and if he had his way in the next decade America would have had universal health care a century ago.
  • 1912 - The Republicans are split between the conservative William H. Taft and the progressive Roosevelt. When the convention moves for Taft, TR leads an exodus,[wp] fracturing the Republican electorate. Roosevelt comes in second and the Democrats take the White House.
  • 1929 - The Great Depression starts. The Republican Party applies the "just watch the country go down the crapper" strategy. Contrary to what most people think, Herbert Hoover moves immediately into action, attempting a bailout and donating large amounts of his own funds to charity to keep people out of poverty. To this day, Hoover is remembered as the man who started the Great Depression and is lumped in with the rest of the GOP.
  • 1933 - Republicans coalesce against Franklin Delano Roosevelt (a Democrat), another candidate for greatest president ever. Roosevelt greatly helps relieve unemployment during the Depression, and has the luck of being in office when the U.S. is drawn into, and helps win, World War II. He brought many years of prosperity to America, along with hitherto unknown levels of national debt.
  • 1969-1974 - Richard "Tricky Dick" Nixon is elected on a promise that he has a secret plan to end the Vietnam War. The plan is so secret, another 20,000 GIs die before Nixon runs for re-election on a promise to really, really end the war for sure this time. By that time, his "plumbers" have been arrested for trying to wire the DNC offices in the Watergate complex, resulting in a cover-up so disgusting, and abuses of power so scary, the country actually elects Carter in 1976.
  • 1981-1989 - Ronald Reagan gets into office. At this point the Republicans change from a center-right party to neoconservatism with the introduction of trickle down economics. Gets credit for delayed effects of the Soviet economy, delayed effects of previous presidents, and for being rude to other world leaders. Illegally sells weapons to Iran, which are used several years later by present-day extremists. Spends 1/4 of all military defence money allotted during the Cold War (in part by literally trying to build a space laser), and starts the 30-year trend of borrowing like a sailor without any regard for the consequences. Becomes principal deity to a new, cultish religion. Stops the horrible problem of 20-year-old adults drinking by signing the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1986, and vetoes a 1987 highway bill because it included 121 earmarks and was $10 billion over the line he had drawn in the sand.
  • 1994 - The Republican Party takes control of Congress as a result of complacency and corruption in the Democratic Party. Begins a fourteen-year era where the Republicans really screw things up and destroy any chance of power for dozens of years after a Democratic president and a new Democratic majority is elected in 2008. (It took the Democratic Party 61 years to become fat and lazy, and it only took the Republicans 14.)
  • 2005 - Bush signs a $286.4 billion dollar highway bill passed by a GOP-controlled Congress, earmarking $24 billion for 6,376 pet projects. What line? What sand?
  • 2008 - As his presidency was winding down, Dubya issued a series of executive orders with nasty environmental consequences.
  • 2009 - People are counting down the days. 4... 3... 2... 1...
  • 2010 - The Republicans begin their massive campaign of smears, fear-mongering and misinformation against the Democrats. The Teabaggers are spawned. The Republicans become the "Party of No" as they try everything they can to block important or useful legislation proposed by the Democrats socialists. Dispirited and disinterested liberals stay home as angry conservatives turn out to elect enough scary people to Congress to take control of the House.
  • 2011 - Control of the House achieved, congressional Republicans relax and enjoy being able to prevent Obama from making any progress, simply by not passing anything for him to sign. Nation largely shrugs as attention is drawn to the trainwreck that is the 2012 presidential campaign.
  • 2012 - Mitt Romney becomes the Republican Party's nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 election. He loses the election to the incumbent, Barack Obama, with (in full irony) 47% of the vote.
  • 2015 - Now in control of Congress, the Republicans help make America's chief legislative body into the single most anti-science institution in American history. [9] This includes having Ted Cruz oversee NASA and James Inhofe, the War on Science chief, as chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Richard Nixon would be horrified right now.

[edit] Ties to Mammon

Despite their claims of being in the service of God, in recent times the Republican Party has shown a belief in Mammon, the personification or deity of greed in the Bible. Some within the GOP try to mask Jesus as one of them, altering his teachings to serve their political platform. A prime example of this would be one idiot and his "bible." Others are more open with their agendas, such as Sen. Jim Bunning.[10] Even some right-wing ministers encourage deceit.[11] The closest, thus far, of the GOP stating who they really pray to would be Glenn Beck encouraging his viewers to be greedy and leave their church if they talk about helping the poor (which he compared to Nazism).[12] And these people believe they deserve a place in heaven.

[edit] A very long list of Republicans

You can't call yourselves the Party of Lincoln when so many of your most prominent members defend secession & the Confederate flag.
—ZeddRebel

[edit] Former GOP Members

  • The late former Senator Arlen Specter: Switched parties in 2010 out of fear of losing the Republican primary, then lost the Democratic primary.
  • Charles Barkley: Because as a child his grandmother had told him they weren't rich enough to be Republicans, he thought he had to be a Republican after making millions from basketball. He has since learned that the Republicans suck in general, and is thinking of running for office in his native Alabama as a Democrat or Independent.
  • Charlie Christ: Former Governor of Florida, converted to Independent in 2010 and narrowly lost a non-consecutive term in 2014 as a Democrat.
  • Former Secretary of State Colin Powell: Still claims to be a Republican as well, but was excommunicated by Dick Cheney and others for supporting Obama and opposing both the Iraq War and Don't Ask Don't Tell.
  • Gary Johnson: Former two-term Governor of New Mexico, ignored by the Republicans during his attempt at receiving the 2012 Republican nomination for President due to his libertarian social views and use of polysyllabic words when speaking publicly. Was the candidate for, shock, the Libertarian Party.
  • The late former Senator Jim Jeffords: Switched to Independent in 2001, likely the earliest national figure to jump the ship.
  • Former Senator Lincoln Chafee: elected Governor of Rhode Island as an independent, joined the Democratic Party in 2013, who voted against the tax cuts and Iraq War resolution. Even as a Republican, he was a liberal on social matters, supported federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, opposed the austerity of the GOP and neo-liberalism of the DNC, voted against the death penalty, calls for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine with Israeli withdrawal from all occupied territories as a condition, voted for the restoration of Clinton-era tax raises on the rich, voted against arctic drilling, and voted against torture. He toed the party line on free trade, the Patriot Act, and partial privatization of Social Security, but he remained to the left of even the Democrats.
  • Secretary of Defense Robert Gates: He hasn't renounced his party allegiance, but being the Secretary of Defense under Obama and pushing for an end to DADT was not without an earful.
  • Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel: He was one of the few Republicans who took pause at the Iraq War and the corroding influence of the Israeli lobby in Capitol Hill, although that didn't stop him from toeing the party line. As the Defense Secretary under Obama, he opposed escalating the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, and refused to send soldiers or arm more rebels like the Obama administration wanted; Obama forced him out of his job as a result. Has not renounced his party allegiance, but definitively proved that he was to the left of the Democrats on foreign policy, which was not without an earful.

And all you "Obama Republicans"[wp] out there, which the party has done nothing to win back.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

  1. Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem, Washington Post
  2. Do Conservatives Have Any New Ideas?, Bloomberg
  3. American Politics 101, R.I.P., Foreign Policy
  4. Republican Party founded on February 28, 1854, Politico
  5. In fact the GOP was originally a big tent centrist party based in the North that had inherited the legacy of the Whig Party. Factions included business conservatives, moderates (eventually "led" by Lincoln), liberals (led by Horace Greeley), radicals (led by Thaddeus Stevens), and nationalists who all agreed on a general dislike of slavery but not on much else nor on how to deal with it (the conservatives and moderates wanted to try to compromise whereas the liberals and even more so the radicals were more willing to illegalize slavery immediately).
  6. Federal Budget Receipts and Outlays, UC Santa Barbara
  7. How the politics of resentment created a crisis in conservatism, The Globe and Mail
  8. The 'Emerging Democratic Majority' Isn't Assured—Unless the GOP Refuses to Change, The New Republic
  9. http://motherboard.vice.com/read/meet-the-most-anti-science-congress-in-modern-history
  10. Is Sen. Jim Bunning's stand against unemployment extensions in line with his past votes?, CNN
  11. "THE DEVIL was the tempter and Jesus was NOT a deceiver," Doug Giles
  12. Yeah.
  13. Just imagine his reaction if he saw the current state of the party.
  14. In Lawmaker’s Outburst, a Rare Breach of Protocol, The New York Times
  15. Ashcroft protects the boobies.
  16. Stephen Colbert noted if you remove the vowels from his name it spells RNC BS.
  17. Bad News, The New Yorker
United States 2008 Presidential election articles on RationalWiki
Topics: 2008 U.S. Presidential Election - Democratic Party - Debate:Religious beliefs and public office - Republican Party - Same-sex marriage - United States Electoral College
Candidates: Hillary Rodham Clinton - Rudolph Giuliani - Mike Huckabee - John McCain - Alan Keyes - Dennis Kucinich - Ron Paul - Mitt Romney
Running mates: Joe Biden - Sarah Palin
Winner: Barack Obama
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