Question for the Historically Adept:

[KnaveRupe]

When and how did the Republican party go from being the Party of Lincoln to being the Party of Corporate Greed?

Were they ALWAYS corporate whores, and was Teddy Roosevelt an anomaly, or did the end of his presidency mark some kind of turning point in that party?

Posting the question here, because I think the discussion it could start would be more interesting than doing the research myself, especially since I don't really need to know for anything important. :)

[Burried News]

1. Railroads, 1870's, Reconstruction Frauds, Grant administration

Vanderbuilt, Carnaige(sp?), JP Morgan Explosive growth after the civil war. Land grants to railroads. PS I'm not a historian, just free associating.

[BillZBubb]

2. It started during the Civil War.

There was a lot of easy money to be made by supplying the Union Army. The Transcontinental Railroad was under construction at that time too--another big, corrupt money machine.

The pure greed party came to full fruition in the Grant Administration. There was a reform element inside the party in the 1890's and things like the Sherman Antitrust Act were passed to control the corporatists. TR was the culmination of that movement. After that, they went back to greed as usual--where they remain to this day.

[acmejack]

3. Even TR left the party

and ran as a "Bull Moose" Progressive. I would say that with Taft and Harding, because the Robber Barons were pissed about TR's vigorous anti-trust work. By Harding, the take over was complete as evidenced by the Tea Pot Dome affair.

[Sir Jeffrey]

4. McKinley was probably the death knell...

for the possibility of the Republican party turning en masse to the direction that TR laid out (progressive).

Yes, if you read any good TR biography, you'll see that he pissed off a lot of the people who put McKInley in office. In fact, he was so successful as a Rep Progressive that the "powers that be" in the party thought they could kill his political career by putting him as VP. The fact that he came to the Presidency after McKinley died meant that he stayed independent of the Rep Machinery...then he was so overwhelmingly popular as a progressive that the Machinery couldn't touch him in 1904.

Ever since Taft, the Reps have all been corporate whores. period.

[RPM]

5. Read "The Gangs of America" by Ted Nace

the rise of corporate power tracks the rise of the republican party.

coincidence, or not? your call...

[BlueStateModerate]

6. Its very roots were business-oriented

The Whigs, the Repubicans' predecessors, were absolute whores, catering to big business constantly. Even during the Civil War, profiteers made millions off of the war, making a class distinction greater than it had ever been. Then, after the War, Grant was a tool of business. It went downhill from there...

I have no idea why people haven't realized this. Fiscal conservatives, evangelicals... these people are not represented well by the Republican party. Evangelicals, of course, oppose abortion, but on so many other social issues, their stance is generally the opposite of the Republicans (welfare, third world aid, etc). Fiscal conservatives - do I even need to explain why?

[CBHagman]

7. I've been thinking a lot about how history is "taught" in U.S.

I'm not talking about classrooms in elementary schools, high schools, or universities, mind you; I'm thinking about the mainstream media and the press in general. I've noticed lately an attempt by some media writers and definitely the pundits to dumb down history a bit and cast in the hazy glow of that "Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were/are champions of freedom" blather.

Look at Ann Coulter (if you must) and her attempts to rewrite history. Look at the recent Regnery Press book (Its name escapes me) that retells U.S. history from a right-wing perspective (i.e., that conservatives were the true heroes of the American Revolution, that the War on Poverty made people poorer, etc.). Look at the Discovery Channel's idiotic ad for their "Greatest American" stunt, an ad in which Ronald Reagan is depicted alongside Abraham Lincoln as a liberator of peoples. I guess they forgot the weapons to Iran and Iraq business, and the bloody Central America policy, and the propping up of dictators, and...

What worries me is that people don't actually go back and bother to read up on history, and that so-called journalists are too bloody lazy or smug to do anything but spout their ahistorical claims (we all know who they are). And then there's human filth like Limbaugh and Hannity, who try to suggest that liberalism enslaves people and so forth.

The good news is that the Internet and television and other technology give us all access to more legitimate documents and materials. The bad news is that the same are filled with hate speech, rantings, and other drivel to mislead the masses.