Off the Reservation: Republican Party (1856 – 2010)

[Writer]

http://www.longislandpress.com/2010/03/24/off-the-reservation-republican-party-1856-2010/

... So, in seeking to refresh my recollection of what this party stands for, I logged onto the GOP home page.

What I found was as pathetic as it was cartoonish. A complete embarrassment. The site opens to a fiery red screen with Nancy Pelosi, fists and teeth clenched in a fit of rage against a backdrop of flames, with the words “Fire Pelosi” in bold letters emblazoned on the screen. This buffoonery doesn’t torch Nancy Pelosi—it’s Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Abraham Lincoln who are torched by the flames of dissent and hatred that now embody this once-great party.

Going deeper in the site only serves to highlight the confusion within the GOP. It lists the accomplishments of the Republican Party since its inception and its own core values of today. It proudly claims responsibility for freeing the slaves, establishing Howard University and outlawing the Ku Klux Klan. It touts Republican leadership in writing the 19th Amendment, passing two civil rights acts and ending racial segregation in Little Rock. The list spans two centuries of achievements such as these and others that today seem more in alignment with the Democratic Party, like establishing Yellowstone National Park, building the federal highway system and authoring welfare reform.

This is the party I belong to.

- SNIP -

I’m calling it. I hereby officially pronounce the Republican Party dead. The GOP died suddenly on March 23, 2010 from a diseased mind and heart. It was 154 years old. The son of Ronald Reagan, grandson of Theodore Roosevelt and great-grandson of Abraham Lincoln is survived only by bastard stepchildren who have squandered the family fortune and sullied its good name.

[YOY]

1. It died in 1980. They just didn't realize it.

or at least the death blow. Going righter than any sane developed nation had a right or need to.

[DrToast]

2. Agree. Reagan getting in bed with the Religious Right is where it started

*

[Ozymanithrax]

3. IN 1948, the Democratic Party allowed black people into the party.

This initiated a shift that culminated with Nixon's Southern STrategy and the election of Reagan, when most of the South finished converting to the Republican party and the North, formerly a Republican Stronghold,had becom reliably Democratic.

Today's Republican Party is the Democratic party of 1863, and very closely resembles the Whig Party just before it self destructed.

[greencharlie]

4. No.

not true...

The Republican Party was fat and happy under Ike (1952-1960) and were really OK with JFK, turned sour under LBJ and went with Nixon over Humphrey and McGovern.

But up until the mid 1960's the Democratic Party WAS the party of racism. Republican was a dirty word in the Deep South late into the 1970's.

Todays Republican party is basically the "get off my lawn" types from the 1950's meeting up with the Goldwater indies and mixing with the George Wallace KKK types and the pre-1965 Democrats.

[greencharlie]

5. BTW...

George Wallace finished THIRD in the 1972 Democratic Presidential Primaries... that tells you a lot about the party in 1972.