Republicans legit once?

[Ashleyxoxo]

I always read that "real Republicans" are dead, and now the party is corrupt and bad. They had intellectuals like William Buckley, so even though you didn't agree with them, they were a legitimate party. However, I was born into a post-Reagan world, so I only know of the corrupt version of the Republican party. Wealth doesn't trickle down. Science is thrown out the window for profit (e.g., creationist museums). We have a corrupt president.

Is this how the Republican party always was? Or were they a legit party once?

[cubby]

I always read that "real Republicans" are dead, and now the party is corrupt and bad. They had intellectuals like William Buckley, so even though you didn't agree with them, they were a legitimate party. However, I was born into a post-Reagan world, so I only know of the corrupt version of the Republican party. Wealth doesn't trickle down. Science is thrown out the window for profit (e.g., creationist museums). We have a corrupt president.

Is this how the Republican party always was? Or were they a legit party once?

The Old GOP (lol) died around 1990 with Newt Gingrich. His takeover of the House in 1994 signaled the beginning of the end of compromise legislation and governing for the people. While the non-compromisers started to raise their heads, the Libertarian Party was born (that's not the right name though) and the GOP began their "my way or the high way".

However, even before that, the GOP was always about lowering taxes for the rich, and deficit spending (despite their calls to the contrary).

[Adam Jensen]

The GOP of today isn't what it was when I was growing up (the 90s.)

They weren't so hateful of Democrats and disrespectful of democracy and rule of law. However, since Newt (as Cubby mentioned) it's been a steady decline since. Now you have men who I had respect for, like Colin Powell (I admit, I hate his involvement in the Iraq war, but I do hold some respect for him nonetheless) now bailing a party that has changed so fundamentally in the past 30 years.

[Egomaniac]

I always read that "real Republicans" are dead, and now the party is corrupt and bad. They had intellectuals like William Buckley, so even though you didn't agree with them, they were a legitimate party. However, I was born into a post-Reagan world, so I only know of the corrupt version of the Republican party. Wealth doesn't trickle down. Science is thrown out the window for profit (e.g., creationist museums). We have a corrupt president.

Is this how the Republican party always was? Or were they a legit party once?

You've heard of Abraham Lincoln?

Republican. So they started out Legit. 2Legit2Quit

If you vote Democrat now, 100 years ago you would probably have voted Republican and vice versa.

[Shadowferal]

Teddy Roosevelt for the big win.

[Thepersona]

I always read that "real Republicans" are dead, and now the party is corrupt and bad. They had intellectuals like William Buckley, so even though you didn't agree with them, they were a legitimate party. However, I was born into a post-Reagan world, so I only know of the corrupt version of the Republican party. Wealth doesn't trickle down. Science is thrown out the window for profit (e.g., creationist museums). We have a corrupt president.

Is this how the Republican party always was? Or were they a legit party once?

The last time when republicans werent racist dogwhistlers or just plain pieces of shit (because trickle down economics has to die a gruesome death) was with Eisenhower, AFAIK. So, in the 1950s?

[Themius]

You've heard of Abraham Lincoln?

Republican. So they started out Legit. 2Legit2Quit

If you vote Democrat now, 100 years ago you would probably have voted Republican and vice versa.

Lincoln gets too much credit way way way way too much...

His plan was basically to expel black people... and his fucking 10% plan was the most retarded shit I have ever heard of that proved how little he really gave a shit.

[Krakan]

I think most people tie the old Republicans to the old Christian values but they kind of feel to the wayside in the late nineties and have been trying to find a new identity since then.

[nonameelf]

Nixon and Reagan are the Republican presidents who lead the party down this path. Everything with the party has gotten worse since them.

Trump is, hopefully, the boiling over point where Republicans will finally die off as a political party and we can get something reasonable to replace them.

[s_bushido]

They had intellectuals like William Buckley, so even though you didn't agree with them, they were a legitimate party.

Is this how the Republican party always was? Or were they a legit party once?

I would hope that his wiki article is wildly misleading, because it sounds to me like he was the embodiment of the reprehensible horseshit the GOP stands for today.

Supported McCarthyism and dictators seeking to overthrow democratically elected communist governments. Opposed civil rights legislation and supported segregation until it became politically expedient not to, and then continued to deny systemic racism. Fellated the free market in his opposition of minimum wage. Saw HIV as the curse of the homosexual.

So if that is what counts as "intellectual" and "legit" I'm not sure they ever were. Just a party whose only goal seems to be to make as many people miserable as possible.

[Ivanstone]

I think most people tie the old Republicans to the old Christian values but they kind of feel to the wayside in the late nineties and have been trying to find a new identity since then.

No, that's not what happened. Old GOP was not about religious values. Every president (except Kennedy) was some from of protestant but were mostly secular in their politics.

The GOP made a play for the racist vote back in 1968. At the time there was still a lot of turmoil regarding school integration including private religious schools. The evangelicals tried to make a stink about the latter but it blew up in their faces. Before then they were less political and not as party specific. They even voted for Carter since he was one of them. In the late 70s they decided to switch tactics, started stumping heavily against abortion and switch teams to a different evangelical president, Reagan. Since then the racist, evangelical and GOP vote has been intertwined.

[Gestopft]

They've been utterly garbage my entire life. Maybe Eisenhower was the last decent Republican(?), but there was the whole...McCarthyism...going on then too, so....yeah...

Also, I have yet to be impressed by William F. Buckley; every time I see/hear him, his accent just seems so fake and his content just seems to be rather unimpressive ideas dressed up with fancy diction.

- - - Updated - - -

So, in the 1950s?

And perhaps not coincidentally, the Democrats basically had a lock on Congress for most of the post-war period.

[Logwyn]

Lincoln gets too much credit way way way way too much...

His plan was basically to expel black people... and his fucking 10% plan was the most retarded shit I have ever heard of that proved how little he really gave a shit.

Lincoln's main goal was to keep the Union together. With slaves or without. There is talk of him saying that his first reaction would be to send them to Liberia.

Fun fact. If the slaveholding Southerns would have agreed to be compensated for their slaves. The cost to pay all the owners and to put the slaves on ships would have been cheaper than the cost of the Civil War.

It was a silly idea to ship them outside of the country since the vast majority were born in the United States.

[DingDongKing]

The modern Republican Party, and I don’t mindless mean the elder statesmen, is just a hard right troll group. They’re just designed to tear the opposition down, not actually build anything. If they were a D&D alignment, they’d be Chaotic Evil. There’s no method to their madness. They’re already all rich and powerful apart from the underlings, like your Marjorie Taylor Greenes. So wealth accumulation isn’t a result of their actions or a goal. It’s purely to sow discord and disunity in the other side. ‘Owning the libs’, so to speak. Kinda pathetic, really.

[XDurionX]

It's the democrats who are corrupt. The republicans are just plain evil.

[Toppy]

Yeah its bothering me terribly all the damned interviews about how the GOP is being "taken over"

Oh no, the white supremacists took over the racist but not saying it out loud party


Their party wasnt taken over, it just stopped trying to hide what it was.

[Elegiac]

Yeah its bothering me terribly all the damned interviews about how the GOP is being "taken over"

Oh no, the white supremacists took over the racist but not saying it out loud party

Their party wasnt taken over, it just stopped trying to hide what it was.

I also wanna just point out that like... people have this idea in their head when we say "white supremacy" of a frothing at the mouth racist in a Klan hood when, no, white supremacy in most of its manifestations is so normalized that people who aren't its victims have trouble recognizing it, which is precisely why it's such a persistent and pervasive problem.

[stangist]

I also wanna just point out that like... people have this idea in their head when we say "white supremacy" of a frothing at the mouth racist in a Klan hood when, no, white supremacy in most of its manifestations is so normalized that people who aren't its victims have trouble recognizing it, which is precisely why it's such a persistent and pervasive problem.

Yes yes, you alone can see the "true racism" in everyone. Good luck trying to purge something most people don't even know exists. How convenient: you get to play anti-racism guru and solve the problem of racial oppression by patronizing everyone and otherwise doing nothing of any substance.

What pearl-clutching democrats like to sweep under the carpet is that the racial divide is almost entirely down to economics. And the democratic establishment is every bit as bad on that score.

So they mostly just point at redneck fuckwits being overtly racist and pretend like those people actually have any real power. Racism solved. Meantime they quietly oppose any attempt to increase social mobility.

If you want to actually deal with racism elect governments that invest heavily in social programs that would actualize the talent inherent in oppressed racial minorities. As a plus you'll find that your economy improves since stupid white people no longer have a monopoly on management and ownership. This is why you don't get as much racism in Europe: they have social programs to life people out of poverty so you don't get a lump of brown people at the bottom.

This will absolutely never happen under either major party in the US. You'll just continue to get dog whistle crap from republicans and flowery bullshit rhetoric with no substance from democrats.

Like most things: it is about money. And when you threaten the money of white liberals, even in the short-term, they get every bit as racist as conservatives.

[minteK917]

"Conservative" in every country is reactionary, what ever change they will react against. We should go back to X time. We should still do Z. Y is too fast. Think of the children.

After the war things started to change in the mind of people, women arent brainless trainwreck, black people might not just be canon fodder. Where ever the needle move, they need to stop it or slow it down, its their reason for existing, its what god/their parents told them.

[Elegiac]

What pearl-clutching democrats like to sweep under the carpet is that the racial divide is almost entirely down to economics.

Which...isn't remotely reflected by the disparity in economic outcomes, but you do you.

European progressives try to import their primarily class-based politics into postcolonial countries with deepseated and systemic racial animus (that was set up by...Europeans) and then wonder why they have trouble winning elections outside of safe districts. Rofl.

Also I am going to mention yet again that the last time we had a serious shot at universal healthcare in this country was not aborted as a result of corporate malfeasance since it was well before Citizens United and the progressive failure to reckon with that hurdle not being crossed, to say nothing of things like the ERA, is continuing to manifest in shit like M4A.