Post Lincoln The GOP Has Always Been A Party Of Pricks & Dicks.

[TheMastersNemesis]

Outside of the slavery issue the GOP has always been a party of dickheads. Historically they morphed not a pro rich and eventually racist bigoted party. The Guilded Age of economic exploitation would not have been possible without the GOP. If you look particularly how they acted during the Depression after their policies caused it in the first place. The 2007 collapse was deja vu from that era.

After all the GOP denied WWI vets their war bonus and ran them out of Washington even killing some of these veterans. Plus the GOP has exploited veterans throughout all of our wars. Were it not for Democrats the VA would not even exist. Now the GOP wants to put an end to veterans care. Get wounded and disabled and your are on your own.

As far as workers go even though slavery is over the GOP has created a slavery economy for many workers. And they plan to do worse by taking away ALL rights workers earned in over 100 years. They are ok with the grinding kind of poverty you see in Africa in the US.

Racism is the vehicle they are using to enslave present workers and workers of the future. Economic decline of future of the;young is part of their plan.

The only difference now is that the GOP is openly brazen about it. They believe they are invincible because they feel they have rigged the vote forever.

[Achilleaze]

1. republicans pissed all over America's veterans after World War I

Just as republicans are pissing on them today under the ignoble misleadership of comrade Dirty Donny, the republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief. Disgusting.

[Dennis Donovan]

2. Maybe post Reagan, but not post Lincoln...

There were many decent Republican over the years, but they all seemed to disappear post Reagan.

[TheMastersNemesis]

3. Perhaps During The Eisenhower Administration.

The GOP platform then was as far left as Democrats. Of course they passed Taft Hartley before that.

[DFW]

7. With the exception of Gerry Ford, I would have said post-Nixon

Teddy Roosevelt and Eisenhower were certainly tolerable, and, in the context of his time, TR had some quite daring stances, especially with respect to the environment (e.g. National Parks) and attitude toward open criticism of sitting presidents.

Though not the intellectual equal of Adlai Stevenson, Eisenhower was not thoroughly evil in nature, and Gerry Ford was essentially a product of Eisenhower's era. Bush senior, though not as nasty as Reagan, certainly was influenced by the success of his ways, and the Republicans went downhill from there, landing in the deep dark pit where they now reside.

Even so-called "moderate Republicans" such as Senators Flake, Corker, Collins and Murkowski, all vote reliably for every vile measure or nominee that McTurtle brings to the Senate floor for a vote. Their expressed "reservations" vanish like steam from a teacup when it comes to actually sparing the country some woe.

[DownriverDem]

13. Southern Strategy

When the repubs went to race to gain votes and got the religious right to join them, it went downhill from there.

[SCantiGOP]

20. You beat me to it

Teddy Roosevelt and Eisenhower were two of the best we ever had. For their times, progressive and inclusive.

[Sophia4]

4. What about Theodore Roosevelt? Aside from his penchant for war, he cleaned up a

lot of corruption and worked to clean up the civil service system as well as the New York City police force. He wasn't so bad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt#Civil_Service_Commission

Perhaps the last good Republican although Eisenhower did some good and some terrible things.

[rickyhall]

9. TR becoming president was an accident.

Eisenhower was the only way to beat the Dems. Lincoln left the party in his 2nd term.

[DownriverDem]

14. Exactly

TR was made VP so he wouldn't cause trouble. Then McKinley was assassinated. Teddy was not a good fit for the repub party of that time. He wouldn't fit today either.

[Sophia4]

24. True!

But he was a reformer and deserves our thanks for that.

[Sophia4]

25. My dad was a staunch Democrat, but he liked Ike.

Lots of Democrats did. In fact, however, under Truman and Eisenhower, the CIA did things that we have not yet lived down.

[True Blue American]

12. Teddy also

Was a Trust buster. He went after the Robber Barons, going so far as to chase Rockefeller all over the Country.

[beachbum bob]

5. you seem to FORGET that republicans help pass the civil rights laws in the 1960's

otherwise LBJ's initiatives would have all died as "southern democrats" fled

[DownriverDem]

15. Who welcomed them?

Those southern Democrats were welcomed with open arms by the repubs. repubs of today like to bring up the Southern Democrats to show the Dems were racists. Of course they ignore what happened after Civil Rights and Voting laws were passed. repubs continue to live and love the past when white men ruled totally.

[beachbum bob]

18. until the 80's, we still had moderate republicans, I am replying to the OP

which was pretty sorry statement to make in the first place. People need to differentiate between "todays" republicans and those in the past. Today's republicans have little resemblance to the republicans who elected Eisenhower.

[SCantiGOP]

21. That's why a lot of young people in the early 60s

like Hillary and me, were attracted to Goldwater. He was anti-draft and thought the govt was overstepping their authority to arrest people for pot. And voting against the Civil Rights Act seemed minor compared to the terroristic segregation policy of the Southern half of the Democratic Party.

[beachbum bob]

22. many of us started off our early years as a republican as there was a time when the GOP

actually looked out for the little guy and believed in a limit of Govt into people's lives (sorta)

[SCantiGOP]

27. Right

Goldwater didn’t want the government to tell private businesses that they could’t discriminate based on race, but was then consistent and said that meant they also couldn’t regulate private behavior like drugs and sex.
Considering how homophobic society was in the early 60s, it was amazing that he opposed banning gays from serving in the military. He said, “I don’t care if a soldier is straight as long as he can shoot straight.”

[TheMastersNemesis]

28. For The Most Part They Were Pricks W/Some Exceptions That I Failed To Mention.

Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Ford were more the exception. For the most part the GOP has been anti worker, and anti environment. It is truly ironic that Democrats were pro slave in their past. And it is ironic that the Dixiecrats got Medicare passed.
Even Nixon did some exceptional thing.

The GOP really turned sour with the advent of Reagan.

[bucolic_frolic]

6. Lincoln was a populist stooge front man for northern capitalists

Study the roots of the GOP from the very beginning. That party that formed to represent northern manufacturers and railroad interests. And understand that Abe Lincoln was talking in bi-diretional platitudes that meant one thing to the common man and quite another to his party backers. Study Lincoln's land holdings, and decisions on routing those railroads through his own territory. Look at the corporate cases he represented for the railroads, and the incredible legal fees he received as chief counsel for one of them.

And explore Lincoln's policies. Read the book Six Encounters with Lincoln: A President Confronts Democracy and Its Demons https://www.amazon.com/Six-Encounters-Lincoln-President-Confronts/dp/0670025909

IMO, due to the Civil War and his assassination, Lincoln has been sanitized by history and a party intent on reaping the benefits of the economic slavery. But understand as well, that capitalism and money are motivating forces that drive innovation. If you remove exploitation, you remove incentive, and your country and its industries may no longer be competitive vis-a-vis the world.

[paleotn]

8. They've had their.....

asshole wing since the beginning, as have the Democrats. Not all Republicans were radicals like Thad Stevens and Charles Sumner. Similarly, not all Democrats were like what became the Dixiecrats. Due to staunch southern Dem. opposition, LBJ had to rely on Rep. votes to pass the Civil Rights Act. Both parties were true big tents. Though as a whole Republicans leaned right, there was much overlap between the two parties. That changed with Nixon. Dixiecrats became Rethuglicans. The GOP embraced right wing religion and purged their social moderates. Now they're in an all out sprint towards fascism.

[DownriverDem]

10. Who they are

The repubs have the rich, haters (pick a group) and religious nuts. I'm white and am totally disgusted with white repubs.

[Botany]

11. Not True

Last edited Wed Aug 15, 2018, 10:21 AM - Edit history (1)

Ray Shafer
Teddy Roosevelt
Margaret Chase Smith
Gerald Ford
Mark Hatfield
Chuck Percy
Sen. Dirkson
Pete McCloskey

[DemocratSinceBirth]

16. Teddy Roosevelt and Warren G. Harding were infinitely better on race than Woodrow Wilson...

Teddy Roosevelt and Warren G. Harding were infinitely better on race than Woodrow Wilson who said of the film The Birth Of A Nation "It's like writing history with lightning. My only regret is that it is all so terribly true."

[jayschool2013]

17. I, for one, will not sit here

and let you denigrate the service and record of one James Abram Garfield, our 20th president. Seriously, though, a pretty good guy, but president for less than a year. Rutherford Hayes (19) also had his good side, along with Grant (18), Arthur (21) and Benjamin Harrison (23). McKinley started the string of assholes, IMHO.

[luvtheGWN]

19. In the fall of 2016, some weeks before the election,

Jack Beatty, a contributor on NPR's On Point, noted that the U.S. had indeed returned to the Gilded Age. Just to underline his point, the GOP brought in the trillion-dollar tax cut to benefit the top 1% the next year.

I'm stymied by the behaviour of too many of the other 99%. Is it because they don't care enough to learn the facts (soaring deficits and mounting debt every time the GOP are in charge), or because the GOP have done such a brilliant job of brainwashing? I guess perhaps it's a combination of both.

[SCantiGOP]

23. In my part of the country,

the old Confederacy, the appeal of the Repub Party is mostly explained by race. The segregationist Democrats of the 50s became the racist Republicans of the 70s and beyond.

[Progressive dog]

26. The party of the racists remained the Democrats

for a long, long time after Lincoln. Meanwhile, the Republicans had Teddy Roosevelt who was one of the most Progressive Presidents ever. The USA still has one of the highest standards of living in the world. In spite of the fact that the population has tripled since WW2, the GDP per capita has tripled since 1960. We have done a lot better than the "worker's paradises" which couldn't even feed their people.

We should be worried about where the parties now stand.