When did the Republicans go wrong?

[Cloud]

I am reading the mini biography of every president on whitehouse.gov. Right now I am up to Taft. So far the best president is Lincoln and the worst is Buchanan.

What I am wondering is when did the republicans change? Teddy Roosevelt was a republican that busted big railroad business in anti-trust cases. He also preserved many acres of forest in the west. A pro-labor, pro-enviornment republican? How about that?

He left to join the more progressive Bull Moose party and drove conservatives nuts when he was in power.

I say if this was 1903 instead of 2003 I would register as a republican for sure.

When did the republicans change? With Nixon?

[DeathvadeR]

1. Roosevelt , the last real rebulican.

[Parche]

2. History

I think they changed with Hoover
he was the worst until.......GW Bush


The best were....Washington, Madison,Jefferson,Lincoln,FDR,Kennedy,Clinton

The worst.......Hoover,Nixon,Harding

And the worst of all GW BUSH

[Cloud]

7. I agree with those choices

Yep, the republicans switched about 1920. Such a shame too. I wonder what made them switch? Wilson's League of Nations?

[SaveElmer]

3. Started with Coolidge and Hoover

Their inability to deal with the fiscal crisis opening the door for FDR. Solidified in 1960's starting with Nixon's refusal to take the civil rights movement seriously. When Nixon refused to call for MLK to be released from jail. RFK and JFK made that happen. I once saw a quote from Jackie Robinson saying that was when he changed from being a lifelong Republican to a Democrat.

[Fovea]

4. Nixon was part of a movement

that brought us Bush Sr., Goldwater, and the Dullas bros.
It was anti-communist. Just like the occupation of the burglers at the Watergate, just like Reagan's hordes of black ops boys.

The movement is no longer actually anti communist, now it is anti terrorist, anti free market, anti social justice, and very Orwellian.

Now as before, the underlying raison d'etre is resource hegemony.
I theorize that within a year or two, the US will reach complete price parity with Europe, based on the unfunded mandates of the Bush administration, and the change of the monetary standard of the oil biz to the Euro.

[EV1Ltimm]

5. if i remember correctly...

Roosevelt did his two terms and then taft took over. taft went astray from roosevelt's political ideals and roosevelt realized that he errored in supporting taft's candidacy. So, he ran as a republican against taft, but the guys running the party at the time denied roosevelt the candidacy at the convention and gave it to taft. the dems already had their guy, so he ran under his own flag, the bull moose.

so, in a sense, you can start to see the republicans political power plays starting as early as 1912... but i could be wrong.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. Started with the Gilded Age

when the Republicans were lobbying for what was then Big Business, ie railroads, steel, etc, that basically took over this country after the Civil War. Had Lincoln lived, the GOP would have been a more moderate party, but even Honest Abe would have had problems with the Radical Republicans. They realized their power by trying to impeach Andrew Johnson. Though they didn't succeed, they had a taste for power, and the corrupt capitalists at the time helped feed that taste with inside deals and shady practices. TR was an exception to the rule-one reason he bolted to the Progressives in 1912 was because Taft went back to 'business as usual' when he became President.

[OhioStateProgressive]

8. well

the study of Political Parties is quite interesting

The Current Republican Party, is in large part the remnants of the OLD Democratic Party, which became known as the "Dixie Crat"...the Democratic Party had a redefinition around this time as well, and Franklin Roosevelt ushered in the day of 'modern" Democrats

The original republican party(circa Lincoln), was a purely Northern based Party, at one time called the "freesoil" party, it was a movement of political change, it was the party of "reform" at that time, all abolitionist groups were Republican aligned

it is worth noting that although the GOP likes to claim it's heritage inside of this party, most of the people in the original Republican Party would now be considered "swing" voters

[JailBush]

9. Roosevelt was an as*hole.

When I was younger, he was one of my heroes, because he had such a gusto for life and was a great conservationist. But don't forget his gunboat diplomacy. Roosevelt was an international bully extraordinaire.

Also, I thought he was anti-labor? He may have done some good things, but didn't he also sick federal troops on striking workers?

[loudnclear]

10. They went wrong in the fifties when their racism took over common sense

Some were "Dixicrats" and were identified as Dems. Before the Civil Rights campaign most of them just shrugged off racism but MLK forced many people to come to grips with their own racism and since JKF was "perceived" to be championing the Civil Rights cause they began to take a firm stand...a lot of Dems switched parties but some dixicrats stayed behind until they couldn't stand it any more.

[jeter]

11. It changed with Roosevelt...

TR was an exception, not the rule in those days. Remember that Roosevelt took over for the slain William McKinnley. McKinnley was pretty much your run of the mill Republican. He supported wars: was responsible for the Spanish-American War (1898), and was the one who annexed Hawaii and other Pacific Islands. He was often accused of being an imperialist.

McKinnley also was supported by and himself supported big buisness. These were the days of the Rubber Barons. He gave them the freedom to do as they wanted.

Roosevelt's rise to power is actually kind of funny. It was a total mistake. Roosevelt had been an old-school Republican. A Lincoln Republican. He believed in helping the people and being just. He was also tough. He became a hero after the Spanish-American War in 1898, when he led the "RoughRiders" up San Jaun Hill in Cuba. He had served as an Assemblyman in NY. A Police Commissioner in NYC. Assistant Secretary to the Navy in DC. So the Republicans asked him to run for Governor of New York in 1898. He did, and won. NY had a powerful Senator named Platt. Senator Platt (R-NY) believed that he was in charge of NY state and all of the patronage appointments. But Roosevelt quickly fell out of favor by introducing liberal Labor Laws and by imposing some regulations on buisness.

Platt decided that he needed to get rid of Roosevelt. So, using all his connections, he made sure that Roosevelt was the 1900 nominee for Vice President. Every single delegate at the convention voted for TR for VP except one - TR himself. Platt had said, "barring a disaster. We'll never hear from that man again."

Less than one year after becoming Vice President. McKinnley was assassinated in Buffalo, New York. TR became President.

But he often fought with the Republican Party. And in 1912, he challenged President William Howard Taft, the true blue Republican (and Roosevelt's successor) for the nomination. TR won every primary election. But Taft still won the nomination securing all the back room votes. That was when Roosevelt bolted the Republican Party and joined the Bull Moose Party (progressive).

It should also be noted that all the Roosevelt heirs would become Democrats.

So to answer your question. I think the GOP became the way they are today with William McKinnley. Before McKinnley the GOP were pretty decent. They believed in abolishing slavery, labor rights, etc. I am positive that we all would be Republicans if we lived in the middle 19th Century.

But the Civil War changed a lot. The north became far and away the most powerful region of the union. The Republican Party was the party of the North. They (GOP) went from being a minority party to being a majority party. Under President Grant the GOP began its relationship with big buisness. During reconstruction, the GOP President would give away millions in contracts. There were still some Republicans who were liberal. Roosevelt was one of them.

McKinnley, more than anyone, was the one who crystalized the GOP's relationship with big buisness. After him, with the exception of TR, there would be:

(The Republican Four)

-William Howard Taft, (1909-1913).
-Warren Harding, (1921-1923*).
-Calvin Coolage, (1923-1929).
-Herbert Hoover, (1929-1933).
*-died in office.

These four were pretty much as Republican as they come. Calvin Coolage was the first Republican to offer tax cuts to big buisness. Leaving Hoover with the Depression.

The GOP would be shut out of office for the next twenty years. These were the New Deal Years. But first Eisenhower would be elected and then the GOP would be back with a vengence with Nixon, Ford, Reagan and the Bushes.

[FunBobbyMucha]

12. Reagan changed the tenor of the national debate

into "An Idiot's Guide to Marshall McLuhan." Photo ops, misinterpreting and yet appropriating Springsteen lyrics, bold face lies told with a winning smile, and style always clearing substance by a good foot and a half.

[starroute]

13. Most of it had to do with irrational hatred of Roosevelt

When Roosevelt was elected in 1932, he was supported by a lot of moderate Republicans, small businessmen, holdovers from the old Progressive Movement, etc. But at that point, Roosevelt's own program was pretty moderate -- he still had hopes of fixing the Depression by tinkering cautiously with things like monetary policy.

It was only when Roosevelt's original attempts didn't work and he moved further to the left in a search for solutions that he lost these moderate conservatives. They started to worry that he was leading America into socialism, and when the Supreme Court struck down his National Recovery Administration and Roosevelt tried to "pack" it with additional justices, they worried that he might be leading America into totalitarianism as well.

Between about 1935 and 1940, there was a fundamental political realignment in this country. I don't know all the details, but the general shape of it is clear. The left became far more populist and identified itself firmly with the New Deal and with anti-fascism. The right became stridently anti-Roosevelt and anti-communist, and what had been the moderate right increasingly tended to coalesce with the more extreme, fascist right.

This new extreme right wing was powerful enough to incite the wave of McCarthyism that broke out in the late 40's and early 50's (which was very much an anti-FDR reaction), but it didn't immediately come to dominate the Republican Party. Eisenhower was not a right-winger (although his selection of Nixon as vice president may have been a sop to them) and the Rockerfeller Republicans of the northeast were still moderates and still influential.

It was only in the 1960's, when the Dixiecrats moved over from the Democratic Party to the Republicans, that the balance decisively shifted. Nixon ran and won on a Southern strategy, and the rest is history. What had been the moderate wing of the Republican Party was left to wither on the vine, and the old, old agenda of fanatical opposition to all aspects of FDR's domestic and foreign policies has been unleashed without restraint.