Yep, the Republican Party seems to have bit the dust.
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Judging by its behavior today, you would never guess that the Republican Party (or GOP) was founded by anti-slavery activists in Wisconsin in 1854. Just six years later, having already outstripped the Whigs as the chief opposition to the Democrats, the Republicans skyrocketed to power as Abraham Lincoln became the first of its party leaders to ascend to the Presidency of the United States of America.
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Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States.
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1860 Presidential Election.
Blue = Republican (Abraham Lincoln)
Red = Northern Democratic (Stephen Douglas)
Yellow = Constitutional-Union (John Bell)
Green = Southern Democratic (John Breckenridge)
(map courtesy of uselectionatlas.org)
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Abraham Lincoln was sworn in on March 4th, 1861, having captured the majority of the delegate-rich Northern states whilst the Northern Democratic, Southern Democratic, and Constitutional-Union Party candidates were left to split the Democratic strongholds elsewhere. Lincoln's election caused South Carolina and other states in the South to secede immediately from the Union, an act then-President James Buchanan cited as illegal but was unwilling to go to war over.
In all, 11 states would leave the union to form the Confederacy: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. A huge northwestern segment of Virginia subsuquently broke off as a separate state - West Virginia - and joined the union on June 20, 1863.
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The United States during the Civil War, 1863. The term "Border State" refered to a state that was part of the Union, but which hadn't outlawed slavery yet.
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In early 1862, Abraham Lincoln made his first Emancipation Proclamation, essentially abolishing slavery in huge swaths of the United States. By 1865, following the surrender of the Confederacy and the reunion of the Southern and Northern states, the U.S. Congress ratified the thirteenth amendment, which completely banned slavery in all corners of the United States.
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Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States.
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Although the Republicans were often seen as the Party of "big business" even in their early days, three Republican Presdients in a row - William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft - were instrumental in breaking up monopolies and trusts. In fact, Roosevelt earned the nickname "Trust-Regulator" for his watershed efforts in this area.
In many ways, Theodore Roosevelt was a fore-runner to the modern Progressive movement. He sought ways to help boost the middle class by regulating prices on train tickets, food, and drugs. He was passionate about conserving the environment. And he is the first President to call for universal health care. Interestingly, Roosevelt split with the Republicans and ran for President on the "maiden voyage" of the Progressive Party in 1912, carrying the states of Pennsylvania, California, South Dakota, Minnesota, Washington, and Michigan in a losing effort against Democrat Woodrow Wilson.
As a side note, Theodore Roosevelt was the first American to win any Nobel Prize, winning the Peace Prize in 1906 for helping to secure peace in the Russo-Japanese War.
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Warren Harding, 29th President of the United States.
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Under President Warren Harding, the Republicans suffered one of their worst setbacks to date during the Teapot Dome Scandal of 1921-1923. During the affair, Secretary of State Albert Fall was involved with the doling out of no-bid contracts to Harry Sinclair and Edward Doheny concerning oil fields in Wyoming and California. Fall was eventually found guilty of accepting bribes from Doheny and sentenced to one year in prison.
Hmmm.... no-bid contracts regarding oil fields... sound familiar?
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Herbert Hoover, 31st President of the United States.
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Actually, I don't think Hoover was as bad as a lot of people do, but Hoover's main problems regarding the Great Depression seem to be lacking a clear plan, being somewhat inconsistent, and doing too little, too late. At least a few of Hoover's ideas, however, were adopted by the Roosevelt Administration.
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Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States.
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Having been Commander of Allied Forces in WWII, Dwight D. Eisenhower is the only 5-star General of the U.S. military ever to serve as President. He is generally regarded as a good President. However, in my view, his legacy is somewhat mixed.
On the plus side, Eisenhower helped create our national highway system - though he justified it as necessary to evacuate the major urban areas in the case they were targeted by the Russians during a war. Eisenhower continued the New Deal programs of Franklin Roosevelt's era and was a champion of civil rights, siding with the Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs. the Board of Education (1954). Additionally, President Eisenhower signed into law the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960.
My favorite aspect of Eisenhower though, is his recognition of the growing power of the commingling of military and business affairs. In his famous outgoing speech, delivered on January 17th, 1961, Eisenhower warned against the influence of the so-called "military-industrial complex." Here is a clip of his speech.
One of the aspects of Eisenhower's Presidency that a person might find objectionable was his placement of the words "under God" in our Pledge of Allegiance. Also, it was Eisenhower who put "In God We Trust" on our paper currency.
Another item of Eisenhower's Presidency I take issue with is the fact that he never condemned Joe McCarthy for his outrageous antics of the early 1950's. Furthermore, as President, Eisenhower intensified the Cold War and was a proponent of military interventionism.
Even though Eisenhower won landslide elections in 1952 and 1956, he still had a tough time cracking the Democratic dominance in the Deep South.
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1956 Election Results. Eisenhower picked up several Southern states, but failed to carry the "Deep South.".
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Barry Goldwater was the first major Republican candidate to utilize the so-called "Southern Strategy," by first opposing the 1964 Civil Rights Act and then by using the term "states' rights" in his rhetoric. The term "states' rights" was essentially code language that was designed to appeal to white Southerners who felt that the federal government had overstepped its bounds in forcing the states to desegregate and to extend civil rights and voting rights to African Americans.
In a frank 1981 interview with Bob Herbert of the New York Times, Lee Atwater (adviser to Presidents Reagan and Bush 41) outlined the Southern Strategy in a nutshell:
You start out in 1954 by saying, "N****r, n****r, n****r." By 1968 you can't say "n****r"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.
Ironically, the Republicans finally won the Deep South in the 1964 election and lost every other state except Arizona.
1964 Election Results.
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Which brings us to the next Republican president...
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Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States.
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I think most everyone here already has formed his or her own viewpoints on Nixon, at least in many respects.
Let's go over some of the depths of the Nixon "legacy":
1. Initially escalated the Vietnam War via secret bombing raids.
2. Said outrageously horrible things about Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, and Gays.
3. Was the first Republican candidate to whine and cry "stolen election" when he lost fair and square to John F. Kennedy in 1960.
4. Watergate, Watergate, Watergate.
5. Lots of other bad things.
In 1972, Richard Nixon became the first Republican since Ulysses S. Grant to carry the majority of the South. In fact, it marked the first time that any Republican got more than 70% in any U.S. state south of the Mason-Dixon line.
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Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States.
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It was a new era of Teh Stoopid in American politics from 1981-1989. During his two terms as President, Ronald Reagan:
1. Said that trees cause air pollution.
2. Said that homeless people choose to be homeless.
3. Said that AIDS was God's punishment against homosexuals.
(Reagan is QUOTED as saying, "maybe the Lord brought down the plague [because] illicit sex is against the Ten Commandments." Read his biography entitled "Dutch" - page 458 - and you will see this is true).
4. Actually used his first campaign stop in the South during the 1980 Presidential race to use the dreaded code words "states' rights" at the prominent site of the 1964 murder of three civil rights workers. (Philadelphia, Mississippi).
5. Tried to put prayer in public school.
6. Let his wife Nancy schedule his meetings according to her astrologist.
7. Sold arms for hostages (Iran).
8. Gave assistance to nun rapists and murderers in Nicaragua known as the Contras.
9. Actually said the following when he was running for President: "Because Vietnam was not a declared war, the veterans are not even eligible for the G.I. Bill of Rights with respect to education or anything." (April, 1980)
10. Admitted to the Tower Comission in early 1987 that he had approved the sale of arms to Iran - only to later retract his statement.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Throughout the 1980's and afterwards, the Southern Strategy included religious aspects as well. The Republicans used the social issues of abortion and gay rights to bolster their suppport in the culturally conservative areas of the South and the Midwest. Conservatives funded the building of thousands of new churches, some of them so-called "megachurches," where members could be inundated with the conservative social agenda.
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George H.W. Bush, 41st President of the United States.
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After Reagan, we had George H.W. Bush, who was also deeply involved in the Iran-Contra Affair and should have been impeached, as should have Reagan. I will never understand how these two ass-clowns stayed in office.
Bush ran on a platform of "no new taxes," but then signed the largest tax increase in American history after becoming President. Bush also, arguably, perpetuated the Southern Strategy with his usage of the Willie Horton ads and also by painting Dukakis as a Yankee "librul" who would raise taxes and government spending. Furthermore, Bush used religion divisively when he stated, "I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Bush Sr. was an abject failure at running the economy and was even worse at explaining his policies to the American people. He was voted out of office in the landslide of 1992.
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George W. Bush, the 43rd "President" of the United States.
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If Reagan and Bush were bad, the next Republican President, George W. Bush made both of them look scrupulous, intelligent, and effectve by comparison. There isn't much to say that hasn't already been said about the man. Suffice it to say that Bush's deceit and total incompetence caused hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans to run screaming from the Republican Party. Although I despise "Dumbya" with every fiber of my soul, he might well be the greatest gift the Democrats ever had in terms of building the party. And this gift was delivered just as the fastest growing demographic in the country - the greater Hispanic community - was starting to gain significant power as a voting group.
But the single biggest reason now for the Republicans' demise isn't necessarily their own doing, in my view. The biggest threat to the GOP is none other than our new President. Barack Obama.
The GOP must have known they never wanted to run against this man when they saw him speak at the 2004 Democratic Convention.
When I watched this speech, I knew I wanted this man to be my President. And so when it came to pass that Barack Obama announced his candidacy for the 2008 Democratic nomination, I was thrilled. The Republicans did everything they could to prevent Obama from getting the nomination, and nothing worked. From Operation Chaos, to phony allegations of running around with terrorists, to aspersions about Obama's faith, Obama triumphed over all of it.
Another reason the Republicans are in decline and the Democrats are thriving is due to simple demographics. The Republicans, in my view, made a huge miscalculation with their nasty, vitriolic denunciation of immigration reform during the 2008 primary season. Our country is becoming more diverse every day, and that diversity is accelerating, with the fastest growing segment of voters being the Hispanic community.
For instance, here is what the electorate looked like on election day, 1992:
83% White, non-Hispanic
10% Black
5% Hispanic/Latino
1% Asian
1% Other
And here is what the electorate looked like on election day, 2008:
74% White, non-Hispanic
13% Black
9% Hispanic/Latino
5% Asian/Other
In reality, our country is over 15% Hispanic/Latino, but many in that group haven't yet achieved citizenship. One of the interesting aspects of the 2008 election is how swiftly the Latino community swung to the Democrats. In 2004, Bush carried over 40% of the Latino vote. In 2008, McCain carried just over 30%, while Obama garnered a crushing 67% of the Latino vote. Moreover, Obama won the 18-29 year-old Latinos by a 76 to 19% margin, a clear indication that the newly registered Latino voters - the fastest growing segment of the electorate - are swinging heavily to the Democrats.
In an article published in the USA Today on November 6th, 2008, Simon Rosenberg, head of the New Democrat Network - a Democratic group that studies Hispanic voting trends - explains.
"If the Republicans don't make their peace with Hispanic voters, they're not going to win presidential elections anymore. The math just isn't there."
http://www.usatoday.com/...
Rosenberg goes on to say in a different article posted on the Huffington Post that the demographic transformation that the nation is currently undergoing may render the GOP's Southern Strategy useless.
...the arrival of a "new politics" of the 21st century - driven to a great degree by the new demographic realities of America ...has thankfully rendered the Southern Strategy and all its tools a relic of the 20th century. As Tom Schaller has noted, today the Democrats control both Houses of Congress without having a majority of southern Congressional seats, something never before achieved by the party of Jefferson, Jackson and Lyndon Johnson.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
The political reality of the current situation in America is that the Republicans have chosen to alienate the demographic groups which are growing the fastest. The African American, Asian, and Latino communities are growing faster than the white community. By 2012, the electorate could look like this:
70% White, non-Hispanic
13% African American
11% Hispanic/Latino
3% Asian
3% Other
If significant immigration reform takes place over the next few years, the electoral shift could be even more pronounced because millions of Latinos could gain citizenship and voting rights for the first time. If that is the case, the electorate could look like this:
65% White, non-Hispanic
13% African American
15% Hispanic/Latino
4% Asian
3% Other
I predict that Obama will carry 2012 in a landslide and continue to do a fine job as President, making it likely that a Democrat will be well-positioned to take 2016 as well.
Here is my prediction map for 2012:
Dark Blue - Obama by 15+ points
Blue - Obama by 10 points
Light Blue - Obama by 5 points
White - Tossup
Pink - GOP by 5-15 points
Red - Strong GOP
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Following is another prediction map for 2012, showing roughly the new allocation of electoral votes, based on population shifts.
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Dark Blue - Obama strong
Blue - Obama solid
Light Blue - Obama lean
Aqua - Obama barely
White - Tossup
Pink - GOP lean
Red - GOP solid/strong
This leaves us with a score of Obama 404, GOP 73, tossup 61. This, of course, is predicated on the notion that Obama will do a good job and will be able to hang onto the coalition he built in 2008.
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So far, I must say that Obama has actually outstripped my expectations in terms of job performance. It seems obvious that a lot of Americans share my views. According to the Gallup polls from the 100 day mark, Obama is extremely well-appreciated across a very broad spectrum.
Obama has a positive approval rating among Mormons? What what what?!?! And he has a +29 rating in THE SOUTH? Holy shit!
Btw, here is the methodology for the Gallup poll.
Results are based on telephone interviews with 99,494 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Jan. 21-April 29, 2009, as part of Gallup Poll Daily tracking. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±0.5 percentage points.
At a minimum, I think Obama will win all the states he won in 2008 and pick up Missouri, Arizona, and Georgia. He could also pick up Montana, but I think it depends on how vigorously he contests the state. Other possible pickups would be Texas, West Virginia, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Arkansas. In a total landslide, Obama could also gain Nebraska, Kansas, Tennessee, and possibly even Louisiana and Mississippi. I believe that the only safe states for the GOP in 2012 are Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Oklahoma, and Alabama.
One salient aspect that has played out rather interestingly this year is the delusional aspect of the Republican base. You see, a big chunk of Republicans actually believe all of the garbage that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, et al, have been spewing for years. Therefore, now that the Republican leadership realizes it needs to moderate its messages to remain competitive, the kool-aid drinking bunch doesn't understand or isn't willing to go along.
The following video clip, I think, accurately reflects the state of mind of the thinking of the Republican base and why the GOP is dying out. I guess the leaders of the Republican Party are just going to try and out-nutjob each other for the next four years.
This was the video clip shown in the hilarious diary from a few months ago entitled, "Hot Loon on Loon Action." The Conservative establishment wants to keep looking backwards whilst the rest of the nation moves forward. In fact, the Republicans aren't even winning the gay marriage question anymore as a plurality of Americans seem to support the concept of gay marriage.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/...
There are two more clips that I want to show - both from the BBC from election night. In the first clip, Chris Hitchens delivers an unrivaled smackdown of the Republican Party and of the McCain/Palin campaign. His repudiation of McCain's choice of Sarah Palin in the middle of the clip is truly priceless. It comes at 6:12.
The second clip is of the unbridled conservative dipshit John Bolton getting his ass handed to him in a debate about the political orientation of the United States, also courtesy of the BBC.
And for my final clip, I could have shown any one of a number of Republican ramblings. I could have shown Michelle Bachmann's obscene speech implying that Obama wants to turn the U.S. into a police state. Or how about Virginia Foxx saying that Matthew Shephard's murder was a hoax. Or even this extended clip where Olympia Snowe describes to Andrea Mitchell why the Republicans got crushed in the 2006 and 2008 elections. But I prefer this clip, because I don't think many people here have seen it. Just have a look at how completely delusional the people are at the McCain campaign's waning moments. This is truly priceless stuff.
So, in the final analysis, I believe that the Republican Party as we know it is done for. An Endangered Species, one might say, moving inexorably toward Extinction. The Republicans made their bed when they decided upon using the Southern Strategy. And now that even the South is undergoing significant cultural and demographic changes, this simply will not do. The Republican base will continue to care most about what gays do behind closed doors, and about what abortion doctors do in their clinics, and about outdated economic philosophies that have been proven not to work. All the Republicans have left are divisive tactics which alienate huge sections of America. And that will simply not do.
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Lovely. :)