At what point did the GOP become set as the right wing conservative party?

Was it ever thus? Lincoln doesn't seem to belong in the same party as Shrub, so was there a swing to the right at some point? Someone help this know-nothing Canuck.

The late 19th century.

The two big lurches in dragging the GOP to the far, far right.

They used to be just plain old conservatives, but now they are dangerous radicals.

--Peter

Teddy Roosevelt ran as a 'Bull Moose' in 1912 because he thought the Republicans had become too conservative.

Even up til 1980, however, there were pretty moderate Republicans. Nixon proposed Universal Health Care.

Democrats had the Southern racists back then too. The South voted Democratic as a block up until Reagan convinced the racists that they should become conservative Republicans back in 1980.

Nixon discovered that people could be made to vote against their own economic self-interests by co-opting the leaders of organized religion. This was a by product of his Souther Strategy.

Richard Nixon is the father of the modern Republican Party.

Prescott Bush is the father of the modern "Republican" Party (which might as well be called the American Nazi Party.)

It was Grandpa Bush who picked Tricky Dick to be Eisenhower's running mate after his success at helping Nazi war criminals immigrate to the US , where they also became GOP operatives.

Nixon was BCE from the beginning, and it all went downhill from there.

.

the Repub Party has morphed into this hateful, vicious thing it has become. At the end of his life, he was driving the repukes here in AZ crazy because he actually said that Clinton should be given a chance, he endorsed a Dem over a repuke for Congress, and was a strong advocate for allowing gays in the military.

be represented by Nelson Rockefeller and that more moderate stance.

It seems to me that the more rabid POV that the Goldwater camp had set the tone that led us to where we are today.

"Who gives a damn if they're straight, as long as they can SHOOT straight!!"

I remember the Freeper types I was talking with on an old BBS at the time saying that Goldwater had "become a liberal".

They didn't comprehend the reality that Goldwater was just as conservative as he was in 1964, and that the Reagan-Bush-Gingrich-DeLay wing of the party had gone so far to the extreme right that it made Barry look liberal :scared:

I was in AZ right up until he died, and he held quite a few news conferences and wrote many articles. While I never thought that I would agree with Goldwater, I found out that Barry, although a little wierd in the 50's & 60's, certainly made some sense on the 90's.

:kick:

Ronald Reagan made a famous speech at the Republican convention the year Goldwater lost by a landslide. The GOP took the principles in that speech and ran with them. Nixon, for all his faults, was not a particularly conservative president.

Read BEFORE THE STORM about the Goldwater campaign, the subtitle is THE UNDOING OF THE LIBERAL CONSENSUS which is another way of saying the rise of the conservative movement.

while in Canada we may still have them, or at least did until the rise of the PQ and the Mulroney years, so to suggest a breakdown of Consensus Politics in the 60's does make sense, particularly in the light of the Eisenhower administration, which seems to me (no expert) to have been fairly moderate.

George Wallace actually found the right spark of hatred and jus' folks dishonesty that keeps regular Murikans in the right wing camp. Although I doubt he was ever a republican (more of a dixiecrat or independent), he's really the father of modern "conservatism" in this country. There's a very interesting book called The Politics of Rage that sets it out.

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you can make a poll asking that question.

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set at the Communist party? What does that mean?

When floridating the water supply became revealed as a communist plot?

Strom Thurmond used to belong to the racist Democratic party. That's right. The Democrats used to be the party of racists.

When Civil Rights started becoming an issue, the split wasn't between Democrats and Republicans. The split was between North and South.

SOOOOOOOOOOOO....what happened was that the racists Democrats like Strom Thurmond started up the Dixiecrat party. There, they could pull their "seperate but equal" BS.

You know who Howard Dean is? He is part of a dying breed that once was a part of the Republican party. He is what you would call "A Rockerfeller Republican". Gov. Rockerfeller of New York wasn't a racist -- he made inroads with the Puerto Rican community there and actually spoke Spanish himself. However, there was also the other fringe element of the party. This is the group of the Arizona Senator, Sen. Barry Goldwater.

Basically, the racists from the Democratic party had nowhere to go. So this racist radical, Goldwater, provided a hope for those racists in 1964. It became official at the nomination in San Francisco where these newfound immigrants to the party hijacked the convention and that's when the American public realized it. By then, racists were POURING into the Republican party.

Sooooo....after that landslide of an election, Lyndon B. Johnson became president and civil rights became a reality. However, due to the Vietnam war, Johnson pulled out of the Democratic primary. Who then came in? The anti-semitic Richard Nixon who played his wedge issue racial polarizing politics in 1968 that renewed a newfound hope for racists everywhere.

Conservatives were always against civil rights. Liberals have always been for social justice. Now that minorities are going into the Republican party, that is become less true. However, I am sure there are a lot of holdovers from the past.

So, that's some history for you there. Need anymore?

I guess basically the Republican party just started becoming conservative in 1964. There was a black Republican from Massachusettes during the 60s and 70s I believe, but he always voted Democratic anyway.

Now, there is NO doubt that the Republican party is STILL conservative. The question is, "Are they still racists?" That is a hard question to answer.

You have the dubious honor of being the very first person I have ever encountered who claimed Barry Goldwater was a "racist radical."

He wasn't.

You really ought to write for FAUX.

.. not to make any waves, just some comparison:

at what point did the Democratic Party become the Liberal Party? I remember the brief tenure of JFK where he was a fiscal Con , and a social Lib/Mod. So was it pre or post JFK when our Democratic Party shifted ?

that we'd made the transition yet to liberalism.

Pushed to judge the current Democrat Party, I'd say it was fairly moderate. While I tend to take more liberal stances, I've always known that I was in the minority and thought the best solution was a reasonable compromise, which is WHY I support democrats.

If Dems were as liberal as they are portrayed by freepers and fundies, Kucinich would be leading the pack, with the wholehearted support of the DLC.

.. doing some leaning there. Examples:

the press has refered to these Senators as:

Sen. Harkin "a liberal intellectual"
Sen. Barbara Boxer "a reliably outspoken liberal"
Sen. Paul Simon "a respected Midwestern liberal"
Sen. Kennedy is "a liberal icon" and "liberal abortion rights stalwart"
"Sen. Kennedy is a hero to liberals and a major irritant to conservatives, plus an old-style liberal appeal to conscience"
Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg "politics are liberal to moderate."
Sen. Paul Sarbanes "one of the more liberal senators"
Carol Moseley-Braun "liberal at heart, she is more pragmatic than ideological."
Fmr. Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota "was one of the few unabashed liberals left on Capitol Hill and an ebullient liberal".

Fmr. President's Carter & Clinton
Senators Clinton & Schumer
Sen. Pat Leahy? Sen. Patty Murray?

Dean's NOT Liberal? please !
Kerry ? Lieberman ? Kucinich ?

This is just scratching the surface.

but if you think that Carter, Clinton or Lieberman, to name a few are really liberals, then you aren't paying any attention at all. Democrats, yes, but that's like calling Olympia Snow a conservative. If your going to make arguments, at least try to make persuasive ones.

... and Universal Health Care wasn't a Liberal idea by Bill & Hillary in '92?

And tried to follow through on what he said he'd do. Unlike some other candidates I can name.

Bill Clinton was a centrist. Sometimes he did liberal things, sometimes he did conservative things. Pointing out one solitary example of one liberal thing he did is a weak argument. Welfare reform. There I just named a conservative effort.

Just WHAT is wrong with universal health care?

Under the Clinton plan, anyone coulod have opted for private coverage if they wished!

That is absurd, and i do believe your FR shorts are showing.

:grr:

.. just being a small devil's advocate }( here. Although I wasn't too keen on some of the 'hows' it was to get done. And, many in the Healthcare field felt the same. Anyhow, it's a moot point.. it didn't happen. FR ? puhhleeeze

especially when they are on the ropes.

If it was a moot point when I responded, why did you bring it up in the first place?

Just asking, I'm not the type that would blast someone out of the water for asking questions, but some are highly suspect.

:evilgrin:

is when WILL the Democratic Party become a liberal party. The right wingers have done such a good job of co-opting the term that even Dems are starting to think NAFTA was liberal.

Why do you think we've all had to convert to the term "progressive?"

I just looked this up in the DNC handbook:

Progressive = Liberal ... but don't tell anyone :O lol

progressive is to liberal as:

a) conservative is to fundamentalist
b) conservative is to racist
c) conservative is to corporatist
d) conservative is to fascist

Don't get me wrong, I love the new brand name:

Progressive -- not just for liberals anymore

I think I would consider FDR somewhat Progressive.

Not bad either, guided the country out of the Depression, and got us through WWII. An awful lot went into the infrastructure, and I doo believe tha whole world is better off because of the friendship he and Churchill had.

:kick:

I think this has happened gradually over the last 100 years. Teddy Roosevelt was probably the last real middle Republican President. Since then, the left has gone Democratic. Then there was the Democratic New Deal, pushed the right into the Republican Party. The Republican party was pretty well set as the "right" to the Democratic "left". Since then, the center has shifted at various points, but the right/left break has been this way.

Goldwater started the real ultra-conservative movement, but though most of us would have disagreed with Goldwater's policies, I don't think we'd have hated him. The Republican party has been taken over by the religious right since the late 80s especially. The Christian Coalition and others made a real push to get into positions of power and influence in the Republican Party, and perhaps more importantly, started a propaganda campaign in their churches. A large segment of previous non-voters started voting in droves, and they voted Republican. Even moderate Republicans couldn't ignore that voting block. And that block has moved the party farther and farther right since then. Traditional Republicans have not yet become disenfranchised enough with the religious rhetoric to vote for another party and/or the Democrats haven't been able to give them a reason to vote Democratic. So the result is a right wing party in power even though they don't really have the numbers to back up that power.

On the bright side, I think we are starting to see a centrist reaction agains the hijacking of the Republican party. Hopefully the election next year will validate that.

that it was during JFK's term, when the Dems decided to become the party of desegregation.

After that, the Southern racists, previously Dems, went GOP and have been steadily making gains in the party since then. Red state/blue state is arguably just an extension of the North-South Civil War divide, and the red state hatred of "big government" and "regulations" is an outgrowth of repressed Civil War fixations.

or, you might just say those guys are all just gigantic raging a$$holes, including Rick Newhart or whatever his name is.

The republicans were opposed to the New Deal reforms particularly
Social Security. And have always opposed increases in the minimum wage.

their predecessor, the Federalist Party.

but the short version of US Rep/Dem is still a little lenghty.

Lincoln was the first person to be elected as a Republican. The Republican party of the time, was an upstart branch of the defunct Whig party and was quite progressive for its time. Part of the platform was the abolition of slavery, but not to the extent that many would believe. The Republican party of the time, believed that Federal Government was best and easiest way to face the problems that were facing the nation, especially in the growing West. Hence, the compromise on the Kansas/Nebraska Act. Republicans believed that the Federal Government should rise above the State governments and be encompassing of the country as a whole.

Most Democrats were supportive of States Rights. This, of course, involved slavery in the South. But it went deeper than that. The states at the time had vast powerbases that they were not ready to give up.

With the advent of the Civil War, the Republicans were the progressive party. After the war, until the end of the Grant administration, it was still pretty progressive, but there was much internal conflict, and the external conflict was getting a little hotter. (Johnson, who took over after the Lincoln assassination, was a Democrat, but he did try to live up to Lincoln's vision of Reconstruction/Reconcilliation, but failed miserably).

Things remained pretty even, with spurts of conservatism and progression at certain times. Then came Teddy Roosevlet.

TR was the last progressive Republican, and business despised him with a passion. Trust busting and the environment became TR signature projects. TR also brought many social programs into play, and worked tirelessly on infrastructure. This, brought about a deep swing to the right when TR had left the WH.

After that, the Republicans were basically 'laizze faire', and many of TR's reforms were quietly rescinded. Horace Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover finished out the situation till the depression. None of them did anything of signifigance, although Hoover, who was the brightest of the bunch, did try to halt the downfall of the economy, but with nothing of substance being done, the results were obvious.

Eisenhower, was 'laizze faire', for the most part, but he produced some remakably progressive traits, to include public funding of the Interstate system.

The real conservatism began with Nixon, although, Nixon did have some progressive views in such areas Civil Rights, public access and a few other areas.

Then comes Reagan....this is where the RW really started taking off. And the neo-con ideology was put in place. From here, it is easy to see where the RW has gone.

In the near future, I see the pendulum returning to the Left. Not all the way to what many would consider radical, but to the point where there is a balance. The RW ideology is pretty well played at this point, and there is remarkably little to show for it, except the systematic destruction of American ideology as a whole. I feel that American in general are pretty well sick of this, and there will be a groundswell of opposition in the next election.

That's it, in a nutshell. There are a zillion points and tangents that could be brought up, but basically, that's it.

:bounce:

n/t

The Republican Party was easily the more liberal of the
two parties from its inception in the mid-1850's until
the Bullmoose split of 1912. The Pubbies were always the party
of big business although that's largely because they represented
the industrial North as opposed to the agararian South.

There were Progressive movements in both parties in the late 19th
and early 20th Centuries but when the Progressive Teddy Roosevelt
became disillusioned with the conservative Taft in 1912 and tried to
wrest the parties nomination from him the party stayed with the incumbent. TR bolted the party to form the (I think it was called
American Progressive party but everyone called it) Bullmoose party.
He swamped Taft in the election but the party split caused the election
of Woodrow Wilson. The consevatives blamed the Progressives for the loss
of the WH and the Progressives began a long migration to the Democrats.

.. what a history lesson. Bouyah !

The day Lincoln died. Ever since then, the Republican Party has, for the most part, been the defenders and promoters of the rich and powerful.

There are a few exceptions, of course. I excuse Grant, because he was used as a pawn by his corrupt puppetmasters. Teddy Roosevelt was hated by the GOP rank-and-file. And Eisenhower was not one of the GOP "regulars," either.

But with the exception of differences in social issues, there has been a common thread since Reconstruction: screwing over the poor...overturning presidential elections...having a popular figurehead as a president while corrupt rats run free in the White House...

On the single, yet critical issue of slavery and reconstruction after the Civil War, the Republicans were truly progressive while the Democratic Party, although a party of populists, farmers and anti-corporate rhetoric, was mired in the institution of slavery and racism.

Thaddeus Stevens and the "Radicals" within the Republican Party deserve history's respect for turning the screws to rid the nation of its original sin of slavery. But beyond that they did the lawmaking that their corporate masters paid them to do.

Republicans love to crow about Theodore Roosevelt's so-called "progressive" actions, but the truth is that Roosevelt only reacted to the threat of agitation from socialists, anarchists, union radicals, and muckrakers. But give Teddy credit, he took very good care of the corporate elite while showcasing some social concern. In fact, I would have to declare that Teddy Roosevelt was the first Republican to keep the masses from rising up with some good, old-fashioned cynical "compassionate conservatism".

That "group" had put up their own Dixiecrat presidential candidates for a few decades in the 1950s and 1960s (Strom Thurmond being one of them). Then they just took Nixon's cue and joined the republicans.

There have been many changes.

The Democrats have had a number of liberals like William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson, Al Smith and FDR run for president. That clearly established the Democrats as the more liberal party unlike back in the 19th century where it was less clear perhaps. Then, the republicans turned to extreme right wing views because of Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Ronald Reagan in 1980. It was probably finally completed with Newt Gingrich in 1994. Slowly moderates have left the party and even people who were reasonable like Bob Dole have been left out of the party leadership. However, this extremism is somewhat new so it may not last for an extremely long time.

Thanks for setting it straight. This thing is older than the sixties. The "liberals" were only one wing of the Republican Party - not the whole thing. The party was the home of the business elites if you go all the way back.

Here is a good summation of what happened:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/americas/2000/us_elections/parties/567766.stm

ON EDIT: There is only one problem with that article. It was written before the 2000 selection.

But in recent years a new more moderate brand of Republicanism has emerged, most noticeably around Governors Tommy G. Thompson in Wisconsin and George W. Bush in Texas who have managed to transcend some of the divisions the party faces in Washington.

Many Republicans are placing their hopes for a revival of the party's fortunes in this new breed of more innovative figures.

ROFL!!

P.S. I think we may have some of these old-school Republicans in the Illinois state GOP, just from talking to a few - I guess the Illinois GOP is a thorn in the conservatives' collective sides. I don't know why they bother, though, but they fancy themselves as carrying on the spirit of Lincoln in the Land of Lincoln.