Republican Party

The Republican Party is — as of 2024 — one of the two major political parties in the United States. The party comprises several small, unofficial, and highly factionalized "sub-parties" with drastically different beliefs. As of 2024, devoid of much policy unity, the party has unified behind the personality and vague nationalist promises of a perennial presidential candidate, perennial president, and former reality TV show celebrity named Donald Trump.
The base of the Republican Party self-describes as conservative, but they continually elected leaders who are anything but conservative. These leaders nominate conservative supreme court justices in exchange for power. This bizarre political approach has left the leadership of the Republican Party manifesting almost everything the party base claims to hate. Their most recent party convention broadcast to children featured Kid Rock rapping, pretending to masturbate with a microphone, screaming FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT, in between speeches ranging from SlutWalk organizer and OnlyFans creator Amber Rose, to speeches by a convicted felon.
Despite being founded as a black slavery abolition party, the party now enjoys almost no political support from blacks. Republicans accelerated their drift away from minorities with the Barry Goldwater insurgency of the 1960s, specifically with Goldwater beating the famously moderate Republican Nelson Rockefeller,Goldwater, Narrowly Beating Rockefeller, Sets California G.O.P. on a New Course;A MODERATE ERA APPEARS AT END; Senator's Victory Attributed to His Underdog Role and the Governor's Divorce 
Ronald Reagan's hostility to the poor and those with low-income was one of many factors in leading the Party to its current state. Not content with appearing just evil, Reagan also brought the whole wingnut circus in the Republican Party, courting Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals, who had once supported Jimmy Carter (President of the United States from 1977 to 1981) but who became disillusioned with the Democratic Party. Yet another Ronnie blunder. Either way, that caused the GOP as a whole to shift to the right at a far greater pace than the Democrats have moved to the left, and many of those centrist Reaganites and Rockefeller Republicans switched parties due to the more centrist policies of the Democrat Bill Clinton (President of the United States from 1993 to 2001). The final nail in the coffin came when Dubya, who was highly neoconservative, became President (2001). While many neocons like McCain remained with the party, the Republican Party, after McCain lost the 2008 U.S. presidential election, had completed its full transformation into the mess that it is today. Voteview and its sister sites have the statistics to back this up going back decades.Jeff Lewis, Polarization in Congress. voteview.com, 20 January 2022. Speaking of statistics, Republicans lie three times more often than Democrats."How Corporations and Politicians Use Numbers to Lie — and How Not to Be Fooled" Written by Larry Swartz. (January 16, 2016). Archived from Alternet on March 6, 2023.
==History==
===Origins===
In the 1830s, with the ascension of Andrew Jackson to the presidency, disaffected Democrats broke away, joining with lingering Federalists to form a new second party in opposition to him. This new party was deliberately named the Whig Party, harkening back to an that advocated limiting the power of the British monarchy. The Whigs similarly advocated limiting the power of the presidency, and opposed the Democratic Party's policies in the 1840s, particularly "", the idea that the U.S. is uniquely special in the world and rightfully should expand to control most of North America.Whig Party, History.com
By the 1850s, the Whig Party began fracturing over major issues of the day, primarily regarding the issue of slavery.Why the Whig Party Collapsed, History.com The caused a major rift in the party between the pro-Compromise and anti-Compromise Whigs. The Whigs were demolished in the 1852 presidential election, with war hero Winfield Scott losing in a landslide to northern Democrat and "" Franklin Pierce. The party never recovered from the crushing defeat, and in 1854 anti-slavery Whigs joined with to form the new Republican Party.The Origins of the Republican Party, US History.org In the 1856 presidential election, the Republicans tempered their anti-slavery stance to merely oppose expansion of slavery into new territories; this brought them into conflict with the "American Party" (better known as the "Know Nothings", a populist, anti-immigration party that emerged in the Northeast at the end of the 1840s); the two parties split the vote, allowing the Democrat and doughface James Buchanan to win.1856 Presidential Election, 270ToWin
In the aftermath of the 1856 election and the Supreme Court's controversial Dred Scott decision, anti-slavery Know Nothings and Whigs joined up with Republicans, which effectively killed the two parties; although the Know Nothing Party would impotently linger until 1860. The Democratic Party, which was strongest in the South, became the primary party of slavery; the Republican Party, strongest in the North, became the primary party of abolition, in particular the sub-faction known as "", who advocated for immediate and unconditional abolition.Radical Republicans, American Battlefield Trust
===Civil War and Abraham Lincoln===
 
The 1860 election was one of the most chaotic in U.S. history. The Democratic Party, split over the issue of slavery, fought an internal battle and wound up nominating two candidates, while a third party, the , tried to attract Democrats in the South who wanted to avoid secession by ignoring the slavery issue altogether. With all that in mind, the 1860 election wound up being basically two separate elections - Republican Abraham Lincoln against Democrat in the North; and Democrat against CUP candidate in the South. The ultimate result was Lincoln winning by sweeping the North and the West coast, and the other candidates splitting the rest.United States Presidential Election of 1860, EncyclopediaVirginiaThe Election of 1860, American Battlefield Trust
Despite his protestations that he could not and would not abolish slavery,Abraham Lincoln and Emancipation, Library of Congress Lincoln's election triggered panicked calls for secession by pro-slavery Southerners who feared his abolitionism. In the months between November 1860 and Lincoln's inauguration in March 1861, seven states voted to secede from the U.S., which James Buchanan did little to oppose;The Gathering Storm: The Secession Crisis, American Battlefield Trust these seceding states also began seizing federal military bases and weapons depots.Timeline of the Civil War, Library of Congress The Civil War officially began in April 1861 with Confederate military forces attacking a federal fort in Charleston, South Carolina. 
In the run up to the 1864 elections, the war was still raging but the North was slowly winning and the end was in sight. With this in mind, Lincoln retitled the Republican Party as the "National Union Party" in an attempt to draw in anti-secession Democrats and others who refused to vote for the Republican Party, and he took on Andrew Johnson as his vice president. With mounting Union victories in the war, he easily defeated Democrat and general George McClellan, who struggled with the factions of his own party.The Election of 1864 and the Soldiers’ Vote, American Battlefield Trust The Union won the war in April 1865, and Lincoln was assassinated by a Southern sympathizer soon thereafter,Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Library of Congress putting the kibosh on Lincoln's plans to repair the broken nation.Lincoln on Reconstruction, Teaching American History
=== Reconstruction, the Spoils System, and Gold buggery ===
With Lincoln's death, Democrat Andrew Johnson inherited the presidency and immediately began fighting with the Republican Party; Radical Republicans in particular pushed hard against Johnson, even impeaching him by setting a trap that he knowingly walked into; he barely escaped conviction during the subsequent Senate trial.The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, PBS The "Civil War Amendments" were passed in this time, amending the U.S. constitution to abolish slavery, grant citizenship and due process to the freed slaves, and then grant them the right to vote. The Radical Republicans began pushing for free market economics and increased civil rights for the freedmen;Civil War Amendments (Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments), Constitution Annotated meanwhile, "Reconstruction" began in the states that had seceded. 
Reconstruction was the process where the Union reintegrated the defeated and militarily occupied South back into the fold. Lincoln had favored a soft approach, hoping to bring the South back without punishing it too harshly. Johnson, a Southerner himself, likewise hoped for a fast reintegration, even if it came at the expense of newly freed slaves.Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction, National Park Service The Radical Republicans however, favored punishing the South and continuing to push for civil rights for black Americans. With Southern Democrats who had participated in secession barred from public service, Republicans found themselves in control of the South. This of course caused tensions with the old Southern establishment, who began a terrorist campaign against "" and freed blacks, which includes the formation of the paramilitary force known as the Ku Klux Klan or KKK.Southern Violence During Reconstruction, PBS
The victorious Union commander, General Ulysses S Grant, was elected president in 1868. While he did some legitimately good things like crushing the KKK, , and pushing for civil rights for the black population, his tenure was nevertheless .Ulysses S. Grant: Domestic Affairs, UVA Miller Center His historical assessments tend to point out that he was a generally good guy who did good things but he was too loyal to his very bad underlings.Ulysses S. Grant: Impact and Legacy, UVA Miller CenterPresident Ulysses S. Grant: Known for Scandals, Overlooked for Achievements, History.com
During the 1870s, the Republican Party began to split into two factions. With slavery successfully abolished, the new big issue of the day became the "Spoils System". The Spoils System (as in "to the victor goes the spoils") refers to when a president is inaugurated, he is allowed to hire his friends, family, and supporters to work in the federal government's civil service, particularly the postal service, at the time the largest agency in the federal government. This system was great for ensuring political loyalty but also encouraged corruption and punished competent but politically disloyal civil servants.The Spoils System: Definition and Summary, ThoughtCo The Radical Republican faction fizzled out during Grant's administration and reemerged as the "", conservatives who opposed any change to the spoils system. Opposing the Stalwarts were the moderate "", who wanted to switch to an apolitical, merit-based system that discouraged corruption.Stalwarts, Half Breeds, and Political Assassination, National Park Service
In the 1876 election, Republican and Half-Breed Rutherford B. Hayes faced a very close result against Northern Democrat Samuel Tilden; he cut a deal with racist Southern Democrats called "". The was that if the Redeemers wouldn't oppose his election bid, Hayes would end Reconstruction. They accepted, Hayes won the election, and he officially ended Reconstruction as soon as he was inaugurated.Compromise of 1877, History.com The Redeemers thus seized control of the "Solid South", and the Democratic Party would dominate Southern politics until the political realignment in the late 1960s.“Redeemers” and the Election of 1876, Lumen Learning
Hayes had promised not to run for reelection in 1880, and kept his promise. Fellow Half-Breed James A. Garfield won the election, but he was shot a few months after his inauguration by Charles Guiteau, a crazy person who decided to kill Garfield for not gifting him a job under the spoils system.James A. Garfield: Death of the President, UVA Miller Center Garfield wound up dying due to unsanitary practices by the doctors who treated his wounds; Garfield's successor, a Stalwart named Chester A. Arthur, surprised everyone by passing the in 1883, which began the process of abolishing the spoils system and making a merit-based civil service.Pendleton Act (1883), National Archives With that issue du jour settled, some of the Half-Breeds shifted gears and became loud champions of cleaning up government corruption. These anti-corruption crusaders became informally known as "" and played a key role in the defeat of Republican candidate in the 1884 election. Although Blaine had been a Half-Breed, he was plagued by allegations of corruption and the Mugwumps subsequently refused to support him, choosing instead to support the reformist Democrat, Grover Cleveland, who won a narrow victory.Mugwump, Britannica The Mugwumps did not rejoin the party, instead becoming independents or joining the Democrats. Notably, Theodore Roosevelt, an anti-corruption advocate who had been very sympathetic towards the Mugwump cause and did not support Blaine during the primaries, surprisingly came out in support of Blaine after the primaries, thus saving his political career from the fate of other Mugwumps.THEODORE ROOSEVELT, National Park Service
With the battle over the spoils system winding down with the passage of the Pendleton Act, two new battlegrounds appeared: fighting against corruption; and monetary policy. Reform-minded minorities in both the Republican and Democratic Parties loudly began crusades to halt corrupt politicians and businesses. Meanwhile a populist groundswell began in the 1890s as farmers and laborers began agitating for "free silver". Under the gold standard at the time, if a person had gold, they could take it to a mint and have it turned into coins, which could then be spent as money. The Free Silver movement wanted to be able to do so with silver as well, even though silver was more numerous and less valuable than gold, so that poor farmers and laborers could pay off debts owed to banks and wealthy businesses.Free Silver Movement, Britannica Naturally, banks and wealthy businessmen strongly opposed free silver, and backed the candidacy of William McKinley, a conservative Republican who also opposed free silver. McKinley's victory sealed the deal and largely ended the Free Silver movement. McKinley would also oversee a short war with Spain which resulted in the U.S.'s acquisition of the Spanish colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Cuba would soon be granted semi-independence, but U.S. occupation of the Philippines would result in a bloody insurgency, while Puerto Rico remains a U.S. possession to the modern day.
===Roosevelt and the Progressive Era===
McKinley's vice president died in 1899, so in 1900, Republican party bosses in the Northeast convinced McKinley to accept Theodore Roosevelt as his new running mate; the reformist Roosevelt had run afoul of those party bosses and they wanted to "kick him upstairs" to the vice presidency, where he'd be largely powerless.Knowing the Presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, America's Presidents McKinley easily won the election, but was assassinated by an anarchist shortly after his reinauguration, making Roosevelt the new president. Roosevelt then kickstarted the , becoming famous for trustbusting, rooting out corruption, and creating new federal agencies like the , the forerunner to the , and the .The Square Deal: Theodore Roosevelt and the Themes of Progressive Reform, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History Roosevelt easily won reelection in 1904 but spent much of his second term fighting with the powerful conservative bloc of his own party,Joseph Gurney Cannon, Roosevelt Center and resorted to holding "bully pulpit" rallies where he'd angrily complain about Congress, further dooming any chances of accomplishing much. 
Roosevelt's protege and chosen successor, William Howard Taft, won election in 1908 and proceeded to alienate Roosevelt by aligning himself with the conservative bloc. Roosevelt went on a rampage and drifted further leftward in his policy agenda. William H. Taft recalls dispute with Theodore Roosevelt, 1922, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History In the 1912 election, Roosevelt failed to win the Republican nomination so he jumped ship and joined the fledgling, leftist , which was soon popularly nicknamed the "Bull Moose Party" after Roosevelt joked he was strong as a bull moose. The Progressive Party and Republican Party split the vote, allowing Democrat Woodrow Wilson to sweep into office.Election of 1912, Teaching American History Roosevelt rejoined the Republican Party in the aftermath of 1912, remaining a prominent voice - and a major thorn in Wilson's side - right up until Roosevelt's death in 1919.Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson: A Bitter Rivalry, David Bruce Smith's Grateful American Foundation
With Roosevelt's death, a general fatigue from progressive advocacy, and Wilson's suppression of leftism in the , the progressive wing of the Republican Party withered and died, and the Progressive Era came to an end.The Progressives Collapse: 1917-1920, 239 Days In America Republican Warren G. Harding won the 1920 election by explicitly rejecting the Progressivist policies of Roosevelt and Wilson, promising a "return to normalcy".Presidential Election of 1920, Library of Congress Harding was a popular president but died about a year and a half into his term, at which point a series of scandals were uncovered, notably the , which involved the Secretary of the Interior accepting huge bribes to grant sweetheart deals to oil companies controlling the U.S. Navy's oil reserves.Teapot Dome Scandal, Britannica
===The 1920s, the Great Depression, and the New Deal era===
Harding's rejection of progressivism continued with his successor Calvin Coolidge, who championed laissez-faire economic policy and low government intervention,Calvin Coolidge: Domestic Affairs, UVA Miller Center to the point that he refused to do anything when a major flood hit Mississippi in 1927, instead setting up a commission to encourage private donations to help.The Executive Branch’s Response to the Flood of 1927, History News Network He was followed by another Republican, Herbert Hoover. Soon after Hoover's inauguration, the U.S. stock market crashed, which set off a series of events that culminated in the Great Depression. Hoover, like Coolidge, refused to use the federal government to start large-scale relief efforts, instead focusing on "rugged individualism" and private efforts, which further exacerbated the crisis.Herbert Hoover: Impact and Legacy, UVA Miller Center He also tried to kickstart the economy by passing the infamous , which raised tariffs to unusually high levels; however, this had the opposite effect and triggered a trade war.Protectionism in the Interwar Period, Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State Hoover also chose to blame Mexican immigrants for the crisis, and launched , forcing hundreds of thousands of Mexican-Americans to move to Mexico, despite the fact that a significant number of them were children and/or American citizens.The Deportation Campaigns of the Great Depression, History.comThe president who deported 1 million Mexican Americans nearly a century ago, Washington Post
Hoover's mishandling of the Depression caused him to lose in a landslide to Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 election, and FDR's would more or less dominate the federal government until the 1960s. The Republicans loosely split into the "", which still supported the old-fashioned laissez-faire, conservative economics of McKinley, Harding, and Coolidge; and the liberal wing largely based in the Northeast that supported FDR's New Deal. After FDR's reelection in 1936, the economy soured and the Old Right Republicans joined with conservative Southern Democrats to form a "" that would hamper FDR's agenda until the onset of World War II. During the war, the conservative coalition was able to undo much of the New Deal, although it notably didn't end Social Security. FDR would win reelection in 1940 and 1944 but the GOP gained steam and in 1946 Republicans gained a majority in both houses of Congress, the first time since the 1920s. FDR died in April 1945 and his successor Harry Truman aligned himself with the liberal wing of the New Deal Coalition, and proceeded to alienate the Solid South by implementing the early stages of desegregation.Executive Order 9981, Desegregating the Military, National Park Service, which nearly cost him the 1948 election. This would very soon have a major impact on both parties...
===Civil Rights and War in Vietnam===
By 1952, Truman had become unpopular thanks to his inability to end the Korean War, and the onset of McCarthyism. He saw the writing on the wall and chose not to run for reelection. Both parties courted the hero of World War II, General Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower, but he ultimately chose to join the Republicans. He easily won the 1952 and 1956 elections. A moderate Republican, he successfully brought the Korean War to an end, and presided over a period of general economic prosperity. He also presided over the initial stages of the Civil Rights movement and desegregation, notably deploying the elite to , and signing the .
In 1960, Ike's vice president and vehement anti-communist Richard Nixon won the nomination but then lost a close race against John F. Kennedy. JFK was assassinated in 1963, leaving the presidency to Lyndon B. Johnson. The liberal LBJ proceeded to continue with the early stages of the U.S.'s involvement in Vietnam and continued supporting Civil Rights efforts, culminating in the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. The latter in particular was the death knell for the Solid South's support of the Democratic Party, and the conservative, segregationist South began migrating over to the Republican Party, solidifying the conservative bloc's control of the party. Likewise, moderate Republicans in the Northeast and West Coast began migrating over to the Democratic Party, which was still under the control of the liberal New Deal Coalition. 
In 1964, Barry Goldwater, a "small government" fiscal conservative won the Republican nomination, running against LBJ. Goldwater did shockingly well in the South, since he opposed the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act on the grounds that he felt it was government overreach. Segregationists in the South who opposed the Civil Rights Act on racist grounds didn't much care about the rationale, and supported him. He still lost in a landslide to LBJ, but some Republicans took note of Goldwater's accomplishment.
The 1968 election cycle saw Nixon return from purgatory. With the lingering Vietnam War having become wildly unpopular, LBJ chose not to run for reelection, and his vice president Hubert Humphrey wound up winning the nomination after considerable controversy, including the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, and major protests at the in Chicago. Nixon was the guy who took note of Goldwater's success in 1964 and ran with it. He and his campaign came up with what is now known as "the Southern Strategy", which involved attracting conservative, segregationist Southerners by avoiding overt racism and instead resorting to loaded terminology that alludes to racism. In an interview in 1981, Republican strategist Lee Atwater summed it up as:
Nixon did not carry the South thanks to a third party run by segregationist George Wallace; but he did better in the South than expected, and he did win the overall election. Nixon's victory cemented the realignment begun way back in 1948 when the Solid South began fleeing Truman, and in future elections, the South would almost always go for the Republican. In 1972 Nixon absolutely destroyed the progressive-leaning anti-war Democrat , thereby ending the Democratic Party's flirtation with progressivism. Nixon successfully ended the Vietnam War in 1973, but then the Watergate scandal came out, and Nixon was forced to resign in August 1974. A President Resigns - 50 Years Later, National Archives
===Post Watergate and the "Reagan Revolution"===
Nixon was replaced by Gerald Ford, who is arguably most famous for pardoning NixonNixon Pardon, National Archives and then bumbling his way through the 1976 election, which he lost to the moderate Southern Democrat Jimmy Carter. The 1976 election wound up being a referendum on the Nixon era, and Carter won largely thanks to his status as an "outsider",Jimmy Carter: Outsider, Voice of America and in part to Ford's poor campaign.The Debate Gaffe That Changed American History, Politico With the old Nixon bloc crushed by his resignation and Ford's defeat, the Republican Party embraced a new dynamic under an actor-turned-corporate-spokesman-turned-California-governor... Ronald Wilson Reagan. Reagan continued with Nixon's veiled racism but went even further to embrace the Religious Right, a relatively new phenomenon of extremely right-wing Christians who leaned heavily on their religion to justify and spread their political beliefs; in particular Reagan allied with Jerry Falwell's powerful "Moral Majority".The evangelical presidency: Reagan's dangerous love affair with the Christian right, Salon Carter, who had become unpopular due to lagging economic conditions and , was wrecked by Reagan in the 1980 election.
Reagan oversaw the "Reagan Revolution", which saw him entrench conservatism in the national zeitgeist. He instituted "trickle-down economics",Trickle-down economics, Wikipedia slashed funding to federal agencies he didn't like (such as welfare and regulatory agencies), and lavished on those he did like (primarily the military, including that he tried to literally build a giant space laser...). Like Nixon, he held an intense hatred of communism and leftism in general, so he helped support right-wing rebels and dictators in Nicaragua, Argentina, El Salvador,Remembering US-backed state terror in El Salvador, Al Jazeera and . While Carter had begun supporting the mujahideen rebels during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Reagan doubled down, on the project.Most expensive covert action, Guinness World Records When Reagan's administration was caught illegally selling weapons to Iran to raise money for supporting right-wing death squads in Nicaragua, Reagan leaned on his folksy charm to avoid prosecution.The Iran-Contra Affair, PBS He talked a lot of shit about the Soviet Union,Relations with the Soviet Union of Ronald Reagan, Britannica which was dying a slow death since the 1970s. He kickstarted a pointless arms race with the Soviets, which the Soviet economy couldn't sustain; Reagan's supporters subsequently claimed credit on his behalf for the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.
The damage being caused by Reagan's neoliberal policies and his anti-communist streak was not immediately apparent, and he wound up being wildly popular. He was pretty charismatic and the economy seemed to be doing really well after the malaise of the late 1970s. Reagan's reelection in 1984 remains one of the most one-sided victories in U.S. history aside from Nixon's 1972 win and George Washington's two unanimous victories. The Democratic Party, reeling from these crushing defeats, chose to embrace Third Way neoliberalism and the centrist bloc formed. Reagan was followed in 1988 by George H.W. Bush, his vice president, but Bush lacked Reagan's charisma and Religious Right creds. Despite a successful war against Iraq, the economy soured in the early 1990s and Bush was forced to break his campaign promise to never raise taxes and... raised taxes.The Story Behind George H.W. Bush’s Famous ‘Read My Lips, No New Taxes’ Promise, Time With a third party challenger in H. Ross Perot snagging a portion of the fiscal conservative vote, Bush lost in 1992 to the New Democrat Bill Clinton.
The year of 1994 was one of historical significance for U.S. politics. In the mid-term elections that year, a Georgia Republican named Newt Gingrich led the "" where the party successfully portrayed Clinton as a "tax and spend liberal" and promised to undo Clinton's "radical" policies. Many Republicans signed on to a "" that espoused their fiscal conservative proposals.The 1994 Midterms: When Newt Gingrich Helped Republicans Win Big, History.com The ploy worked, and in the 1994 mid-terms, the Republicans won a majority in the House for the first time since 1952; however, this did not carry over into 1996 when the charismatic Clinton defeated Bob Dole. The Republicans nevertheless proceeded to block much of Clinton's agenda and led many investigations into the president, culminating in for lying under oath about an extra-marital affair he had had. All that being said, Clinton and the Republicans did manage to work together occasionally to pass some major deregulatory bills, like the and the in the late 1990s.
===The 21st Century and the War on Terror===
Clinton's chosen successor, his vice president Al Gore, "lost" a closely contested election 2000 to Republican George W. Bush, son of George H.W. Bush. Bush won by successfully portraying himself as a "compassionate conservative", and thanks to the uncharismatic Gore distancing himself from the still-popular Clinton. Oh yeah, some meddling from courts and election officials may have helped a smidge too. See the article on the 2000 U.S. presidential election for more on that mess, because it's too much to summarize here. Bush came into office in 2001 and immediately doubled down on Reaganomics, passing a massive tax cut that primarily benefited the upper class and corporations, thus eradicating the budget surplus he inherited from Clinton.The Legacy of the 2001 and 2003 “Bush” Tax Cuts, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Anyway... then this little thing happened called "9/11", and everything proceeded to go to shit.September 11 attacks, Wikipedia
In response to the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, President Bush declared a War on Terror. Initially this meant that the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, which is where Al Qaeda, the organization that planned and executed the 9/11 attacks, was headquartered. This was followed up by a 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq... for... reasons. The stated goal was that Iraq had been skirting U.N. mandated inspections of its nuclear and chemical weapons programs, and was thus illegally hiding nuclear and chemical weapons ("weapons of mass destruction" or WMDs); there was also some not-so-subtle hinting that Iraq had helped Al Qaeda carry out 9/11.The Cheneys’ claim of a ‘deep, longstanding, far-reaching relationship’ between al-Qaeda and Saddam, Washington PostRationale for the Iraq War, Wikipedia The real reason was more along the lines of: Bush and the neoconservatives in his Cabinet came into office already wanting to build a case for overthrowing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein;Bush decided to remove Saddam 'on day one', The Guardian the shocking brutality of the 9/11 attacks gave them the popular support they needed and they just had to make any sort of feeble attempt to justify it. With rage over 9/11 still high, Bush was able to push through Congressional authorization (Gingrich's "Republican Revolution" still controlled Congress)H.J.Res.114 - Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, Congress.gov and Americans were forced to go along for the ride.
The War on Terror also had domestic effects. More draconian laws were passed which allowed for increased surveillance of U.S. citizensThreats to Civil Liberties Post-September 11: Secrecy, Erosion of Privacy, Danger of Unchecked Government, ACLU and new security agencies like the Orwellian-titled "Department of Homeland Security" and the TSA were created. As the War on Terror ground ever onward, it came out that the U.S. was imprisoning suspected terrorists without any sort of rights (like habeas corpus or the right to counsel), and was in fact torturing some of them at "" operated by the CIA in foreign countries.Inside the CIA’s black site torture room, The Guardian Abuse of prisoners also happened at places like Abu GhraibTorture at Abu Ghraib, The New Yorker and Bagram.Afghanistan: Ex-Bagram inmates recount stories of abuse, torture, Al Jazeera
Despite all this, Bush won reelection in 2004, thanks in part to the Democrats nominating another uncharismatic "policy wonk", who failed to counter Bush's very effective control over the narrative. Rather than the election being a referendum on Bush and his fucked up policies, it became a referendum on this boring, flip-floppingFlip flops, anti-John Kerry, 2004, National Museum of American History "radical liberal" from Massachusetts who "lied about his military service".Republican-funded Group Attacks Kerry’s War Record, FactCheck.org However, Bush's mismanagement of the economy and the wars would cause a backlash against Republicans, and their Gingrich-led domination of Congress would end in the 2006 mid-terms.2006 United States elections, Wikipedia
Bush's tenure ended with a , triggered largely by the deregulatory policies of Clinton and Bush. With Bush on his way out, Barack Obama, a centrist New Democrat like Clinton, was able to sweep into office in 2008 by holding off John McCain, who traded in his solid "political maverick" cred to cater to the more conservative elements of his party, notably by choosing wingnut Sarah Palin as his running mate.
The Obama era would see the Republican Party embrace extremist elements within its ranks. An astroturfed, Libertarian-ish movement erupted in reaction to Obama's inauguration; styling itself the "Tea Party", it fiercely opposed anything Obama sought to accomplish. Whackadoos like the Birthers and the Oath Keepers, both of which bought into conspiracy theories about Obama's citizenship status, also joined the fun; and the Sovereign citizen movement, whose adherents tend to be very right-wing, picked up steam. With this extremism on the rise and the recovery from the 2007-2008 financial crisis going slower than desired, the Tea Party successfully led the charge for another Republican victory, taking control of Congress in the 2010 mid-terms. Like when Gingrich's party won in 1994, the new Republican Congress would quash Obama's attempts to get anything done. Obama nevertheless defeated Mitt Romney in 2012, in a bit of a reversal of the 2004 election - Obama successfully turned it into a referendum on this boring, wealthy policy wonk from Massachusetts.
===Trump Part I===
In 2016, Obama's first Secretary of State and Bill Clinton's spouse, Hillary Clinton, was widely seen as his successor and a shoo-in for the next president. The Democratic Party rallied behind her, despite a strong challenge from the Vermont social democrat Bernie Sanders, and everything seemed to line up just right. The Republicans had a spirited primary campaign but out of the mess arose an amoral slumlord and reality TV host named Donald John Trump. While Clinton assumed the election was "in the bag", Trump successfully appealed to populist rage and nativist sentiment. He had no concrete plans, answers, or policy proposals aside from that he wanted to cut taxes and build a wall on the US-Mexico border.Donald Trump promised to build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it. That didn’t happen, Politifact He was all bluster and childish insults, and lied about even easily provable facts. Despite his silly antics, his disinterest and ignorance of Christianity,'Two Corinthians,' Trump Struggles To Make The Sale To Evangelicals, NPR and his long and well-documented history as a philanderer, the Religious Right came out in full support of him. And somehow, it worked. In one of history's great upsets, Trump narrowly defeated Clinton,2016 Presidential Election Results, New York Times ushering in a dark time for anyone who isn't fabulously wealthy.
The motto for Trump's term was essentially "the cruelty is the point".The Cruelty Is the Point, The Atlantic He slashed taxes, gutted welfare programs, assigned woefully inadequate people to his Cabinet, such as as his Secretary of State, a as his head of the EPA, a Christian Nationalist zealot as his Secretary of Education, and a as his Secretary of Transportation. He spent about a quarter of his term playing golf, almost always at clubs he personally owned, while overcharging his staff and the Secret Service to stay there with him.The Secret Service spent nearly $2 million at Trump properties, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington When Congress flipped (barely) back to the Democrats in 2018 and denied him money to build his border wall (despite his vague assurances that Mexico would somehow pay for it),Fact check: Mexico will ‘indirectly’ pay for a border wall through the new trade deal, Politico he resorted to diverting funding for the Department of Defense to pay for it.Trump Administration Diverts $3.8 Billion In Pentagon Funding To Border Wall, NPR He also cozied up to ruthless dictators like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, and packed the federal courts with right-wing Federalist Society extremists, notably including three relatively young associate justices to the Supreme Court, ensuring right-wing domination of the courts for the foreseeable future.President Trump’s lasting legacy, International Bar Association
In the end, he was undone by his own hubris. In 2020, the covid-19 pandemic exploded. Trump, who was totally obsessed with his own poll numbers and popularity, at first refused to acknowledge that it was happening or that it had the potential to be pretty bad, and eventually shifted to just lying about the outbreak and what to do about it.Fact check: Breaking down Trump’s 654 false claims over 14 weeks during the coronavirus pandemic, CNN He launched attacks on who were trying their best to help with the problem,Trump trashes Fauci and makes baseless coronavirus claims in campaign call, CNN and even mused about injecting people with bleach to fight the disease as nearby physicians listened in stunned horror.It’s been exactly one year since Trump suggested injecting bleach. We’ve never been the same., Politico His complete mismanagement of the pandemic eventually led to economic problems as supply chains broke and small businesses were unable to stay open due to quarantines.
In the 2020 election, Trump was mercifully defeated by Obama's old vice president, Joe Biden. However, the election was much closer than it rightfully should've been, and Trump refused to accept defeat. He and his supporters invented a whole narrative about how the "radical" Democrats had stolen the election and there was no way he could've possibly lost, despite a complete lack of evidence to support the claims. He launched a flurry of legal challenges, How Trump's challenges to the 2020 election unfolded in the courtroom, NBC News tried to use his office to "convince" election officials to alter results in his favor,Fact Check: Trump’s Georgia Call to Raffensperger, The Brennan Center and his supporters even tried to generate to participate in the electoral college. When all this failed, on January 6, 2021, the day the election was to be officially certified by Congress, Trump led a demonstration near the capital that turned into a full riot aimed at stopping the certification so that Trump would be allowed to remain in office. The riot was quelled but the damage was done. Afterward Trump and his supporters would disavow the riot, flipping between stories that it was actually a false flag carried out by "radical leftists" or that it was actually not that bad.
===An Interim Period===
Biden's term began with him trying to clean up the mess he inherited from Trump. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a long process, and economic problems caused by the pandemic lingered and worsened. Republicans were able to retake the House in the . By this point, Trump's neo-fascist "MAGA" movement had entrenched itself within the Republican Party. With Republican control of the House razor thin, a handful of MAGA extremists took the opportunity to stall the Speaker of the House selection process and forced their agenda to be accepted by party leadership.McCarthy wins speaker election, finally, Roll Call As in 1994 and 2010, Congressional Republicans, with help from Trump-packed courts, ensured that Biden was not able to achieve a lot of his policy agenda thenceforth. Throughout Biden's term, Trump continued holding rallies where he'd rail against "radical liberal Democrats", Joe Biden, and whatever else happened to be bothering him at that moment.
The 2024 election cycle began (in 2023...) with the expectation that Biden and Trump would face off again. The Republicans held primaries but Trump refused to participate in any of the events or debates, and still easily won. The 80 year old incumbent Biden, having had to endure a difficult three years of presidency, was showing signs of physical and mental decline. After a disastrous "debate" in June 2024, it became apparent to everyone that Biden just wasn't up to the task of defeating Trump, despite Trump (who was 78 as of the election) also appearing to be showing signs of cognitive decline. In July 2024, Biden stepped aside and endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, as the new candidate. As Trump ranted and raged about the change, Harris enjoyed a sudden swell of support; things seemed to be going pretty well for the Democrats.
However, the upswing didn't last. Harris, who historically has been a poor campaigner,It's Been Easy To Forget How Bad Kamala Harris Is, Reason ran a tone-deaf campaign, and failed to differentiate herself from Biden, who was becoming increasingly unpopular as poor economic conditions (particularly high inflation) continued.In the end, it was the economy, stupid, Washington Examiner Harris alienated her base by shifting rightward,How is Kamala Harris getting away with this?, Vox and alienated substantial Arab-American populations in crucial swing states like Michigan and Pennsylvania by doing little to address concerns over Israel's ongoing "war" in Gaza.‘We warned you,’ Arab Americans in Michigan tell Kamala Harris, Al Jazeera 
Trump, on the other hand, went back to what he does best. He provided few details about his agenda, aside from that he wanted to massively increase tariffs on goods from China,What is a tariff? Google searches for term tariff spike after Donald Trump elected as president, The Nightly and promised to conduct the largest deportation effort in U.S. history.Trump says he'll undertake the 'largest deportation' in U.S. history. Can he do that?, L.A. Times He talked a lot about prosecuting political opponents for the crime of existing.Trump has made more than 100 threats to prosecute or punish perceived enemies, NPR He harnessed populist rage and frustration with the slow recovery from the pandemic-spawned economic problems despite offering no real solutions. He also attracted right-wing billionaire tech CEOs like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, who proceeded to throw their considerable resources behind Trump's campaign.A Running List of the Tech CEOs Donald Trump Claims Are Calling Him to Suck Up, Wired 
As in 2017... somehow it worked. In the November 2024 election, Trump won a plurality of the popular vote and a solid victory in the electoral college; Republicans also claimed slim leads in both Houses of Congress, giving Republicans complete control over the entire federal government for at least the next two years.
===Trump Part II===
More to come...
==Modern factions==
There isn't much sanity left. There was once a moderate, center-right faction that could actually comprehend freedom of religion and how having sanity doesn't make you a pinko commie; they're the remnants of the Eisenhower Era, and the public figure closest to this is Arnold Schwarzenegger.
This is not the Republican Party at large anymore. Since at least the 1980s, if not even earlier with the Southern Strategy, the "teh evul leebrals and illeegull alienz r destroyin' Murica oh noes #MAGA" faction has come to dominate the party. As of late 2021, the party mostly consists of the more fanatical elements of the neoconservative Reagan-style Religious Right, a strong neo-fascist Alt-Right movement that inexplicably centers around the worship of Donald Trump, and a few libertarian donors who are happy to pull the strings of Republican politicians to get a lower tax bill (deficit be damned these days, of course). Even factions of the party that were merely somewhat insane, such as the Palin-style paleolibertarian Tea Party, have effectively been purged.
Below is a list of ideological factions and general types of Republicans in recent history, from most moderate, by Republican standards, to the most racist wingnuts ever to exist in American history (of which is the focus of the article). Despite this historical range of views for Republicans, by 2022 Republicans as a whole have become far more racist than Democrats. A poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that on a 0-1 scale of structural racism Republicans had a score of 0.67 vs. 0.27 for Democrats.Creating More Inclusive Public Spaces: Structural Racism, Confederate Memorials, and Building for the Future (09.28.2022) Public Religion Research Institute.Just how racist is the MAGA movement? This survey measures it. by Jennifer Rubin (September 28, 2022 at 7:45 a.m. EDT) The Washington Post.
Moderates
*Actual Centrists
*Fusionists
*Libertarians (so now you know we've reached full hellworld when "I'd like government not to work" is the good-guy option)
Conservatives
*Neocons
*The Swamp (businessmen, lobbyists, and consultants)
*Neoliberals (lawmakers whose policies explicitly empower corporations over workers)
*"Independents" who always find ways to support the party
*Religious Wingnuts
Far Right
*The Tea Party (an amalgamation of the libertarian, evangelical, neoliberal, and paleoconservative wings, but with a stronger emphasis on conspiracy theories, racism, misogyny, and anarcho-capitalism, many of whom would later become part of the MAGA crowd. The election of Donald Trump and the resulting high-deficit Republican budgets effectively killed, and showed the hypocrisy, of this ostensibly austerity-focused movement)."The Day the Tea Party Died" by Chris Cillizza, CNN, 2019 July 23
*Paleocons (who first found their voices in Pat Buchanan and later through Sarah Palin)
*Trumpism
There be Dragons
*Conspiracy theorists
*Neoconfederates
*The Alt-right
*QAnon
Though the trend was clear well before then, since the election of Donald Trump, the more moderate factions of the party (by Republican standards, that is) have increasingly been squeezed out by crank factions driven primarily by Fox News style outrage, conspiracy theory, and a fanatical desire to 
==No longer party of civil rights==
Didn't the South use to be Democratic?"Is it true that Democrats used to be the conservative party and Republicans used to be the progressive party?" (Archived from Quora on March 6, 2023.) The "Southern Strategy" is the short-form US History 101 exam answer to this question. Before the Civil Rights Act (CRA) of 1964, major Democrat blocs came in two flavors: 
#Dixiecrats and some Republicans associated with the Abolitionist movement
#Northeastern reformer-types, who we would understand as the modern Democratic Party
From 1940 onward, the Northeastern branch grew dominant, adding a pro-civil rights plank to the party platform and reversing its segregationist nature. So suddenly, you have this big clump of disgruntled southerners who feel abandoned by their party (whom they've been supporting for abstract reasons) and a GOP eager to snap up those votes by campaigning against the Civil Rights Act.Purdum, Todd S., "Why the Civil Rights Act couldn't pass today". Politico. Published 7.2.14. Black people were happier when it was okay to lynch them.Roger Clegg, Hans A. von Spakovsky & Elizabeth H. Slattery, Let's End Discrimination By Destroying the Civil Rights Act!, 4.15.14. Leave it to National Review Online to mark the 50th anniversary of the CRA by calling on oppressed white folk to repeal it. Republicans have a very comprehensive platform to get those voters out, but they obviously have a ceiling in terms of popular votes.
Interestingly, before (and shortly following) the CRA, many Democratic Parties in the South, while agreeing on segregation, differed significantly on economic issues. You had radical leftists like Huey Long and arch-conservatives like John Rarick under the same tent, even within the same state (in this case, Louisiana)."Is John Kerry A Liberal?" - Voteview. Published October 13, 2004. Also, there was a lot more diversity in primary elections. In Tennessee, for instance, Nashville tended to send more liberal Democrats to Congress (such as ) who were more receptive to civil rights, while outlying rural areas supported Blue Dog Democrats. The problem for Democrats is that the white half of their coalition either switched to the GOP, moved away, or died, leaving the crusty, black civil rights leaders in charge who had started migrating to the part during the same time.Why Did Black Voters Flee The Republican Party In The 1960s? Events like Kennedy bailing out MLK during the 1960 Presidential Election also played a role in showing mainstream politicians that appealing to black voters was a viable strategy.John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Phone Call That Changed History King's dad endorsed Kennedy in 1960,CAMPAIGN OF 1960 and although King didn't endorse Johnson in 1964, he did say of Goldwater “I had no alternative but to urge every Negro and white person of goodwill to vote against Mr. Goldwater and to withdraw support from any Republican candidate that did not publicly disassociate himself from Senator Goldwater and his philosophy.”Was Martin Luther King, Jr., a Republican or a Democrat? 
This is not to say that hostilities didn't exist between the DNC and the Civil Rights Movement. The Kennedy Administration infamously spied on MLK,The FBI and Martin Luther King and Johnson was similarly hostile to the man despite his support for Civil Rights.Lyndon Johnson Was No Friend of Martin Luther King Jr. However, Democrats were much more willing to say the right things on issues of Civil Rights publicly than Republicans were, even if they were antagonistic with the leaders of these movements behind the scenes. The end result is that party affiliation is now overwhelmingly determined by race and locality.
The story of the last half-century (1968-2016) will be the tale of how the GOP systematically turned white working-class voters against the Democrats. First, it was the Southern Strategy with race, then the evangelical movement with abortion, and now it's blue-collar whites with nativist populism. Bringing the Southern Strategy up in a debate is pointless since they just dismiss it as darkie lies liberal propaganda.
Despite all this, Republicans continue trying to dine out on their distant origin as the anti-slavery party; many will, with a straight face, offer their and the Democratic Party's pre-CRA history as proof that the Democrats are the party of racism, not the Republicans.
==War machine==
Although the Cold War has ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia ostensibly remained a fearsome military power, up until they showed they weren't. Meanwhile, there is some tension between the U.S. and Red China over economic and military matters.O'Grady, Sean, "Bannon is right, a war could break out in the South China Sea. Perhaps it’s time for Trump to look it up on a map", Independent (2/1/17 at 8:25 PM BST). Some see a pivot East, and having China as a strategic partner against Russia is a sensible way forward.Momani, Bessma, "Xi Jinping’s Davos Speech Showed the World Has Turned Upside Down", Newsweek (1/18/17 at 8:24 AM). With so many parts of the world looking increasingly volatile, it is not a surprise that shares of defense companies went up 15% right after Trump secured the White House.Carolina Valetkivich, Carolina, Trump's win propels defense stocks to all-time highs, Business Insider, November 2016.
This is a continuation of a pattern that had long since been present in the Republican Party, a party that had previously belonged to isolationists during the time between the two World WarsThe Return of the Isolationist Republicans but had since become the party of foreign policy hawks beginning with Dwight Eisenhower. Specifically, Eisenhower ran in the primaries against Robert Taft, known for his isolationist sympathies which Eisenhower felt were inexcusable during the Cold War. Eisenhower even told Taft that "If Taft backed away from his isolationist stance and supported the internationalist wing of the Republican Party, Eisenhower promised he would not challenge him for the nomination," but Taft refused.Supreme Commander Bids For Commander-in-Chief Eisenhower also campaigned on bringing in end to the Korean War,Eisenhower and the Korean War attempting to convince the American public that there was a middle ground existed between the "unpopular domestically"NSC-68 and the Korean War interventionism of Harry Truman and the isolationism of Robert Taft.
The Republicans officially became the party of interventionist foreign policy during the Vietnam War, where "Hawks were more likely to be older and Republican or Southern Democrats."Opposing Perspectives on the Vietnam War Lyndon Johnson had already appealed to the anti-Vietnam crowd during the 1964 Presidential Election through portraying Goldwater as somebody who would escalate the conflict, even possibly using nuclear weapons.How the “Daisy” Ad Changed Everything About Political Advertising The 1968 Presidential Election also saw anti-Vietnam candidates such as Eugene McCarthyEUGENE MCCARTHY and Robert F. KennedyBobby Kennedy proposes plan to end the war seeing massive success, to the point where riots infamously occurred during that year's Democratic Convention due to the failure of McCarthy to get the nomination.1968 Democratic Convention
Although it would be overly simplistic to say Republicans supported all foreign interventions and Democrats opposed them, this narrative has been one many voters with strong views on foreign policy have come to believe. The anti-war icon George McGovern getting the Democratic nomination in 1972George McGovern, An Improbable Icon Of Anti-War Movement along with many Republicans becoming villains of the anti-war movement continued to create this dichotomy.
==Family values positioning, traditionalism, anti-abortion==
Women make up just 9% of elected Republican members of Congress in 2016, which is down from 11% in 2006.A bunch of men telling women what’s good for them. By Ophelia Benson. (Aug 7th, 2016) Archived from March 6, 2023.
This is the most hypocritical thing about "conservatism" in the U.S. If you want to reduce abortions, comprehensive sex education and birth control is the way to go, as is addressing the social and economic factors that drive demand for abortion, such as providing maternity leave. Republicans have fought against all of these things, instead pushing "abstinence-only education" (which is a farce),Moyer, Justin Wm., "Texas high school with chlamydia outbreak has abstinence-only sex ed". Washington Post. Published 5.7.15. banning birth control, and ratfucking Planned Parenthood.Paquette, Danielle, "Creator of anti-Planned Parenthood videos faces felony charge", Washington Post. 1.25.16. Don't forget their crusade to destroy the social safety net.The Nation; Abortion Foes Worry About Welfare Cutoffs Written by Tamar Lewin. Published March 19, 1995). Archived from the New York Times on March 6, 2023. (And then these retrocrat clowns will bleed public education so that those kids go to garbage schools, so they can claim public education is ineffective and continue the feedback loop.) Abstinence-only education and abortion restrictions are other examples of the state forcing people to either come to Jesus or suffer. (Or, more often, both.)
In another great display of efforts to appeal to women, many in the party have opposed renewals for the often with clearly-ancillary or questionable justifications. In 2012 and 2013, social conservatives opposed its renewal because the proposal at that time would also offer protections to domestic violence victims who are Native American, undocumented immigrants, or non-heterosexual (evidently, general protections for women are worth sacrificing if it means hurting some minorities).Jonathan Weisman (February 12, 2013). "Senate Votes Overwhelmingly to Expand Domestic Violence Act". The New York Times.Adam Serwer (January 23, 2013). "In 2012, the House GOP Blocked the Violence Against Women Act. Will They Do It Again?". Mother Jones. In 2021, most House Republicans voted against a separate proposal to renew the Act (172 GOP representatives voted against renewal, 29 of the same voted for it), and many rationalized their vote against this iteration by pointing to a provision that would ban convicted stalkers and people who physically abused their ex-spouse from owning firearms (called the "James Walker (March 18, 2021). "Full List of 172 Republicans Who Opposed the Violence Against Women Act". Newsweek. "Gun rights for wife-beaters" is a winning slogan, right?
===From ERA to "Get back in the kitchen"===
What is especially notable about the Republican Party turning to sexism is, to be blunt, it was not always like this. As an article for the Brenna Center for Justice notes:
The Reagan 1980 campaign's opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment is typically seen as the event which stopped Republicans from supporting it altogether. "The ERA disappeared from the platform in 1980, because Reagan opposed it," writes Martha Burk.REAGAN’S LEGACY FOR WOMEN Reagan's opposition to abortion also caused him to lose the support of many women voters, which he attempted to win back through promising to put the first female justice on the Supreme Court.Column: The architect of Reagan’s pledge to put a woman on the Supreme Court says it was all political
On the topic of abortion, Republicans have also turned away from their previous support of that. An article for New York Magazine notes that "abortion rights as we know them are, to a considerable extent, the product of Republican lawmaking at every level of government" because their was once a time where "Republicans were more likely to favor legal abortion than Democrats."How the GOP Abandoned Pro-choice Republicans The article goes on to note:
Before this point, the dichotomy was quite different. Conservatives, who were primarily focusing their opposition on Johnson's Great Society at the time, were supporters of abortion primarily because they hoped allowing poor women to get abortions would cause fewer people to be on welfare. Going back to Reagan, he used to brag about how he "reduced the welfare roles by more than 300,000 people in three years" while Governor of California. However, it is widely believed this occurred because of Medicaid funded abortions during that time.Reagan's Reign of Error by Mark Green and Gail MacColl Meanwhile, although liberals did not reject this idea, they felt that more people on welfare was a decent price to pay if it meant the unborn got to live. Jesse Jackson expressed this dichotomy when he, while arguing against legal abortion, wrote the following in 1977:
==Big government with small government pretenses==
 
Republicans will say they want smaller government while insisting on abortion or marriage restrictions, a more extensive security state, and more military spending. 
===Welfare for me but not for thee===
Republicans justify specific policies by claiming they want smaller government when they really just don't want money going to the wrong people. Reagan cut the top marginal rate by over 40% and made deductions far more generous while simultaneously increasing spending. He found the secret sauce the GOP needs to keep winning: Cut taxes, but don't cut back on services your voters use, thereby driving the government deeper into debt.
To put it another way, Republicans' last push to privatize Social Security and Medicare was one of the driving forces behind the 2006 midterms that flushed their majorities down the toilet. This marks the second time going after Social Security caused Republicans to lose Congress, as when Reagan went after the program in 1981 "The next year, twenty-six incumbent Republicans lost their seats."The Truth (With Jokes) by Al Franken They'd be insane to go near that again, no matter how much the Boy Wonder from Wisconsin loves the idea.Jennifer Haberkorn and Adam Cancryn, "GOP's Medicare plans run into wall in the Senate", Politico (12/02/16 05:06 AM EST).
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many Republican congressmen took full advantage of the PPP “loans”, some to the tune of seven figures, highlighting once again that Republicans indeed love the government giving away free money, as long as it’s for them.
===Thanks, Obama===
Half of Obama's policies were positions the Republicans loved, then suddenly hated as soon as Obama supported them. Obamacare is the obvious example, but Trump won promising to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure."Infrastructure Spending Deemed Most Important Trump Promise", Gallup 1.20.17. The $770b infrastructure program Obama passed (with only 1 GOP representative voting yes) had $330b in tax breaks and credits.Obama Plan Includes $300 Billion in Tax Cuts (by Peter Baker and Carl Hurlsejan. Pulished on January 4, 2009. Archived from the New York Times on 6 March 2023.)
Berman, Russell, "Donald Trump's Big-Spending Infrastructure Dream", The Atlantic 8.9.16. In the words of former Republican Senator George Voinovich "If [Obama] was for it we had to be against it."The Party of No: New Details on the GOP Plot to Obstruct Obama
Although many laugh at how ridiculous the meme is,McGough, Michael, "GOP blames Obama for flaws in a law he vetoed", LA Times (9/30/16 at 2:00PM).Edelman, Adam, "Many Louisiana Republicans blame President Obama for Hurricane Katrina response — even though the storm occurred more than 3 YEARS before he took office", NY Daily News (8/21/13 at 5:47 PM).Wemple, Erik, "‘Daily Show’s’ Jordan Klepper blows the lid off Trumpworld", Washington Post. Published 9.21.16. Republicans are simply conditioning people to associate failure with Democrats. Every morning the headlines at Fox bleat about the awful things Democrats are doing. It works well in countries where education standards are low and freedom of thought is suppressed, and it worked to destroy Hillary Clinton's chances.Spinelli, Dan, "Benghazi victim's mother blames Clinton for son's death", Politico (07/18/16 08:44 PM EDT). So, quite reasonably, the GOP thinks there are a few more drives left in the old jalopy.Sneed, Tierney, "McConnell: Americans 'Will Not Tolerate' Dems Blocking SCOTUS Nom", Talking Points Memo (1/4/17 at 3:20 PM EDT).Balluck, Kyle, "Trump blames Obama for protests, leaks — 'He is behind it'", The Hill (02/28/17 07:00 AM EST).
This mindless hatred for Obama got so extreme that any Republican who even seemed mildly willing to not bash the President was considered too weak. Florida Governor Charlie Crist infamously lost any chance of having a future in Republican politics after he hugged Obama in 2009 while introducing him for a speech.The Hug That Killed My Republican Career
===Penis envy===
Supporting dictators like Putin, Assad, Duterte, and Kim is an important part of being a small government conservative.Tharoor, Ishaan, "Why U.S. conservatives love Russia’s Vladimir Putin", Washington Post. Published 9.25.14."Where the GOP Candidates Stand on Syria’s Assad" Written by Jay Solomon.
Published Dec. 16, 2015 at 3:53 pm ET. Archived from the Wall Street Journal on March 6, 2023.Rauhala, Emily, "Duterte: During phone call, Trump praised my drug war as the ‘right way’". Washington Post. Published 3 December 2016."TRUMP: You've got to give that 'maniac' in North Korea some credit" (by Colin Campbell. Published on 9 January, 2016) But Obama was the real tyrant for making us buy health insurance.
You may recall plenty of Republicans claiming that Obama wasn't strong enough in standing up to Russia during the Crimean incident and is a modern-day Neville Chamberlain.Obama has his Munich moment with Putin and Crimea (By Michael Goodwin (March 15, 2014). Archived from the New York Post on March 6, 2023.) But that's a criticism of Obama being weak, not of Putin being strong. For a while, their stance has been that Putin is a strong ethno-nationalist and someone to look up to.Blake, Aaron, "Vladimir Putin polls better with Republicans than Obama does. That’s not unprecedented.". Washington Post. Published 1.4.17.Johnson, Jenna, "Mike Pence says it’s ‘inarguable’ that Putin is a stronger leader than Obama". Washington Post. Published 9.8.16.
Trump's views on NATO and the UN are one of the most dangerous things about his presidency.Revesz, Rachael, "Donald Trump to sign executive order to dramatically reduce funding of United Nations", Independent (1/26/17 at 8:09 BST). The US isn't paying all this money as a charity; it buys global influence. Think of it like a rich vacationer passing everyone fifty-dollar tips for fetching a bottle of water or bringing fresh towels, so all the service people know that it's in their best interest to keep doing things that make him or her happy. If the U.S. doesn't fill that role, somebody else will, like, say, China. Indeed, there are signs this is already happening. Meanwhile, Trump will let Russia do whatever they want so long as Rosneft keeps sending his cut and his debts to Russian creditors don't come due.Bertrand, Natasha, "Memos: CEO of Russia's state oil company offered Trump adviser, allies a cut of huge deal if sanctions were lifted", Business Insider (27 January 2017, 7:06 AM).Rubin, Jennifer, "Trump’s Russia problem". Washington Post. Published 9.21.16. The word for this sort of caper is "corruption".Schindler, John R. "The Spy Revolt Against Trump Begins", Observer (02/12/17 10:00am).
===Live free or die===
2016 shook everyone's faith that there's a correlation between economic well-being and voting patterns. There's clearly a correlation between perception of well-being and voting patterns, but that's a different thing.Casselman, Ben, "Exploring the Iowa paradox: The Economy Is Better — Why Don’t Voters Believe It?", FiveThirtyEight (11/12/15 at 6:34 AM).
Republicans refused to do their jobs for 8 years; they were rewarded with all three government branches. They didn't pay the price for shutting down the government, damaging the US credit rating with their debt limit stunts, the sequester, or refusing to pass any stimulative measures to help the economy. They certainly won't pay the price for raping the environmentGardner, Timothy, "U.S. coal miners applaud Republican axing of stream protections", Reuters (2 February 2017, 4:32pm EST). (a who gets a 92 rating from the American Conservative Union can be kicked out of his district for acknowledging AGW). Flint happened because the city basically told the EPA to eat shit and mind its own business after the EPA said they needed to test the water quality.Fonger, Ron, "Documents show Flint filed false reports about testing for lead in water", MLive (11/19/15 at 3:57 PM). Michigan was saved entirely by Democrats and the Obama administration, and it voted for the party that wanted to let their main industry go bankrupt.Caldwell, Patrick, "Why Trump and Pence Aren't Talking About the Auto Bailout in the Midwest", Mother Jones (8/11/16 at 5:00 AM). Tangible, local improvements in life don't matter in elections anymore.
===Global blackmail and the "Party of No"===
Since at least President Bush, American federal politics has followed the following formula: claim the other party is running too large a budget deficit, run a larger deficit, aggressively subvert the main goals of the opposition party, and imply the world will end if people vote outside two parties. Throughout the early 2000s, Congressional Republicans have added a psychotic blackmail element to this over-aggressive politics by continually threatening to throw the entire world into a depression through a default on the federal debt if they don't get their way. Democrats in turn respond by exaggerating the legislative goals of Republicans, with Republicans doing the same. Together with their media counterparts, Democrats and Republicans run near 24/7 fearmongering campaigns about how we're all going to die soon if the other party isn't shut down. Obstructionism is rewarded, compromise punished.Milbank, Dana, "Republicans’ mindless obstruction has helped create something far worse". The Washington Post, 11 March 2016.
The Republican Party culture of federal obstructionism has led them to robotically vote "no" on legislation that they might otherwise support, including:
*Trade Adjustment Assistance to retrain workers displaced by free trade: blocked by Republicans.House Leaders Block Trade Adjustment Assistance" - AFL-CIO NOW. Published February 9, 2011. Archived from the original.Sarah Blinder, Can a trade bargain be put back together again? The Washington Post, 16 June 2015.
*Proposed free community college program: blocked by Republicans."Senators block free community college amendment" - The Hill. Written by Jordain Carney. Published 03/26/15 at 2:53 PM (EST)."Can Obama’s community college plan get through Congress?" - CNN. Written by Matthew Hoye and Jeremy Diamond. Published January 9, 2015.
*Infrastructure Bill, proposing $60b on highway, rail, transit and airport improvements + $10 billion in seed money for infrastructure bank: blocked by RepublicansRosalind S. Helderman, Senate blocks $60 billion infrastructure plan, another part of Obama jobs bill. The Washington Post, 3 November 2011."Senate GOP blocks $60B Obama infrastructure plan" - USA Today. Published Nov 11, 2011. Archived from the original.
*Jobs Bill to "give tax breaks for companies that 'insource' jobs to the U.S. from overseas while eliminating tax deductions for companies that move jobs abroad": blocked by Republicans"GOP senators block top Obama jobs initiative" - CNN. Written by Ted Barret. Published July 19, 2012.Ramsey Cox, Senate Republicans block bill to end tax breaks for outsourcing. The Hill, 30 July 2014.
Hence why they want to impeach anyone and everyone they disagree with. Just look at Obama and Hillary: They had a laundry list of "unconstitutional" or unlawful things the White House is doing, and every time the motion got shot down, they just moved on to the next item.Jonathan Turley, Five myths about impeachment. The Washington Post, 1 August 2014. It would not have been any different with Hillary; she would have been constantly threatened with impeachment. It's really one of the few plays the Rs run.
Meanwhile, since Reagan's day, the American people have been told that the federal government can't fix the problem; the federal government is the problem, so they don't mind that their Congress is deadlocked and obstructionist. They don't see or understand how this cedes power to the Executive Branch. More and more decisions are being made by the President or the many unelected bureaucrats working under him/her.Drezner, Daniel, "The awesome destructive power of the next president". The Washington Post, 10 March 2016.
==The rise of support for authoritarianism and Trumpism==
Tea Party politics has always been proto-Trumpism: It's never been about small government so much as about populism and disdain for the Washington cabal.Senator Sanders' town hall with Trump voters, 53:30.
The most logical place to mark the start of this particular "movement" is 2009 when the big money started moving to the Tea Party astroturf movementHarry Reid: "Sen. Harry Reid: American politics is currently just a war between billionaires", Raw Story. Published June, 2014. and Obama was doggedly trying to reform health insurance. But in actuality, conservatives have become more uncompromising because campaign finance laws keep getting weaker over the last several decades. Bachmann, Huckabee, Cruz, Cotton, Jindal, Santorum, etc., have been around for a while, and their right-wing pseudo-anarchist beliefs have become the norm.Jonathan Chait, "Anarchists of the House", New York Magazine.Thoma, Mark, "GOP Candidates Would Sacrifice the Social Safety Net for Tax Cuts ", The Fiscal Times. Published 3.22.16.Drum, Kevin, "The Koch-Fueled Plot to Destroy the VA", Mother Jones (3/13/16 10:55 AM). This is also a result of the GOP using the culture wars as political fodder: This time, Baptist voters weren't going to "fall in line" and vote for Jeb! or Rubio, and the GOP can't win without them.Mantyla, Kyle, "When Conservative Christians Take Control Of Government ('Oh, The Demons Shudder!')", Right Wing Watch (3/16/2015 12:31 pm). 
The Democrats are disintegrating almost as fast as the GOP: their bases in Chicago, Seattle, and New York have finally turned on them, and the Bernie Sanders campaign was basically their worst nightmare.Jeffrey Sachs: “On many days it seems that the only difference between the Republicans and Democrats is that Big Oil owns the Republicans while Wall Street owns the Democrats", The Economist. (There's also questionable voting practices in some red states.) The Republicans should be euphoric, but they're in a similar rut: a large part of their base is to the right of their leadership. Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans have lost control of those people. The House/Congress has been a colossal disaster under the GOP majority: They managed to get rid of their own Speaker because he wasn't conservative enough and actually made deals with Democrats to force their own incumbents out.Jeanne Cummings, "Dems accused of tea party tampering", Politico. Published August, 2010. 
Republicans have recently rebranded themselves as a "worker's party" to deal with the shift toward automation and foreign labor.Gass, Nick, "Trump: GOP will become 'worker's party' under me", Politico. (05/26/16 07:44 AM EST). It seems that the party lines are shifting to globalism vs. nationalism rather than just left vs. right; but with the Tea Party in Congress and Trump's cabinet of vultures, people are going to get more of the same.Oyedele, Akin, "One of Trump's biggest plans to stimulate the economy won't be great for most Americans", Business Insider (12/21/16 at 1:48 PM). "Trump Republicans" or "Ryan Republicans", whatever: both groups are about massive tax cuts for the rich that will, magically, pay for themselves by generating laughably delusional economic growth rates.Kurtzleben, Danielle, "Analysis: Trump Tax Plan Would Cost Trillions, Boost Incomes For The Rich", NPR. (9/19/2016 at 1:41 PM ET)."Republican plans to cut corporate taxes may have unpleasant side-effects", The Economist. Published 12.17.16.Cole, Alan, "Could Trump’s Corporate Rate Cut to 15 Percent be Self-Financing?", Tax Foundation, 25 April 2017.Hennessey, Keith, "President Trump’s tax reform vs. his balanced budget", 23 May 2017.
There has always been an undercurrent of authoritarian behavior from Republicans beginning with, at the very least, Richard Nixon, who explicitly said, "…but when the President does it, that means it is not illegal…"Nixon says, "...but when the President does it, that means it is not illegal..." Video by Robert Taylor. Published March 5, 2017. Archived from YouTube on March 7, 2023. This all came to a head under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who used the 9/11 attacks to expand executive power under the auspices of fighting terrorists, including authorizing torture in black sites and warrantless surveillance of citizens. Many state Republican parties have undertaken voter suppression, stopping votes from counting, gerrymandering, gutting the Voting Rights Act, stopping recounts (as seen under Bush v. Gore), and unprecedented obstruction while in power, to make sure government never works. It wouldn't take long before this decades-long fostering of anti-intellectualism, identification of enemies, and vicious demonization of their enemies would lead to something far worse brewing over the years. Donald Trump is the most extreme and eager expression of this brand of authoritarianism, as his own dictatorial impulses are paired up with overt racism, an incitement of violence, glorification of the whites-only good old days, vicious scapegoating of minority and oppressed communities, and a machismo cult of personality that has created a very American style of fascism that isn't going away anytime soon.
An analysis by international political scientists of support for authoritarianism within the two main US political parties from 1970-2018 found that opposition to authoritarianism among Democrats was high and unwavering during that period.GOP leaders’ embrace of Trump’s refusal to concede fits pattern of rising authoritarianism, data shows: Research by a team of international scholars shows the Republican Party’s shift away from democratic norms predates Donald Trump but has accelerated since by Christopher Ingraham (November 12, 2020, at 4:00 a.m. PST) The Washington Post.New Global Data on Political Parties: V-Party by Anna Lührmann et al. (October 2020) V-Dem Institute. The same study found that Republican opposition to authoritarianism was slightly lower but similar to Democrats from 1970 to the mid-1980s, but that support for authoritarianism steadily increased after that until the mid-2010s when it began a steep rise, culminating in the election of Trump. "This is a prime example of what political scientists call asymmetric polarization — a growing partisan gap driven almost entirely by the actions of the Republican Party." The turning point in the GOP rise in support for authoritarianism was likely the Tea Party movement, which began in earnest in 2009.Rage Grows in America: Anti- Government Conspiracies (November 2009) ADL. The increased GOP support can also be found in two sub-indicators: increased demonization of the opposition and increased incitement of violence by GOP leadership (both beginning in the mid-2000s). Authoritarianism within the Republican Party will likely increase as time goes on. Notice how senator Mike Lee had an increase of support among Republicans despite tweeting in October 2020 that that the United States is "not a democracy" and that "democracy isn't the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity [sic] are.""As 2022 Campaign Begins, GOP Voters Sour on Senate Republicans" - Morning Consult. Published February 16, 2021."Sen. Mike Lee’s tweets against 'democracy,' explained" - Vox. Written by Zack Beauchamp. Published Oct 8, 2020. 
In October 2020, the V-Dem Institute reported that the Republican Party has followed a similar trajectory to authoritarian parties such as Viktor Orbán's Fidsez, Narendra Modi's BJP party, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's AKP. On the other hand, the Democratic Party has changed little in its attachment to democratic norms and has has remained similar to centre-right (and to some extent centre-left) parties in western Europe."Republicans closely resemble autocratic parties in Hungary and Turkey – study" - The Guardian. Published October 26, 2020.
==Ties to Mammon==
Despite their claims of being in the service of God, in recent times, the Republican Party has shown a stronger belief in Mammon, the fictional personification or deity of greed in the Bible. Some within the GOP try to mask Jesus as one of them, altering his teachings to serve their political platform. A prime example of this would be one idiot and his "bible." Others are more open with their agendas, such as Sen. Is Sen. Jim Bunning's stand against unemployment extensions in line with his past votes?, CNN. Published March 2, 2010. Even some right-wing ministers encourage deceit.Michael J. Gaynor, THE DEVIL was the tempter and Jesus was NOT a deceiver. Archived from WEBcommentary, 7 July 2013. The closest, thus far, of the GOP stating who they really pray to would be Glenn Beck encouraging his viewers to be greedy and leave their church if they talk about helping the poor (which he compared to Nazism).Glenn Beck - Ignore Jesus & Be Selfish, Greedy. Archived from The Young Turks on YouTube, 9 March 2010. And these people believe they deserve a place in heaven.
The GOP's decision to gut the was assumed to be due to then-untold planned Republican mischief.Eric Lipton, With No Warning, House Republicans Vote to Gut Independent Ethics Office. Archived from The New York Times, 2 January 2017. 
"It’s simple, we kill the Batman". - Pharyngula (3 January 2017). Archived from Freethought Blogs on March 7th, 2023. Come 2021, they'd be proven right.
==Comparison to other right-leaning political parties==
Not only in the United States but also in other democratic countries, there are political parties with extreme right-wing elements, even though they are establishment conservative, not non-mainstream far-right populist parties.
For reference, the political environment of Japan, India, and South Korea has similarities with the United States. The biggest opposition of these extreme right-wing conservative parties is the indigenous left-liberal party, not the European-style social-democratic or democratic-socialist party: , and Minjoo Party of Korea. (In the case of the INC, it officially advocates a social democratic tradition, but is generally regarded as a liberal and centrist party.)
===Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)===
LDP is the Japanese version of the Republican Party. The LDP is also a mainstream conservative party similar to GOP, but far-rightists occupy a significant stake in the party. And like the GOP, it is debatable if the LDP are a center-right party anymore, as opposed to being far-right.Wesley Yee (January 2018). "Making Japan Great Again: Japan's Liberal Democratic Party as a Far Right Movement". The University of San Francisco. They also gain popularity in the polls for their aggressive rhetoric and actions against Koreans, as opposed to the Western far right's obsessive hatred of Muslims.
The Nippon Kaigi, the biggest supporter of the party, is similar to the Tea Party movement, and the Netto-uyoku, the militant wing of the movement, are a major parallel to the alt-right. The current Japanese Prime Minister , who is considered a RELATIVE moderate within the Japanese conservative camp, is also a member of the Nippon Kaigi.
===People Power Party (South Korea)===
PPP is the South Korean version of the Republican Party. They are notorious for defending the military dictatorship of the period. Moreover, like the GOP the PPP are extremely homophobic, transphobic, and antifeminist.Da-min, J. (April 8, 2020). "Rival candidates slammed for 'biased' views on homosexuality". Korea Times. Retrieved July 4, 2020.이주엽 (2021, April 12) 젊은 이준석의 반페미니즘 (Young people Lee Jun-seok's anti-feminism) Hankook Ilbo Retrieved June 15, 2021 
Just as the GOP represents the interests of Wall Street, and not the people, the PPP represents the interests of , not the people. Since 2022, former President Yoon Suk Yeol has often been accused of being "K-Trump" (K 트럼프).
===Bharatiya Janata Party (India)===
BJP is the Indian version of the Republican Party. They are also India's mainstream conservative party, but they focus on far-right Hindu fundamentalism, including Hindutva, and show a tendency to right-wing populism.
==See also==
*Banking crisis and recession - Happens too often when they are in power to be an accident.
*Liberal Party of Australia - the bogan version.
*Conservative Party of Canada - the sledneck version.
*Conservative Party (UK) - the British version, complete with their own version of Reagan and clone of Trump.
*Club for Growth, not to be confused with the Hair Club for Men.
*RINO
*K Street project
*Chickenhawk
*Log Cabin Republicans, a weird subgroup of Republicans who seem to believe the exact opposite of the Republican Party seem more in line with their younger counterparts.61% of young Republicans favor same-sex marriage, Pew Research Center, March 10, 2014
*International Democrat Union
*Theocracy Watch
*A list of Hollywood Republicans
*2016 Republican Party presidential nomination‎‎
==External links==
*Vote Republican!
*All rise for the official GOP theme song.
*The GOP: Totally not racist.
*Why Do Republicans Defend Torture?, New York Magazine
*Why Republicans Keep Telling Everyone They’re Not Scientists, The New York Times
*Here's Why Congressional Republicans Let Ted Cruz Lead Them Off a Cliff, Business Insider
*Time for a Bull Moose: The Risk of Generational Realignment and a Path Toward a “New Republican” Party, Harvard Kennedy School Review
==Notes==
==References==
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