Traditionally, the GOP has been the party of exclusion.
The GOP was the party of Lincon. Eisenhower order the 101st airborne in to achieve school integration in Little Rock.
That was then, this is now. Lincoln was real; Eisenhower was forced to send in troops because of a Supreme Court ruling. Its been a long time since the GOP has been an inclusive party; to whit, Bush refusing to speak to the NAACP.
You do understand what inclusion means?
"The GOP was not the party that elected a former KKK member to a Senate leadership positions including the majority leader position as late as 1988 and chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee as late as 2001. A majority of Republicans in congress voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Byrd filibustered against it.
Quote - "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia" and "in every state in the Union,"
Robert Byrd to rand Imperial Wizard Samuel Green, in a letter that also offered advice on Klan leadership appointments.
Why was the GOP Senator from MS asked to turn down the Majority leader position? Why did the Senator from NC have an illegal mulatto child but promoted segregation and ran for president on a segregationist ticket? Why did the 60s dixiecrats flee the Dem. party which was supporting integration and run to the Republican party? Why is Bush unwilling to speak to the NAACP, a black organization? Why is the GOP pushing so hard to keep gays from marrying?
Byrd is a peculiar aberration for the Dem.; my above comments are the norm for the GOP.
He wrote that letter when he was around 30 so it wasn't just a youthful radicalism.
He's a bigot.....if you are a Republican, you should be familiar with that term.
Also from just a couple of years ago -
"There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time-I'm going to use that word."
If Bush or a Republican senator said that we would never hear the end of it.
Are you suggesting that Byrd and Bush are on the same level in terms of stature? Hey dude, you said it, not I.
Byrd also vowed never to fight "with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."
Well, there is no question that you've pegged Byrd. Why can't you do the same with the racists in the GOP party?
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Some GOP history:
Roosevelt decided not to run again in 1908 and chose William Howard Taft to replace him, but the widening division between progressive and conservative forces in the party resulted in a third-party candidacy for Roosevelt on the United States Progressive Party, or 'Bull Moose' ticket in the election of 1912. He beat Taft, but the split in the Republican vote resulted in a decisive victory for Democrat Woodrow Wilson, temporarily interrupting the Republican era.
Subsequent years saw the party firmly committed to laissez-faire economics, but the Great Depression cost it the presidency with the U.S. presidential election, 1932 landslide election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. Roosevelt's New Deal Coalition controlled American politics for the next three decades, excepting the two-term presidency of World War Two General Dwight Eisenhower.
The post-war emergence of the United States as one of two superpowers and rapid social change caused the Republican Party to divide into a conservative faction (dominant in the West) and a liberal faction (dominant in New England) -- combined with a residual base of inherited Midwestern Republicanism active throughout the century. The seeds of conservative dominance in the Republican party were planted in the nomination of conservative Barry Goldwater over liberal Nelson Rockefeller as the Republican candidate for the 1964 presidential election.
Goldwater's electoral success in the Southern states, and Nixon's successful Southern strategy four years later represented a significant political change, as Southern white protestants began moving into the party, largely in reaction to Democrats' support for the Civil Rights Movement. Simultaneously, the remaining pockets of liberal Republicanism in the northeast died out as the region turned solidly Democratic.
Richard Nixon's political disgrace in the Watergate Scandal, revelations that he had ordered massive, illegal bombing of Cambodia, and the humilitating military debacle of the end of the Vietnam War led to the election of centrist Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976, but the Carter interregnum was to last only one term, as disappointing economic performance and public frustration over the Iran hostage crisis contributed to his defeat..
In The Emerging Republican Majority, Kevin Phillips, then a Nixon strategist, had argued (based on the 1968 election results) that support from Southern whites and growth in the Sun Belt, among other factors, was driving an enduring Republican electoral realignment. While his predictions were overstated, the trends he described may be seen in the Goldwater-inspired candidacy of Ronald Reagan, as well as the Newt Gingrich-led "Republican Revolution" of 1994. The latter was the first time in 40 years that the Republicans secured control of both houses of Congress.
That year, the GOP campaigned on a platform of major reforms of government with measures, such as a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution and welfare reform. These measures and others formed the famous Contract with America, which was passed by Congress. Democratic President Bill Clinton vetoed many of the initiatives, with welfare reform as a notable exception. Republican House Members also backtracked on one of the popular proposals--adoption of term limits. In 1995, a budget battle with Clinton led to the brief shutdown of the federal government, an event which contributed to Clinton's victory in the 1996 election.
With the election of George W. Bush in 2000, the Republican party controlled both the presidency and both houses of Congress for the first time since 1952. Conservative commentators speculate, and Republicans hope, that this may constitute a permanent partisan realignment.
The Republican Party solidified its Congressional margins in the 2002 midterm elections, bucking the historic trend. It marked just the third time since the Civil War that the party in control of the White House gained seats in both houses of Congress in a midterm election (others were 1902 and 1934)."
en.wikipedia.org |
