The Grand Old Party Ain't What It Used To Be: Interview with Lewis L. Gould

[salvorhardin]

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Well, in may ways they have morphed into a kind of twenty-first century variant of their nineteenth-century opponents! ...there are many echoes of ideology -- not the pro-slavery side, but the ideology in some aspects -- of the Confederacy in the modern Republican Party.

...

By 1912, the Republican Party had divided between those who agreed with TR and those who anticipated the modern Tea Party point of view. That kind of division that occurred in 1912 -- which put Woodrow Wilson in the White House -- began a debate which we're still having in the present day. In many ways we still stand in the shadow of TR and the election of 1912.

...

...I think Hoover's big failure -- and it's the irony of his whole career -- was that he made his reputation by feeding the starving people of Belgium and Russia during and after World War I. And yet when it came to the relief of starving Americans between 1929 and 1932, that's when his ideology took over...

...

...when Eisenhower advanced what he called "modern Republicanism" in the 1950s, which was a code word for, "let's accept the New Deal and go on from there," it went over like an iron pancake to the Republican regulars. They wanted to oppose the New Deal, Social Security, and prevent a medical insurance program (what would later be known as Medicare) from happening.

Full interview: http://hnn.us/articles/grand-old-party-aint-what-it-used-be-interview-lewis-l-gould

[salvorhardin]

1. Kick

[RandiFan1290]

2. I vote we stop calling them the GOP

Why do we give them the respect?