Republican Party

Considering their political positions in this changing world, their animal ought to be an ostrich with its head in the sand.

God, guns, and freedom
U.S. Politics

Starting arguments over Thanksgiving dinner

* American exceptionalism
* Center for American Progress
* AARP
* Wedge Strategy
* Paul Nehlen
* Cliven Bundy
* Patriot Mobile

Persons of interest

* Paul Wolfowitz
* Ted Kennedy
* Peter King
* Huey Long
* Mehmet Oz
* Henry Clay

v \- t \- e

“”How do you abandon deeply held beliefs about character, personal responsibility, foreign policy, and the national debt in a matter of months? You don’t. The obvious answer is those beliefs weren’t deeply held. … [I]t had always been about power. The rest? The principles? The values? It was all a lie.

—Stuart Stevens, former GOP campaign strategist, member of The Lincoln Project[1]

“”The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

—Thomas E. Mann & Norman J. Ornstein, 2012[2]

“”We oppose teaching of Higher order Thinking Skills [because they] have the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental control.

—Texas GOP platform,[3] demonstrating exactly what the GOP is — ~~pure dagnasty evil~~ a bunch of willfully ignorant morons.[citation NOT needed]

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,[4]

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.[5] Speaking of statistics, Republicans lie three times more often than Democrats.[6]

## Contents

* 1 History
* 1.1 Origins
* 1.2 Civil War and Abraham Lincoln
* 1.3 Gold buggery and 'sound money'
* 1.3.1 Depression
* 1.4 Anti-civil rights
* 1.5 "Peace with honor" - end to Vietnam War
* 1.6 Welfare gutting
* 1.7 Torture cells and Waterboarding - War with Middle East
* 1.8 Anti-illegal-immigration
* 1.9 Timeline
* 2 Modern factions
* 3 No longer party of civil rights
* 4 War machine
* 5 Family values positioning, traditionalism, anti-abortion
* 5.1 From ERA to "Get back in the kitchen"
* 6 Big government with small government pretenses
* 6.1 Welfare for me but not for thee
* 6.2 Thanks, Obama
* 6.3 Penis envy
* 6.4 Live free or die
* 6.5 Party of No
* 7 The rise of support for authoritarianism and Trumpism
* 8 Ties to Mammon
* 9 Comparison to other right-leaning political parties
* 9.1 Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)
* 9.2 People Power Party (South Korea)
* 9.3 Bharatiya Janata Party (India)
* 10 See also
* 11 External links
* 12 Notes
* 13 References

## History[edit]

### Origins[edit]

The Republican Party began as a minor political party in opposition to the pro-slavery arguments of the Whig Party, one of two major parties at the time. It was founded 2 years after the election of 1852, which saw the Whig's presidential nominee Winfield Scott come in second place with only 16% electoral college support. Members of the Free Soil minor party helped found the Republican Party and the Free Soil Party eventually merged into the Republican Party. The Whigs began collapsing as a major party due to schisms over the issue of slavery. Many disaffected anti-slavery Whigs joined the Republican Party as their party rapidly collapsed. Less anti-slavery Whigs chose to join the nativist and anti-Catholic American Party as well as the nativist 'Know-Nothing' Party.

Slavery was not necessarily a national electoral issue at the time of their founding, and the Republicans needed something to achieve national recognition. Their party was massively aided by the eruption of violence during the formation of Kansas between pro and anti-slavery factions, leaving 55 dead. This helped make slavery more of an electoral issue. Republicans subsequently established themselves as a major party by drawing much more popular support than the 'Know-Nothing' party in the election of 1856. However, the Republican party still did not win the presidency and their nominee John C. Frémont was defeated by the Democratic Party.

Portions of the Republican Party were not necessarily opposed to slavery on the basis of affection toward blacks. The Free-Soil Party contingent, for example, mainly opposed slavery because it drove down the wages of white wage labor. However, by 1860 the Republican Party had established in its national platform that slavery was immoral and a crime against humanity. The Free Soil Party's influence was most prominently felt in the Republican Party's platform plank of free land for American settlers, as well as a ban on the sale of such land by anyone.

At this point, the Republican Party had not established itself in all states particularly well. In its last presidential bid, it failed to appear on a few state ballots.

### Civil War and Abraham Lincoln[edit]

Abraham Lincoln

The Republicans were eventually successful in their 1860 bid for the president with the election their nominee Abraham Lincoln to the presidency during the beginning of the American Civil War, which emerged primarily due to disputes about taxation in less developed parts of the USA, which also happened to have the most slave-holders. The Republican Party dominance during the Civil War is known by historians as the 'third party system', due to their earlier replacement of the Whig Party. The Civil War was not neatly split along party lines, but rather between the North and the South. Regardless, Southern Democrats broadly took up a pro-slavery position and most Northern Democrats took up a moderate (at the time) position on slavery compared to Republican abolitionists. Lincoln was able to unify Northern state parties in the Civil War in opposition to the South's protest of taxation.

During Civil War reconstruction, abolitionist Republicans dominated those taking a less radical (at the time) approach, cementing their status in the party after reaction from a successful assassination attempt of Abraham Lincoln. Republican support in the South was built with the support of the US army and Ulysses S. Grant during reconstruction. Freedmen, Scalawags, and Carpetbaggers formed 'Union Leagues' in the South and successfully warded off attacks from white supremacists. The Republican Party remained dominant for the next five decades of American politics.

### Gold buggery and 'sound money'[edit]

Ideological gold-buggery emerged in the Republican Party during the tail-end of the 19th-century with the Republican election of William McKinley. McKinley opposed the Democrats bid to abandon the gold standard on an ideological basis. By 1920, the party had established a prominent conservative faction which established dominance during 1920 with the election of Republican Warren Harding.

#### Depression[edit]

By 1929, Republican president Hoover, another gold-bug, oversaw a depression which ballooned unemployment, homelessness, poverty, and misery all the way to the (now former) former middle class. Hoover also oversaw a racial shift in the Republican party and endorsed white supremacists. These policies led to a landslide victory for Democrats, who were much less fiscally hawkish in office, used the power of the federal legislature recover America from the Depression with the 'New Deal', dramatically expanding the federal government further into everyday American life.

After the New Deal, Republicans split into 'liberal' Republicans in favor of the package, and those opposed. Those Republicans opposed began building political alliances in the South to prevent expansion of laws similar to those in the New Deal. By 1838, those Republicans opposed to New Deal expansion formed a majority in Congress and prevented further expansion of New Deal policy.

### Anti-civil rights[edit]

In the mid-20th century, Democrats were still split between those who supported and opposed civil rights for blacks. When Democrats who supported civil rights for blacks won the Democratic primary with Lyndon Johnson, Republicans chose to contrast themselves by opposed expanding civil rights for blacks. This proved nationally unpopular among the general population with Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater losing in a landslide.

### "Peace with honor" - end to Vietnam War[edit]

Richard Nixon

Republicans still managed to regain foothold in national politics by responding to failures the Democratic Party had with internal democratic processes and deeply unpopular wars started by Democrats. Elected in the mid-1970s, Republican Richard Nixon ended the unpopular Vietnam war, but Republicans wouldn't see Congressional expansion until the 1980s after a foreign crude oil price hike convinced Democrats and Republicans in the 1970s that domestic government spending was the root of their economic ills. What followed was the individualist Republican Party.

### Welfare gutting[edit]

The individualist reign of Republican politics was spearheaded by the Reagan, elected president in 1980. Reagan's emphasis on tax cuts for the wealthy gained the nickname trickle down economics. Reagan's administration cuts funding for public housing and Section 8 welfare programs by half, leading to massive amounts of homelessness. Despite being elected on a national sentiment of fiscal hawkishness, Reagan runs massive government deficits benefiting the wealthy, creating a relatively strong, "trickle down", American economy.

Reagan also Illegally sold weapons to Iran, which were used several years later by present-day extremists. He also spent 1/4 of all military defense money allotted during the Cold War (in part by literally trying to build a space laser). Becomes principal deity to a new, cultish religion.

### Torture cells and Waterboarding - War with Middle East[edit]

During the Republican George W. Bush's presidential administration in the 2000s, men from the middle East killed thousands of Americans as part of a self-professed Islamic-tinged war on America for past American military decisions in the middle east. Bush's presidential administration responded with massive domestic and foreign surveillance programs, as well as the expansion of black box torture and detainment cells around the world. This war, while met with a hearty resistance, was not unpopular enough to prevent a second Bush term. However a lack of Republican response to the 2007 housing and financial crisis led to an end of Bush family dominance in politics.

### Anti-illegal-immigration[edit]

By 2016, Republican nominee Trump ran on a platform primarily opposed to illegal immigration. He also ran in opposition to a radically small government section of the party named the Republican Tea Party, whose candidate was Ted Cruz, but Trump was still influenced by the Tea Party. Trump promised protection from some of the worst of the Tea Party famously stating he would not cut health insurance to the extent that "people are dying on the streets". This made Trump similar to prior neoliberal-with-qualifiers presidents like Reagan, but this time with a protectionist and nationalist bent.

However, as the Tea Party transformed into the Freedom Caucus, they become among Trump's most ardent Congressional supporters, and Trump had difficulty pushing for replacement of federal programs when the freedom caucus had little interest in legislating government programs in any effective manner. Trump still commands the allegiance of all flavors of Republicans, with what remained of his opposition defecting the failed Democratic Party resistance. Following an unpopular half-hearted coup attempt, Trump regaining support during Democratic pleas for criminal persecution of Trump and Democratic attempts to restrict him from the ballot.

### Timeline[edit]

* 1854 — The party is founded as a minor party opposed to slavery expansion in the West. The collapse of the Whig major party funnels anti-slavery-expansion whigs into the party. The Free Soil Party also merges into the party, advocating for free land for settlers, eventually part of the early party platform.
* 1856 — The first Presidential Election with a Republican candidate occurs, with John C. Frémont as the nomination and William L. Dayton serving as his running mate. The new party ends up in second place, but still loses to the Democratic nomination of James Buchanan, who became President and did a lot of traitorous things to this nation.[7]
* 1860 — Abraham Lincoln, perhaps the greatest president ever, is elected on a platform calling slavery a crime against humanity.[note 1] He is remarkably bipartisan (has a Democrat for Vice President[note 2]) and agreeable, acting on what he feels is best for America rather than what is best for his party. In his life time, he was originally one of the most divisive Presidents in the country's history as his election was the single event that led to the Civil War after it had been brewing for years, if not decades. Unfortunately, he was not bipartisan enough to escape the ire of a particular Confederate sympathizer named John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated him on April 14, 1865 and led to his murder two weeks later.
* 1865 — Lincoln is assassinated and replaced by Andrew Johnson, who "clashed repeatedly with the Republican-controlled Congress over reconstruction of the defeated South." Republicans manage to impeachment him after various attempts to do so, although he is saved from removal by one vote in the Senate.[8]
* 1868 — Ulysses S. Grant gets elected, and is arguably the first person to take the party in a clear fiscally conservative direction, having policies tough on inflation and focusing government resources to aid industry. Grant was much maligned later for being tough on the KKK and more enlightened on civil rights than many later presidents. Of note is his work to use the power of the federal government to make sure the former Confederate states gave black citizens their civil rights, although much of this work was undone through the Compromise of 1877.[9] Thus, the corruption during his administration gets played up for all it's worth.
* 1870s — The Half-Breeds, the RINOs of their day, opposed the mainline Stalwarts over civil service reform and ending the patronage system. The whole Reconstruction program is viewed by Democrats and Republicans alike as merely the most massive extension yet of the time-accepted spoils system, or the "practice in which the political party winning an election rewards its campaign workers and other active supporters by appointment to government posts and with other favors."[10] This is contrasted with those who supported a system where political appointments are based on merit, regardless of how involved they were with the victory of the person elected. When President James Garfield was assassinated in 1881 by a disgruntled election worker who felt Garfield owed him a job, the Civil Service Reform Act was passed, ending the spoils system and political cronyism. Its implementation was the beginning of the Progressive Era; the Half-Breeds became the Progressive movement, which eventually became the Progressive Party.
* 1896 — William McKinley battles his famous campaign with William Jennings Bryan, clearly setting the party positions of the pro-populist Democrats and pro-business Republicans for the next century. McKinley backs a strong gold standard, which his opponents cited as favoring debt-holders and banks. McKinley is supported by (and arguably elected because of) powerful interests such as Standard Oil and JP Morgan. His foreign policy also pursues a course of imperialism that included the annexation of Hawaii and naval war with Spain. While opposed by the Democrats, this policy is eventually followed by both parties post-WWI.
* 1901 — Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt becomes president following the assassination of McKinley. He goes on to do many things that would be anathema to modern Republicans, including fighting big business and protecting the environment.
* 1912 — The Republicans are split between the conservative William H. Taft and the progressive Roosevelt. When Taft's convention moves, TR leads an exodus, fracturing the Republican electorate. Roosevelt comes in second, and the Democrats take the White House.
* 1920-1929 — pro-business Republicans retake the presidency and spend 9 years getting tangled up in scandals, support civil rights and presiding over a massive laissez-faire economic boom, which eventually fell over onto itself and led into... (Sound familiar?)
* 1929 — The Great Depression starts. The Republican Party applies the "just watch the country go down the crapper" strategy. Contrary to what most people think, Herbert Hoover moves immediately into action, attempting a bailout and donating large amounts of his own funds to charity to keep people out of poverty. However, he explicitly tried to keep the government out of it, while the private charities he attempted to bolster failed to help people.
* 1933 — Republicans coalesce against Franklin Delano Roosevelt (a Democrat), another candidate for the greatest president ever. Roosevelt greatly helps relieve unemployment during the Depression and has the luck of being in office when the U.S. is drawn into, and helps win, World War II. He brought many years of prosperity to America, along with hitherto unknown levels of national debt.
* 1961 — Dwight D. Eisenhower finishes his two-term presidency. While infamous for introducing the "Under God" part of the Pledge of Allegiance, as well as creating the "In God We Trust" motto, he was incredibly pragmatic, creating NASA, expanding Social Security, starting the desegregation process, and warning against a "military-industrial complex." He was also the last Republican president to balance the federal budget.[11]
* 1948-1968 — The segregationist Southern Democrats are abandoned by their increasingly tolerant party and gradually move to the increasingly conservative Republican Party.[12] In 1964, the Deep South is the only region captured by Republican Barry Goldwater (aside from his home state). By the end of the decade, the once solidly Democratic South has turned red (although Southerners Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton temporarily reverse the trend).
* 1969-1974 — Richard "Tricky Dick" Nixon is elected on a promise to end the Vietnam War. By the time of complete U.S. withdrawal from Southeast Asia, however, his "plumbers" were arrested for trying to bug the DNC offices in the Watergate complex, resulting in a cover-up so disgusting, and abuses of power so scary, that he had to resign or risk getting impeached. To his credit, though, he founded the EPA. Gerald Ford replaced him till 1976, when Democrat ~~peanut farmer~~ Jimmy Carter was elected President.
* 1973 — Roe v. Wade ruling coupled with 1962 school prayer ruling and opposition to feminism and civil rights leads to a wave of defections from traditional Southern Democrats and the birth of the modern social conservative movement and religious right.
* 1981-1989 — Ronald Reagan gets into office, targets tax cuts at the rich, and eviscerates welfare programs
* 1994 — The Republican Party takes control of Congress due to complacency and corruption in the Democratic Party. Begins a fourteen-year era where the Republicans really screw things up and destroy any chance of power for dozens of years after a Democratic president and a new Democratic majority is elected in 2008. (It took the Democratic Party 61 years to become fat and lazy, and it only took the Republicans 14.) (At least in theory.)
* 2000 — The Republican Party elects a monkey, chiefly due to Al "Doom and Gloom" Gore stealing votes that should rightfully have gone to Buchanan and Nader, and voter suppression in Florida. Republicans give way to big gub'ment ideas like increased defense spending, border control, and the worsening of the War on Drugs. Fiscal conservatism is put on the back burner. It's almost as if they actually want a big government, and all their bile about "small government" is just a ruse to defund all the programs they don't like...weird.
* 2005 — Bush signs a $286.4 billion highway bill passed by a GOP-controlled Congress, earmarking $24 billion for 6,376 pet projects. What line? What sand?
* 2007 — Bush presses for passage of John McCain's bill granting a path to citizenship for 20 million illegal immigrants. Only a grassroots effort by wingnuts who demand the border be locked down dials back the GOP drive for amnesty.
* 2008 — As his presidency was winding down, Dubya issued a series of executive orders with nasty environmental consequences.
* 2009 — Obama becomes president, and the next 8 years become an endless slog of fear-mongering and "whatever Obama wants, we don't!"
* 2010 — The Republicans begin their massive campaign of smears, fear-mongering and misinformation against the Democrats. The Teabaggers are spawned. The Republicans become the "Party of No" as they try everything they can to block important or useful legislation proposed by the ~~Democrats~~ ~~socialists~~ ~~commies~~ ~~cultural Marxists~~ ~~sexual Bolsheviks~~ leebrals. Unenthusiastic liberals stay home as angry conservatives turn out to elect enough scary people to Congress to take control of the House.
* 2011 — Control of the House achieved, congressional Republicans relax and enjoy preventing Obama from making any progress by not passing anything for him to sign. The nation shrugs as attention is drawn to the trainwreck that is the 2012 presidential campaign.
* 2012 — Mitt Romney becomes the Republican Party's nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 election. He loses the election to the incumbent, Barack Obama, with (in full irony) 47% of the vote.
* 2013 — Despite humiliating losses in the 2012 elections (they only won the House of Representatives because the boundaries were rigged in their favor), the Republican Party is continuing to stake out far-right stances on the deficit as well as social issues like abortion and gun control. No major attempt is being made to reconcile with Hispanics or African-Americans after the 2012 debacle (with many establishment conservatives fearing they're going to get "primaried"), and it is increasingly doubtful if they can retake the presidency in 2016.[13] Gun nuts, ancaps, and alt-righters have begun to take over the party and Republicans don't even realize it yet.[14][15]
* 2015 — Now in control of Congress, the Republicans help make America's chief legislative body into the single most anti-science institution in American history.[16] This includes having Ted Cruz oversee NASA and James Inhofe, the War on Science chief, as chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. (Richard Nixon would be sickened right about now.) The Tea Party purges the last remaining "moderates", House Speaker included. Some conservative talking heads like Mark Levin are now decrying Fox as a liberal bastion[17] and Reince Priebus as a secret liberal. This is one of the guys Cruz wants to moderate the GOP debates. Shit is bananas.
* 2016 — The party abandons all pretenses of being "small-government conservatives" and give in completely to authoritarianism, social Darwinism, and palingenetic ultranationalism. Even by Republican standards, the crop of Presidential candidates doesn't have any substance to it at all. Their platform is Screw The Dems because that's all the base wants to hear. As in 2012, the debates never yield a thought-out position, just "I'll have the opposite of what he's having." Inexperienced young dude leaving? We need the most establishment family dynasty ever! Super-established former Secretary of State running? We need some new blood, someone from outside the Beltway who doesn't play by the rules! The fact that a troll candidate was at the top of the polls for months on end says it all about this murderers' row.
* 2017 — The Democrats are a minority on all government levels, having been swept out in the national election. It seems like Republicans have been so disciplined the last four years that they'll be able to further cut taxes for the rich, gut financial regulations, weaken health insurance, and restrict immigration. However, their narrow Senate majority makes passing specific bills (such as Obamacare repeal[18]) extremely difficult. At least most of their policies tangentially affect "the budget" and will therefore be eligible for reconciliation rules. They don't answer to the everyday pressures of "bringing home the bacon"; they answer to a kind of ideological wave rather than making deals. Right-wing populism is here to stay, at least for the moment. Things aren't all rosy for them, though; some well-known GOP strongholds in the House and Senate have been weakened, and Democrats were actually able to win seats in otherwise guaranteed Republican districts; Doug Jones versus Roy Moore for the senatorial seat from Alabama is a notable case. Finally, there's that whole possible foreign collusion not limited to Russia going on that brings a big question mark on the conflict of interest of the party, if not the eligibility of the president.
* 2018 — Despite benefiting from massive gerrymandering, voter suppression, and the structural advantage of being a rural party, the GOP somehow lost control of the US House of Representatives in November 2018. The specific reasons for this loss remain up for debate, but it certainly has nothing to do with the Very Stable Genius who then-occupied the White House. It wasn't not all bad news for the GOP, though; Republicans did net two seats in the Senate, thanks to their unbelievable achievement of winning elections in North Dakota, Indiana, and Texas, though the Democrats weren't planning on fighting for those seats anyway, so the win isn't much to brag about. The GOP and Trump also partially shut down the government for 35 days, the longest ever in U.S. history, after Trump refused to sign any budget without $5 billion for his border wall. Get ready folks, this could go on for a while.
* 2019 - The Mueller Report is released. It shows damning evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election and evidence of the Republican Party complacently accepting Russian interference (as the most charitable interpretation). It lays out at least 10 instances in which Donald Trump tried to obstruct justice. In August, an anonymous whistleblower presented phone recordings of Donald Trump asking Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate alleged corruption on Joe Biden, which are severe allegations and lead to Trump's impeachment late in 2019.
* 2020 - Where do we even begin? Donald Trump is impeached in late 2019 and early 2020 for attempting to elicit foreign interference from Ukraine to help him dig up dirt on his presumptive opposition in exchange for congressionally supplied military protection against Russia. While it's no secret that Trump is a very corrupt politician, and the evidence is damning, the vote in the Senate was still along party lines nonetheless (the only deviation being Mitt Romney), and Trump avoided conviction and removal from office. Polls before the election predict a shitstorm waiting to happen,[note 3] almost consistently favoring Joe Biden in even bigger margins than they incorrectly did for Hillary in 2016 when she ran against Trump; polls from even traditionally Republican strongholds were too close for comfort, with Biden leading in some states. Also, the coronavirus is a thing, and the economy, whose strength Trump relies on far too much to try and keep his supporters, crashes, implodes, and burns up in a nuclear inferno visible from space (and economists had already predicted an eventual recession) in the worst downturn since the Great Depression, thanks partially to his complete botch job of "handling" the pandemic- as well as the decaying healthcare infrastructure Trump is only peeling more from. Meanwhile, Trump consistently downplays the risk the virus poses, continues to hold large campaign rallies amid the pandemic, sows doubt about science- and evidence-based ways to avoid infection by spreading dangerous misinformation that fact-checkers nationwide immediately scramble to correct, and publicly encourages his followers to oppose public health restrictions, such as tweeting that someone needs to "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" from a closure of non-essential businesses. Several Republican Congresspeople and state governors follow his lead, with results ranging from individual politicians further beclowning themselves to red states experiencing much higher COVID infection and death rates than the blue states that Trump pretends are in "anarchy" due to communist socialist BLM media antifas. In the 2020 Presidential election, Democratic candidate Joe Biden wins the popular vote by a somewhat comfortable margin, and the Electoral College confirms his victory without a hitch. To the surprise of no one Trump, who has been telling his supporters for months that COVID is no big deal, injecting themselves with disinfectant cures it, and mail-in votes are insecure, decries the (widely expected) influx of Biden votes after mail-in ballots are counted as evidence of massive fraud; he then deploys a crack(pot) legal team to file dozens of lawsuits challenging the electoral results in various states to try and subvert the will of his own people (authoritarian much?)- nearly all of which (also unsurprisingly to anyone with half a brain) fail spectacularly. The Orange Snowflake, upon (privately) realizing this, promptly starts to scream at various Republicans he had once endorsed and stumped for as "beautiful, wonderful people" on Twitter with his caps-lock key as the process of confirming the votes moves further and further forward, in a manner akin to the bunker scene in the ever-parodied Der Untergang\- all the while continuing to pretend that the election can still be stolen as a massive scam to siphon money off his supporters so he doesn't go to jail for tax evasion at the expense of people's respect for our democracy, further demonstrating how he doesn't care about his country or even what our future children will be taught about him in their history classes; only about his own instantaneous self-interests. The year ends with a feud between Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell over the size of COVID stimulus checks, and both Trump and the old turtle try to make one of the proposed bills all about the former, as if to further demonstrate their party's utter depravity these days.[19]

The Republican legacy: treasonous plots and fascist would-be coups galore.

* 2021 - The GOP's year gets off to a rollicking start when Trump brags on Twitter about an election-related phone call with Georgia's Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger. Journalists at The Washington Post subsequently release audio of the hour-long call, in which Trump repeatedly pressures Raffensperger to "find" enough extra Trump votes in a recount to flip the state red.[20] Days later, Democrats John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock narrowly prevail in runoff elections in Georgia, tying the Senate at 50-50 and meaning that upon her inauguration, Vice President Kamala Harris will cast tie-breaking votes, giving the Democrats control of the Senate for the first time since 2015 and control of the White House and both houses of Congress for the first time since 2011. Sadly, on the same day, the fruit of Trump's conspiracy theory-mongering about the election comes ripe as thousands of Trump supporters storm the Capitol during the counting of Electoral College votes, invading the building and resulting in the Senate being evacuated.[21] This horrified pretty much every decent person in the country (and plenty of indecent ones) and resulted in the introduction of articles of impeachment against Trump yet again, this time for incitement of insurrection.[22] On the bright side, Trump's iron grip on the party seems to have loosened somewhat, with most congressional Republicans voting to certify the election for Biden, and a small but growing number of Republicans calling for his impeachment or resignation.
* 2022 - what was supposed to be a comfortable red wave for Republicans became a historically catastrophic midterms for them. Sure, they end up taking the House, but only extremely narrowly. It may have to do with their Republicans' pet (arguably illegitimate) Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade motivated some seriously pissed off voters, especially younger ones, who were probably already weary of the dreadful Trump circus. Do the Republicans use their newly gained House for helping Americans? Of course not, are you crazy?
* 2023 - Chaos reigns in the House as the Republicans split into dueling factions; the Freedom Caucus earns the nickname "the Dysfunction Caucus"[23] due to their repeated temper tantrums hijacking the Republican legislative agenda.[24] Kevin McCarthy is elected speaker in January, but only after 15 rounds of voting (the most since the Civil War), multiple concessions to the "Freedom" Caucus (including one that allowed one sole lawmaker to file a "motion to vacate"), and a near-fistfight breaking out on the House floor between McCarthy arch-nemesis and accused sex offender Matt Gaetz and Rep. Mike Rogers.[25][26][27] As in 2011 and 2013, "Freedom" Caucus extremists then tried to use an arcane procedure called the debt ceiling to hold the government hostage and demand steep budget cuts (that would never have passed the Democrat-led Senate and Biden), else the United States would "default" on its debt.[28] After several months, saner Republicans negotiated with Biden and the Democrats to create a compromise bill with some concessions to both sides and a two year debt ceiling freeze. This passed the House by a large margin, with more Democrat than Republican support, but infuriated the "Freedom" Caucus.[29] Next, in a similar manner to successful maneuvers in 1995, 2013, and 2018, the "Freedom" Caucus, demanding the same steep unworkable spending cuts, refused to pass a government budget, potentially risking a government shutdown. Rather than risk this, which historically has hurt the Republicans at the polls,[30] McCarthy helped orchestrate the passage of a "continuing resolution" that "kicked the budget can" to November 2023; this easily passed the House and the Senate, with nearly everyone except the "Freedom" Caucus hardliners voting in favor.[31] Gaetz was pissed off that the Freedom Caucus "hostage-taking" plans weren't working out for them, so he orchestrated a "motion to vacate" vote on McCarthy. In a historic first, by a 216-210 vote, McCarthy was booted from the Speaker role on October 3.[27] This resulted in 3 weeks of embarrassing speaker-less infighting in the House in October.[32] Finally, on October 25, Mike Johnson was elected as the speaker.[33] However, in November 2023, he once again had to rely on Democratic support to pass a resolution that "kicked the budget can" until early 2024. Even with the new speaker, tensions were high, with both extremist "Freedom" Caucus Republicans and Republicans from more moderate districts saying that they "had enough" of the other side's shit.[34]

## Modern factions[edit]

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.[35][36]

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).[37]
* 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 "own the libs".

## No longer party of civil rights[edit]

What the Southern Strategy leads to.

Map of the 1964 Presidential Election, notable for being the first election after the Civil Rights Act, which Johnson signed into law and Goldwater opposed.

Didn't the South use to be Democratic?[38] 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:

1. Dixiecrats and some Republicans associated with the Abolitionist movement
2. 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.[39][40] 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).[41] 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 Estes Kefauver) 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.[42] 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.[43][note 4] King's dad endorsed Kennedy in 1960,[46] 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.”[47]

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,[48] and Johnson was similarly hostile to the man despite his support for Civil Rights.[49] 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[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Military-industrial complex

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.[50] Some see a pivot East, and having China as a strategic partner against Russia is a sensible way forward.[51] 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.[52][note 5]

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 Wars[53] 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.[54] Eisenhower also campaigned on bringing in end to the Korean War,[55] attempting to convince the American public that there was a middle ground existed between the "unpopular domestically"[56] 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."[57] 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.[58][note 6] The 1968 Presidential Election also saw anti-Vietnam candidates such as Eugene McCarthy[59] and Robert F. Kennedy[60] 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.[61][note 7]

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 1972[63] along with many Republicans becoming villains of the anti-war movement[note 8] continued to create this dichotomy.

## Family values positioning, traditionalism, anti-abortion[edit]

See the main articles on this topic: Kinder, Küche, Kirche and Pro-life

“”If Planned Parenthood wants to be involved in providing counseling services and HIV testing, they ought not be in the business of providing abortions. As long as they aspire to do that, I’ll be after them.

—Mike "Deus Vult" Pence,[64] who thinks HIV is a useful deterrent[65]

Women make up just 9% of elected Republican members of Congress in 2016, which is down from 11% in 2006.[66]

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),[67] banning birth control, and ratfucking Planned Parenthood.[68] Don't forget their crusade to destroy the social safety net.[69] (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 Violence Against Women Act, 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).[70][71] 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 "boyfriend loophole").[72] "Gun rights for wife-beaters" is a winning slogan, right?

### From ERA to "Get back in the kitchen"[edit]

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 Equal Rights Amendment was first proposed in 1923, three years after the 19th Amendment guaranteed women the right to vote. While the text of the ERA varied over the decades, the goal remained the same: ensuring that women and men have equal rights under the law. In 1940, the Republican Party became the first major party to endorse the amendment in its platform. Through 1976, the GOP continued to call for the ratification of the ERA in every presidential election cycle save two: 1964 and 1968.

> Over those decades, prominent Republicans across the country, including three presidents, pledged their support for the measure. Dwight Eisenhower became the first president to advocate for the ERA’s passage in a 1957 message to Congress. Richard Nixon also endorsed the ERA throughout his career, from his early years as a senator to his two terms as Eisenhower’s vice president to his five years in the White House. In a letter to then-Republican Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott sent days before a key vote, Nixon wrote that “throughout twenty-one years I have not altered my belief that equal rights for women warrant a Constitutional guarantee – and I therefore continue to favor the enactment of the Constitutional Amendment to achieve this goal.” Another Republican, Gerald Ford, played a crucial role in the ERA’s passage during his tenure as house minority leader, and he continued to voice his support for ratification during his brief tenure in the Oval Office.[73]

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.[74] 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.[75][note 9]

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."[77] The article goes on to note:

> Beginning in 1972 with Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign, Republicans began actively trying to recruit historically Democratic Roman Catholic voters. Soon thereafter, they started working to mobilize conservative Evangelical voters. This effort coincided with the Evangelicals’ conversion into strident abortion opponents, though they were generally in favor of the modest liberalization of abortion laws until the late 1970s. All these trends culminated in the adoption of a militantly anti-abortion platform plank in the 1980 Republican National Convention that nominated Reagan for president. The Gipper said he regretted his earlier openness to relaxed abortion laws. Reagan’s strongest intraparty rival was George H.W. Bush, the scion of a family with a powerful multigenerational connection to Planned Parenthood. He found it expedient to renounce any support for abortion rights before launching his campaign.[77]

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.[78]:53-54 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,[note 10] wrote the following in 1977:

> Politicians argue for abortion largely because they do not want to spend the necessary money to feed, clothe and educate more people. Here arguments for in-convenience and economic savings take precedence over arguments for human value and human life. I read recently where a politician from New York was justifying abortion because they had prevented 10,000 welfare babies from being born and saved the state $15 million. In my mind serious moral questions arise when politicians are willing to pay welfare mothers between $300 to $1000 to have an abortion, but will not pay $30 for a hot school lunch program to the already born children of these same mothers.[80]

## Big government with small government pretenses[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Reaganism

Face of a handsome devil, mind of a racist plutocrat.

“”The policies Republicans loathed were actually quite popular. So, to garner support for their attack on an activist government, they turned to a mythological narrative that drew on America’s long history of racism and sexism. They won voters not by convincing them of the merits of returning to a world in which businessmen ran the country, but rather by insisting that taxes redistributed wealth from hardworking white people to lazy minorities and feminists who wanted abortions on demand.

—Heather Cox Richardson, historian[81]

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[edit]

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."[82]:199-200[note 11] They'd be insane to go near that again, no matter how much the Boy Wonder from Wisconsin loves the idea.[84]

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[edit]

One of their favorite Boogymen.

“”A lot of us woke up every morning thinking about how to kick Obama, who could say the harshest thing about Obama on the air. We ended up where any hint of nuance or maturity just proved you were incapable of being the bull in the china shop that our voters wanted.

—Ed Rogers, Republican "mega-lobbyist"[85]

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.[86] The $770b infrastructure program Obama passed (with only 1 GOP representative voting yes) had $330b in tax breaks and credits.[87] [88] In the words of former Republican Senator George Voinovich "If [Obama] was for it we had to be against it."[89]

Although many laugh at how ridiculous the meme is,[90][91][92] 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.[93] So, quite reasonably, the GOP thinks there are a few more drives left in the old jalopy.[94][95]

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.[96]

### Penis envy[edit]

Supporting dictators like Putin, Assad, Duterte, and Kim is an important part of being a small government conservative.[97][98][99][100] 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.[101] 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.[102][103]

Trump's views on NATO and the UN are one of the most dangerous things about his presidency.[104] 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.[105][106] The word for this sort of caper is "corruption".[107]

### Live free or die[edit]

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.[108]

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 environment[109] (a congressman 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.[110] 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.[111] Tangible, local improvements in life don't matter in elections anymore.

### Party of No[edit]

“”His insight was that the way you beat Obama is by grinding things to a halt, which would hurt the Democrats more because they were the party in the White House and the party of government, and because it would undermine Obama's whole comity shtick. Which paid off beyond McConnell's wildest dreams by now electing someone who fed off voter anger with Washington dysfunction.

—Alec MacGillis[112]

Since 9/11, the parties controlling Congress have gradually pushed the envelope of obstructionism. When one party does it, that sets a precedent for the other party to do it, and they usually go beyond the precedent. So over time, obstructionism in Congress just gets worse and worse, and due to gerrymandered Congressional districts, 90% of Congressmen are more worried about their primaries than their general elections. Obstructionism is rewarded, compromise punished.[113]

After 2000, the Bush-McCain wing of the party ballooned the national debt to its highest level in American history. Their successor, Barack Obama,(not a Republican) sought to clean up their mess by cutting the deficit by two-thirds. Since them, the GOP has done everything in its power to become known as the "Party of No":[114]

* Trade Adjustment Assistance to retrain workers displaced by free trade: blocked by Republicans.[115][116]
* Proposed free community college program: blocked by Republicans.[117][118]
* Infrastructure Bill, proposing $60b on highway, rail, transit and airport improvements + $10 billion in seed money for infrastructure bank: blocked by Republicans[119][120]
* 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[121][122]

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.[123] 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.[124]

## The rise of support for authoritarianism and Trumpism[edit]

“”The so-called Christian Right, for one, just have a different agenda. And I think big business is worried about them: the C.E.O.s don't want that kind of fascism [...] these Newt Gingrich-types might go too far and start cutting down the parts of the state system that are welfare for them—which of course is totally unacceptable.

—Noam Chomsky[125]

“”They said I wasn’t born here. They said climate change is a hoax. They said that I was going to take everybody’s guns away [...] Donald Trump didn’t start it. He just did what he always did, which is slap his name on it, take credit for it, and promote it. That’s what he does.

—Barack Obama[126]

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.[127]

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 movement[128] 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.[129][130][131] 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.[132]

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.[133] (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.[134]

Republicans have recently rebranded themselves as a "worker's party" to deal with the shift toward automation and foreign labor.[135] 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.[136] "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.[137][138][139][140]

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…"[141] 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,[note 12] 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.[143][144] 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.[143] "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."[143] The turning point in the GOP rise in support for authoritarianism was likely the Tea Party movement, which began in earnest in 2009.[143][145] 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).[143] 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."[146][147]

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.[148]

## Ties to Mammon[edit]

A picture of a suitably ugly Mammon, like the soul of the GOP.

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. Jim Bunning.[149] Even some right-wing ministers encourage deceit.[150] 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).[151] And these people believe they deserve a place in heaven.

The GOP's decision to gut the Congressional Ethics Council was assumed to be due to then-untold planned Republican mischief.[152] [153] Come 2021, they'd be proven right.

## Comparison to other right-leaning political parties[edit]

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: Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, Indian National Congress 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)[edit]

Logo of the LDP.

See the main article on this topic: 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.[154] 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 Fumio Kishida, who is considered a RELATIVE moderate within the Japanese conservative camp, is also a member of the Nippon Kaigi.[note 13]

### People Power Party (South Korea)[edit]

Logo of the PPP

See the main article on this topic: People Power Party

PPP is the South Korean version of the Republican Party. They are notorious for defending the military dictatorship of the Park Chung-hee period. Moreover, like the GOP the PPP are extremely homophobic, transphobic, and antifeminist.[156][157]

Just as the GOP represents the interests of Wall Street, and not the people, the PPP represents the interests of Chaebol, not the people. Since 2022, Yoon Suk Yeol, now South Korea's president, has often been accused of being "K-Trump" (K 트럼프).

### Bharatiya Janata Party (India)[edit]

The BJP party symbol. Beware the prickly thorns.

See the main article on this topic: Bharatiya Janata Party

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[edit]

* Banking crisis and recession \- Happens too often when they are in power to be an accident.
* 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.[158]
* International Democrat Union
* Theocracy Watch
* A list of Hollywood Republicans
* 2016 Republican Party presidential nomination‎‎

## External links[edit]

* 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[edit]

1. ↑ In one of the strangest elections in US history. The Democratic Party split in two, with the southern and northern factions each running their own candidates. Also, ex-Whigs who disagreed with the Republican Party's stance on slavery created another party, the Constitutional Union Party. Lincoln won thanks to sweeping the North, Mid-West, and West Coast while the Democrats split their vote. Seriously, it was a mess. Check out the Wiki article about it.
2. ↑ In his first term, his VP was a Republican from Maine named Hannibal Hamlin. For his second term, he chose Democrat Andrew Johnson. Additionally, for his reelection in 1864, he essentially renamed his party as the National Union Party to help non-Republicans get over their hangups about voting for the evil Lincolnite Republican Party.
3. ↑ And happen it did.
4. ↑ For those confused as to why this would be unheard of in politics, remember that "Before passage of the Voting Rights Act, an estimated 23 percent of eligible Black voters were registered nationwide."[44] Given that black people had been around ten percent of the population in the United States throughout the twentieth century,[45] appealing to black people seemed pointless to most politicians given you were appealing to a small minority of the population, most of whom couldn't vote.
5. ↑ Shares in private prisons also went up 50%.
6. ↑ Given Johnson later escalated the Vietnam War anyway, a joke in Republican circles of the time was "They told me if I voted for Goldwater, he would get us into a war in Vietnam. Well, I voted for Goldwater and that's what happened."
7. ↑ This is not to say Republicans opposed to the Vietnam War didn't exist. George Romney, who infamously declared he had been "brainwashed" into supporting the conflict originally,[62] comes to mind. However, they failed to get nearly the success in the party as the anti-Vietnam Democrats did.
8. ↑ Examples include people like Henry Kissinger, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and basically everybody involved with the foreign policy of the George W. Bush Administration.
9. ↑ Reagan later followed through on this campaign promise through the nomination of Sandra Day O’Connor.[76]
10. ↑ A position he has since apologized for.[79]
11. ↑ Funnily enough, another Republican, Dwight Eisenhower, warned about doing exactly what Republicans attempted. He famously said "Should any political party attempt to abolish social security unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs you would not hear of that party again in our political history."[83]
12. ↑ "You're not aware of any effort to go back to the good old days of segregation by a legislative body, is that correct?" — Senator Lindsey Graham in 2020, claiming sarcasm, but blowing a dog whistle nonetheless.[142]
13. ↑ Kishida has a wrong historical revisionist perception, with South Koreans pressuring the German government to remove the Comfort women victim monument built in Berlin, Germany. Even the conservative nationalist LDP, as well as the main liberal opposition CDPJ, are backing the move.[155] Imagine Germany asking Japan to take down the Holocaust memorial.

## References[edit]

1. ↑ The Lincoln Project understands that Trump’s enablers must pay a price by Max Boot (July 22, 2020 at 12:12 p.m. PDT) The Washington Post.
2. ↑ Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem. by Thomas E. Mann & Norman J. Ornstein (April 27, 2012) The Washington Post.
3. ↑ "Thinking Dangerously in an Age of Political Betrayal" \- Fast Capitalism
4. ↑ 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
5. ↑ Jeff Lewis, Polarization in Congress. voteview.com, 20 January 2022.
6. ↑ "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.
7. ↑ United States presidential election of 1856
8. ↑ Impeachment Trial of President Andrew Johnson, 1868
9. ↑ Compromise of 1877
10. ↑ spoils system
11. ↑ Federal Budget Receipts and Outlays, UC Santa Barbara
12. ↑ How the politics of resentment created a crisis in conservatism, The Globe and Mail
13. ↑ The 'Emerging Democratic Majority' Isn't Assured—Unless the GOP Refuses to Change, The New Republic
14. ↑ Has the ‘Libertarian Moment’ Finally Arrived? ( ? Written by Robert Drauperaug. Published August 7, 2014. Archived from The NYT on 7 Sep 2014.
15. ↑ "Why the GOP Is So Extremist and Reactionary." By Rick Perlstein. Published December 16, 2013. Archived from Alternet.
16. ↑ Brian Merchant, The Most Anti-Science Congress in Recent History Is Now in Session. Vice, 15 January 2015.
17. ↑ Michael Van de Gailen, "Corporatism For the Win — Mark Levin Blasts Fox News for Attacking Ted Cruz", PJM
18. ↑ Will Drabold (July 10, 2017). "Senate Republicans’ health care bill “dead” — say Senate Republicans". Mic.
19. ↑ What’s McConnell Up to on the $2,000 Stimulus-Check Proposal? Intelligencer. 29 December 2020.
20. ↑ 'Trump heard on phone call urging Georgia officials to "find" enough votes to overturn presidential results. Melissa Quinn & Tim Perry, Jan. 4, 2021, CBS News
21. ↑ Senate evacuated, National Guard activated, person shot after pro-Trump protesters storm Capitol. NBC News.
22. ↑ Trump charged with impeachment count as FBI warns of armed protests. Lauren Gambino, Tom McCarthy, and David Smith 12 Jan, 2021, 'The Guardian
23. ↑ "Meet the House ‘Dysfunction Caucus’ Vexing Kevin McCarthy" by Katy Stech Ferek, Wall Street Journal, 2023 September 23
24. ↑ "House GOP tensions erupt as standoff hamstrings agenda" by Andrew Solender, Axios, 2023 June 7
25. ↑ "Kevin McCarthy elected US House Speaker after 15 rounds of voting" by Bernd Debusmann and Matt Murphy, BBC, 2023 January 7
26. ↑ "House speaker finally elected on 15th ballot — the most since before Civil War" by Caroline Linton, CBS News, 2023 January 7
27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 "Speaker McCarthy ousted in historic House vote, as scramble begins for a Republican leader" by Lisa Mascaro and Farnousha Miri, AP News, 2023 October 3
28. ↑ "Here’s what’s in the GOP bill to lift the U.S. debt limit" by Kevin Freking, Associated Press via PBS.org, 2023 April 26
29. ↑ "House Passes Debt Limit Bill in Bipartisan Vote to Avert Default" by Catie Edmondson, New York Times, 2023 June 2
30. ↑ "The GOP is in a very familiar shutdown position: Losing it badly" by Aaron Blake, Washington Post, 2019 January 23
31. ↑ "Government shutdown averted with little time to spare as Biden signs funding before midnight" by Lisa Mascaro, Kevin Freking and Stephen Groves, AP, 2023 October 1
32. ↑ "House Republicans' speaker fight is 'probably one of the most embarrassing things I've seen': McCaul" by Ayesha ali, ABC News, 2023 October 22
33. ↑ "Mike Johnson, a staunch Louisiana conservative, is elected House speaker as GOP moves past chaos" by Lisa Mascaro, Stephen Groves, Farnoush Amiri and Kevin Freking, AP News, 2023 October 25
34. ↑ "Senate Sends Biden Stopgap Funding Bill, Averting a Government Shutdown" by Carl Hulse and Catie Edmondson, New York Times, 2023 November 15
35. ↑ Creating More Inclusive Public Spaces: Structural Racism, Confederate Memorials, and Building for the Future (09.28.2022) Public Religion Research Institute.
36. ↑ 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.
37. ↑ "The Day the Tea Party Died" by Chris Cillizza, CNN, 2019 July 23
38. ↑ "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.)
39. ↑ 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.
40. ↑ 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.
41. ↑ "Is John Kerry A Liberal?" - Voteview. Published October 13, 2004.
42. ↑ Why Did Black Voters Flee The Republican Party In The 1960s?
43. ↑ John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Phone Call That Changed History
44. ↑ When Did African Americans Actually Get the Right to Vote?
45. ↑ African-American Population
46. ↑ CAMPAIGN OF 1960
47. ↑ Was Martin Luther King, Jr., a Republican or a Democrat?
48. ↑ The FBI and Martin Luther King
49. ↑ Lyndon Johnson Was No Friend of Martin Luther King Jr.
50. ↑ 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).
51. ↑ Momani, Bessma, "Xi Jinping’s Davos Speech Showed the World Has Turned Upside Down", Newsweek (1/18/17 at 8:24 AM).
52. ↑ Carolina Valetkivich, Carolina, Trump's win propels defense stocks to all-time highs, Business Insider, November 2016.
53. ↑ The Return of the Isolationist Republicans
54. ↑ Supreme Commander Bids For Commander-in-Chief
55. ↑ Eisenhower and the Korean War
56. ↑ NSC-68 and the Korean War
57. ↑ Opposing Perspectives on the Vietnam War
58. ↑ How the “Daisy” Ad Changed Everything About Political Advertising
59. ↑ EUGENE MCCARTHY
60. ↑ Bobby Kennedy proposes plan to end the war
61. ↑ 1968 Democratic Convention
62. ↑ George Romney's 'Brainwashing' – 1967
63. ↑ George McGovern, An Improbable Icon Of Anti-War Movement
64. ↑ Segall, Eric, "Would Pence Be Better for America Than Trump?", Newsweek (10/10/16 at 9:20am).
65. ↑ "Mike Pence’s Response to H.I.V. Outbreak: Prayer, Then a Change of Heart" Written by Megan Twohey. Published Aug. 7, 2016. Archived from the NYT on March 7, 2023.
66. ↑ A bunch of men telling women what’s good for them. By Ophelia Benson. (Aug 7th, 2016) Archived from March 6, 2023.
67. ↑ Moyer, Justin Wm., "Texas high school with chlamydia outbreak has abstinence-only sex ed". Washington Post. Published 5.7.15.
68. ↑ Paquette, Danielle, "Creator of anti-Planned Parenthood videos faces felony charge", Washington Post. 1.25.16.
69. ↑ 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.
70. ↑ Jonathan Weisman (February 12, 2013). "Senate Votes Overwhelmingly to Expand Domestic Violence Act". The New York Times.
71. ↑ Adam Serwer (January 23, 2013). "In 2012, the House GOP Blocked the Violence Against Women Act. Will They Do It Again?". Mother Jones.
72. ↑ James Walker (March 18, 2021). "Full List of 172 Republicans Who Opposed the Violence Against Women Act". Newsweek.
73. ↑ Is the GOP Warming Up to the Equal Rights Amendment?
74. ↑ REAGAN’S LEGACY FOR WOMEN
75. ↑ Column: The architect of Reagan’s pledge to put a woman on the Supreme Court says it was all political
76. ↑ Reagan nominates first woman to high court, July 7, 1981
77. ↑ 77.0 77.1 How the GOP Abandoned Pro-choice Republicans
78. ↑ Reagan's Reign of Error by Mark Green and Gail MacColl
79. ↑ JACKSON'S REVERSAL ON ABORTION
80. ↑ How we respect life is the over-riding moral issue
81. ↑ Richardson, "The showdown that exposed the rift between Republican ideology and reality", Guardian (Last modified on 3/25/17 at 10:18 EDT).
82. ↑ The Truth (With Jokes) by Al Franken
83. ↑ Dwight D. Eisenhower > Quotes > Quotable Quote
84. ↑ Jennifer Haberkorn and Adam Cancryn, "GOP's Medicare plans run into wall in the Senate", Politico (12/02/16 05:06 AM EST).
85. ↑ Grunwald, Michael, "The Victory of ‘No’", Politico 12.4.16.
86. ↑ "Infrastructure Spending Deemed Most Important Trump Promise", Gallup 1.20.17.
87. ↑ 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.)
88. ↑ Berman, Russell, "Donald Trump's Big-Spending Infrastructure Dream", The Atlantic 8.9.16.
89. ↑ The Party of No: New Details on the GOP Plot to Obstruct Obama
90. ↑ McGough, Michael, "GOP blames Obama for flaws in a law he vetoed", LA Times (9/30/16 at 2:00PM).
91. ↑ 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).
92. ↑ Wemple, Erik, "‘Daily Show’s’ Jordan Klepper blows the lid off Trumpworld", Washington Post. Published 9.21.16.
93. ↑ Spinelli, Dan, "Benghazi victim's mother blames Clinton for son's death", Politico (07/18/16 08:44 PM EDT).
94. ↑ Sneed, Tierney, "McConnell: Americans 'Will Not Tolerate' Dems Blocking SCOTUS Nom", Talking Points Memo (1/4/17 at 3:20 PM EDT).
95. ↑ Balluck, Kyle, "Trump blames Obama for protests, leaks — 'He is behind it'", The Hill (02/28/17 07:00 AM EST).
96. ↑ The Hug That Killed My Republican Career
97. ↑ Tharoor, Ishaan, "Why U.S. conservatives love Russia’s Vladimir Putin", Washington Post. Published 9.25.14.
98. ↑ "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.
99. ↑ Rauhala, Emily, "Duterte: During phone call, Trump praised my drug war as the ‘right way’". Washington Post. Published 3 December 2016.
100. ↑ "TRUMP: You've got to give that 'maniac' in North Korea some credit" (by Colin Campbell. Published on 9 January, 2016)
101. ↑ 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.)
102. ↑ Blake, Aaron, "Vladimir Putin polls better with Republicans than Obama does. That’s not unprecedented.". Washington Post. Published 1.4.17.
103. ↑ Johnson, Jenna, "Mike Pence says it’s ‘inarguable’ that Putin is a stronger leader than Obama". Washington Post. Published 9.8.16.
104. ↑ Revesz, Rachael, "Donald Trump to sign executive order to dramatically reduce funding of United Nations", Independent (1/26/17 at 8:09 BST).
105. ↑ 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).
106. ↑ Rubin, Jennifer, "Trump’s Russia problem". Washington Post. Published 9.21.16.
107. ↑ Schindler, John R. "The Spy Revolt Against Trump Begins", Observer (02/12/17 10:00am).
108. ↑ Casselman, Ben, "Exploring the Iowa paradox: The Economy Is Better — Why Don’t Voters Believe It?", FiveThirtyEight (11/12/15 at 6:34 AM).
109. ↑ Gardner, Timothy, "U.S. coal miners applaud Republican axing of stream protections", Reuters (2 February 2017, 4:32pm EST).
110. ↑ Fonger, Ron, "Documents show Flint filed false reports about testing for lead in water", MLive (11/19/15 at 3:57 PM).
111. ↑ 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).
112. ↑ Jeff Stein, Mitch McConnell’s entire career has been about gaining power. What happens now that he has it?, Vox, 2 January 2017.
113. ↑ Milbank, Dana, "Republicans’ mindless obstruction has helped create something far worse". The Washington Post, 11 March 2016.
114. ↑ "Do Conservatives Have Any New Ideas?" By Noah Smith (May 28, 2014). Archived from Bloomberg View.
115. ↑ House Leaders Block Trade Adjustment Assistance" - AFL-CIO NOW. Published February 9, 2011. Archived from the original.
116. ↑ Sarah Blinder, Can a trade bargain be put back together again? The Washington Post, 16 June 2015.
117. ↑ "Senators block free community college amendment" \- The Hill. Written by Jordain Carney. Published 03/26/15 at 2:53 PM (EST).
118. ↑ "Can Obama’s community college plan get through Congress?" \- CNN. Written by Matthew Hoye and Jeremy Diamond. Published January 9, 2015.
119. ↑ Rosalind S. Helderman, Senate blocks $60 billion infrastructure plan, another part of Obama jobs bill. The Washington Post, 3 November 2011.
120. ↑ "Senate GOP blocks $60B Obama infrastructure plan" \- USA Today. Published Nov 11, 2011. Archived from the original.
121. ↑ "GOP senators block top Obama jobs initiative" \- CNN. Written by Ted Barret. Published July 19, 2012.
122. ↑ Ramsey Cox, Senate Republicans block bill to end tax breaks for outsourcing. The Hill, 30 July 2014.
123. ↑ Jonathan Turley, Five myths about impeachment. The Washington Post, 1 August 2014.
124. ↑ Drezner, Daniel, "The awesome destructive power of the next president". The Washington Post, 10 March 2016.
125. ↑ Chomsky, Understanding Power (2002)
126. ↑ This will help rile up the base (By Ophelia Benson (Oct 25th, 2016) archived from Butterflies and wheels March 7, 2023)
127. ↑ Senator Sanders' town hall with Trump voters, 53:30.
128. ↑ Harry Reid: "Sen. Harry Reid: American politics is currently just a war between billionaires", Raw Story. Published June, 2014.
129. ↑ Jonathan Chait, "Anarchists of the House", New York Magazine.
130. ↑ Thoma, Mark, "GOP Candidates Would Sacrifice the Social Safety Net for Tax Cuts ", The Fiscal Times. Published 3.22.16.
131. ↑ Drum, Kevin, "The Koch-Fueled Plot to Destroy the VA", Mother Jones (3/13/16 10:55 AM).
132. ↑ Mantyla, Kyle, "When Conservative Christians Take Control Of Government ('Oh, The Demons Shudder!')", Right Wing Watch (3/16/2015 12:31 pm).
133. ↑ 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.
134. ↑ Jeanne Cummings, "Dems accused of tea party tampering", Politico. Published August, 2010.
135. ↑ Gass, Nick, "Trump: GOP will become 'worker's party' under me", Politico. (05/26/16 07:44 AM EST).
136. ↑ 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).
137. ↑ Kurtzleben, Danielle, "Analysis: Trump Tax Plan Would Cost Trillions, Boost Incomes For The Rich", NPR. (9/19/2016 at 1:41 PM ET).
138. ↑ "Republican plans to cut corporate taxes may have unpleasant side-effects", The Economist. Published 12.17.16.
139. ↑ Cole, Alan, "Could Trump’s Corporate Rate Cut to 15 Percent be Self-Financing?", Tax Foundation, 25 April 2017.
140. ↑ Hennessey, Keith, "President Trump’s tax reform vs. his balanced budget", 23 May 2017.
141. ↑ 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.
142. ↑ Senator Lindsey Graham defends reference to 'the good old days of segregation,' claims he was being sarcastic: 'I want to assure the people of South Carolina, that statement was made with dripping sarcasm' by Chris Riotta (14 October 2020 19:03) The Independent.
143. ↑ 143.0 143.1 143.2 143.3 143.4 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.
144. ↑ New Global Data on Political Parties: V-Party by Anna Lührmann et al. (October 2020) V-Dem Institute.
145. ↑ Rage Grows in America: Anti- Government Conspiracies (November 2009) ADL.
146. ↑ "As 2022 Campaign Begins, GOP Voters Sour on Senate Republicans" \- Morning Consult. Published February 16, 2021.
147. ↑ "Sen. Mike Lee’s tweets against 'democracy,' explained" \- Vox. Written by Zack Beauchamp. Published Oct 8, 2020.
148. ↑ "Republicans closely resemble autocratic parties in Hungary and Turkey – study" \- The Guardian. Published October 26, 2020.
149. ↑ Is Sen. Jim Bunning's stand against unemployment extensions in line with his past votes?, CNN. Published March 2, 2010.
150. ↑ Michael J. Gaynor, THE DEVIL was the tempter and Jesus was NOT a deceiver. Archived from WEBcommentary, 7 July 2013.
151. ↑ Glenn Beck - Ignore Jesus & Be Selfish, Greedy. Archived from The Young Turks on YouTube, 9 March 2010.
152. ↑ Eric Lipton, With No Warning, House Republicans Vote to Gut Independent Ethics Office. Archived from The New York Times, 2 January 2017.
153. ↑ "It’s simple, we kill the Batman". - Pharyngula (3 January 2017). Archived from Freethought Blogs on March 7th, 2023.
154. ↑ Wesley Yee (January 2018). "Making Japan Great Again: Japan's Liberal Democratic Party as a Far Right Movement". The University of San Francisco.
155. ↑ https://www.seoul.co.kr/news/newsView.php?id=20230320004004
156. ↑ Da-min, J. (April 8, 2020). "Rival candidates slammed for 'biased' views on homosexuality". Korea Times. Retrieved July 4, 2020.
157. ↑ 이주엽 (2021, April 12) 젊은 이준석의 반페미니즘 (Young people Lee Jun-seok's anti-feminism) Hankook Ilbo Retrieved June 15, 2021
158. ↑ 61% of young Republicans favor same-sex marriage, Pew Research Center, March 10, 2014

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