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Thom's blog
Is it time to disband the Republican Party?
What's happened to the Republican Party?
Back on March 20, 1854, a group of abolitionists met in a small schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin, to fight back against the expansion of slavery. A couple months later in July of 1854, the Ripon group joined with thousands of other anti-slavery activists in Jackson, Michigan, and they formed what would be called the Republican Party.
The Republican Party was formed on strong anti-slavery sentiments, and, at least for its early history, did some good for our country and for the American people. In fact, the early Republican Party was pretty progressive. After all, it was the Republican Party that invented the income tax during the Civil War.
And by the end of the Civil War, the Republican Party had created a national banking system, established new taxation laws, and provided funding for schools and homes across America. Decades later, the party was still showing its progressive roots.
When he was president at the dawn of the 20th century, Republican Theodore Roosevelt railed against the wealthy elite, despising the, "small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power."
And it was the Republican Roosevelt who argued that America must have, "an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him."
Nearly 50 years after Teddy Roosevelt left The White House, Republican Dwight Eisenhower entered it. Eisenhower, like many of his Republican predecessors, had some progressivism in him.
Eisenhower supported increased government funding for schools and education, and even thought it was important for the government to fund roads, hospitals and other parts of America's infrastructure.
Imagine that!
Unfortunately, the days of Eisenhower's, Roosevelt's, and Lincoln's in the Republican Party are long gone, and so too are that party's progressive beginnings. What started out as a good idea in Ripon, Wisconsin and Jackson, Michigan has turned into a nightmare for America and for We The People.
-Thom
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