The Party of Lincoln

Daniel Larison posts an excellent piece on the Party of Lincoln

Serious conservatives of old (and some still around today) frequently disparaged Father Abraham and rejected the politics that he represented; to the extent that the GOP really was always the Party of Lincoln, conservatives are hard-pressed to ever find a real place in it, since our tradition via the Agrarians and Bradford ties us to the Antifederalists, Jeffersonian Republicans, Southern Democrats and Populists.  At each stage of our history, the revolutionary forces of consolidation wanted to transform and do violence to the settled order of American life and sought to damage the constitutional order as well.  At each stage serious conservatives opposed them and their works, whether it was the Bank, the American System, internal improvements, Yankee imperialism or post-War overseas empire and the corrupt rule of the moneyed interest. 

It is amazing that so few folks actually realize these facts, particularly the Reagan Republicans in the South that still to this day so fervently support the GOP.

The Red Republicans of today could only dream of the sort of dominance the real ”Lincoln Republicans” had after the War of Secession.  To say that those people had no “ideology” or ideas is untrue–their idea was an energetic central government working in tandem with corporations towards a nationalist goal of consolidated, quasi-democratic, quasi-oligarchic government in a united, integrated nation-state.

Of course I have discussed before that two key elements in the rise of fascism are; a strong central government, corporatism. If you add nationalism, socialism and militarism to the mix you have all the ingredients required to bake up tyranny - wait we do have all of that all we need now is a Reichstag fire (real or contrived).

It was only ten years ago that Bob Dole lectured us about how the GOP was the Party of Lincoln and anybody who didn’t like it could get out right now....Lincoln was certainly no conservative or, if he was a conservative, I would not want to have anything to do with such a conservatism. 

Amen to that, amazing how folks that talk about the numerous failings of Lincoln and how he and his ideology was distinctly un-American are labeled all sorts of nefarious things.

Those areas in the South and West dominated by more conservative, “Reagan Republicans” are more likely to remain loyal to the GOP because these people remain convinced that there is some basic harmony between the party and conservatism, when the party’s history and its interests tell a very different story. 

Sad but true, and thus there is much truth to Johnnie's statement that Voting is Stupid, perhaps only People are Stupid.