when did the GOP begin to suck?

[SwampG8r]

i am not as young as the general population here on du
if you are as old as i am you remember the pre reagan GOP
not a bunch of sweethearts but i never in my heart felt they were trying to actually hurt the american people
they too were dedicated to making the lives of common people better and easier
lincoln and roosevelt(teddy),frederick douglass.goldwater ,taft,clara barton and jackie robinson ike and dirkson
good people with good ideas and good hopes for americas future
but somewhere...somewhere they went wrong
they tasted power and it gave them a rush and like addicts after a fix, the worst of them took over
some of them found themselves with such flexible ethics as to be unable to stand up when the right time came
and they devolved into what we have now
very damn sad

[The Magistrate]

1. Unfortunately, Sir, Pretty Much Permanently....

Gen. Eisenhower was a brief interregnum of sanity, and it is true that northern Republicans were essential to passing the Civil Rights Act.

It is also true that Theodore Roosevelt was, taken as a whole, a beneficial and progressive influence.

Other then these, pretty much since the death of Lincoln and the failure to impeach Andrew Johnson, the Republican party has been pretty much worthless trash.

Do not be deceived, by the way, by the nostalgic glow spread nowadays over Mr. Goldwater. In his day he was a vicious reactionary, and championed by exactly the elements of the country that are now the tea-bagger mob.

[SwampG8r]

6. no problem with the bug

i thought you may have decided to rephrase and was thwarted by edit
anyways maybe the years are letting me remember them as less dangerous back then
i dont know they seem to have no resemblence to themselves at all

[joshcryer]

12. The Adulation of Goldwater is a Vile Thing to be Sure.

[TahitiNut]

14. That's about right.

The Democratic Part has suffered its own share of hapless fools, autocrats, and self-indulged materialists but not quite as downright evil as the GOP. In my view, the stiff-necked partisanship that our "political process" has engendered, resulting in two corporations monopolizing the entire political "industry," is the deal-with-the-devil that has led to protecting such scum within one's own 'party' rather than engaging in the needed periodic housecleaning and disinfection. Divided loyalties (party v. nation) and shifting principles (of convenience) lead to corruption.

The best I could hope for, given today's conditions, is the utter disintegration of the GOP and a schism in the Democratic Party that would lead to two (more 'progressive') replacement parties.

[BiggJawn]

20. The warm fuzzies toward Goldwater...

... are probably because the Party has moved so far to the extreme right that a former hard-right Bircher is now seen as a moderate.

Honestly, what else can you say about a party that considers Evan Bayh a "Liberal"?

[The Magistrate]

4. Sorry About The Bug, My Friend

It seemed things were not going through when I posted, so I tried again, and then again, and suddenly all three attempts came through at once.

[madrchsod]

5. most of the republicans before reagan would be conservative to moderate democrats now

even reagan would have a hard time getting on the ballot. jesus h christ look up romneys dad on wiki..he was a liberal republican .chuck percy in illinois was a liberal republican who ran a large corporation in illinois. ike would`t get past the first republican debate.

in those days they traded back and forth to get what they wanted or needed for the folks back home. today the republican`s have decided that system no longer applies. hell lbj had to twist dickerson`s arm for a civil rights vote but he got it done and dickerson has a federal building named after him.

[Drunken Irishman]

7. Since Taft became president...

Sure, you can find some sane moments since then, but on the whole, they've been pretty much shit since Taft took over for Roosevelt in 1909. So, basically, the past 100 years.

[coalition_unwilling]

8. 1865 - n/t

[sofa king]

25. Right you are.

With the death of Lincoln, his plans for a gentler Reconstruction died with him. So did Republican defense of civil rights. So did Republican fiscal responsibility.

U.S. Grant was one of our worst Presidents and the prototype for the scandalous, monolithic, entirely corrupt Republican regime was cast in stone.

By 1876, the GOP had graduated to election theft.

By 1893, they had wrecked the economy completely, twice.

The era of the "progressive Republican" lasted for the seven and a half years that Teddy Roosevelt was in office, and that is it. Four years after that, Roosevelt was running against Republicans and throwing the election to Woodrow Wilson.

By 1921, the Monopoly Republican was firmly entrenched, with its shills packing the Supreme Court, and the Republican party well on its way to wrecking the economy of the entire world in less than ten years.

After which they fought tooth and nail to reverse the public safety mechanisms which were put in place specifically to prevent Republicans from fucking things up again.

Which they successfully did starting in 1981 and steadily continuing to this day, when life is once again becoming solitary, poor, nasty brutish and short for all who fall beneath the contempt of Republican leadership--which is all of us.

Fear. Uncertainty. Racism. Corruption. For a nearly unbroken streak of 145 years. That is what the Republican Party has been since the day Lincoln died.

[modestybl]

26. Nothing more to add to that litany

[DFW]

9. Right after Teddy Roosevelt.

There hasn't been a great Republican president since.

[oldhippydude]

10. actually Eisenhower was drafted as a republican... but Democrats were after him also..

check out some of his views.. his famous quote on the military industrial complex, his views on social security.. he would be considered liberal today.. keep in mind however he was the first post new deal republican..

Nixon started the rightward trend.. with his "southern strategy", Reagan mainstreamed conservatism, and W brought along the Christian fascists

[Skittles]

11. REAGAN MADE GREED AND STUPIDITY FASHIONABLE

AMERICA HAS NEVER RECOVERED

[LeftishBrit]

13. Originally in 1876...

when they got the Democrats to accept a stolen election with particular misrepresentation of the Florida vote (sounds familiar?) in return for accepting the 'rights' of the former confederate states to discriminate against the former slaves.

But there continued to be some liberal Republicans until quite recently. I think the further rot started with Ronnie Reagan, pushing the party way to the right, as Maggie Thatcher did with the Tories in the UK. And anyone liberal or even vaguely moderate seems to have ended up being deselected, or persuaded to retire.

[alphafemale]

15. Nixon started the EPA and supported the ERA.

But then again he was NIxon.

But that was mental illness run amuck more than anything.

Eisenhower was great as was Teddy Roosevelt and there's Lincoln. So I can't go with "Always"

Reagan and Bush Daddy were pretty horrid. But a President Mondale or Bobble Head Dukakis...really?

The GOP became to represent a wretched Fascist state when they politicized the Supreme Court. Election 20000.

[alphafemale]

17. If the votes HAD been counted.

Gore won Florida.

[bupkus]

18. Nixon created the DEA too, by executive order

And the failed "War on Drugs". I've been praying for a leader who will end the DEA by executive order ever since. And the ridiculous "War on Drugs" along with it.

[alphafemale]

19. Yeah. That's pretty racist.

White people rarely go to jail on drug charges.

People of color almost always do.

[bupkus]

16. I believe the GOP always basically sucked but

It really began to suck big time with Nixon's Southern Strategy that migrated the former Southern Democrats (Dixiecrats) to the Republican Party in a move designed to divide and conquer based on the worst human and political traits. That's just my opinion based on watching U.S. politics for sixty years.

[Mopar151]

21. They have swung back and forth, chasing voters and money

The BFEE and their followers have had a lot to do with this - but they have trended very strongly toward suckitude since the Nixon (a Prescott Bush protoge') "southern strategy" showed them how to round up single issue reactionaries and turn them into voting blocks. The effects of Rove and Norquist's methodoligies have driven most reasonable and decent Republicans away, particularly at the national level. The effects of the Tea Baggers and ALEC is rapidly doing similar things at the state level.

[David__77]

22. 1870, or so...

It wasn't in the lifetime of any person living today.

[apnu]

23. In my lifetime? St. Ronnie of Ray-gun (nt)

[dennis4868]

24. Was Jackie Robinson....

a Republican?

[SwampG8r]

35. yes he was but remember

at the time the men blocking the schoolhouse doors were democrats
i would think aa voters were represented in average numbers in the gop until the 60's when they fought civil rights legislation and defaulted on any commitments to minority voters

[Lemmy]

27. Two words: Ronald Reagan

He turned the power over to the corporate interests, and it all went downhill from there. Once they figured out that it was easy to win elections by dividing the people on social issues, the money flowed from the poor to the rich at a greater rate than ever before and continues to this day.

[lastlib]

28. Oh, about 1880.....

...or whenever they started protecting robber barons, and not "We The People"....

[just1voice]

31. Excellent answer

That is a historical fact.

[fujiyama]

29. The GOP has been, for the past hundred years or so

the party of big business and powerful corporate interests.

Personally, I think with the end of TR, progressive politics died in the GOP. This isn't to say the Democratic party has been completely innocent. It was really not until the FDR coalition that the Democratic party became the real party for working men and women, as well as a more welcome home for African Americans. Before FDR (and even during it), the party's record on civil rights was not at all impressive. To keep Southern Democrats happy civil rights were not acted upon for around a hundred years after reconstruction.

The last republican administration to make any effort to appeal to African Americans was Richard Nixon, who was actually also a proponent of civil rights as both a Senator and as Vice President under Eisenhower (who actually expanded Social Security). Goldwater's campaign provided the seed for the conservative movement after Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law but Nixon (while harboring some progressive leanings) was also a political animal and knew that the South could be peeled away by appealing to its own worst instincts. I think the rest is history. Ford is barely a footnote and eventually Reagan capitalized on the success and also appealed to the emerging radical religious right movement as well...

[grantcart]

30. Actually there is a very clear demarcation line.

When they adopted the "Southern Strategy".

The party of Lincoln decided to use Civil Rights as a wedge issue in order to take the large group of Democrats in the South who were against full equal rights.

They massaged their fears and they threw away any pretense of the national interest.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

32. Begin?!? n/t

[Rosa Luxemburg]

33. The GOP has always sucked

[provis99]

34. right after Abraham Lincoln got shot.

[SwampG8r]

36. other than that mrs lincoln...

how was the play?
question posed if 1865 media was as stupid as 2012 media

[scheming daemons]

37. 1865... financial matters... 1965... social matters

After 1865, they began to become the party of the well-to-do and the robber barons.

After 1965, they swallowed up all the ex-Dixiecrats and became the party of the bigots.

[mikekohr]

39. Republicans have not had a new idea in 40 years or a good idea in a 150.

nt

[LiberalFighter]

38. Too many of today's Republicans were working in the Reagan nest in one form or another.

Mitch Daniels, Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich

Along with the xtian right taking over the Republican Party consisting of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and others.

[struggle4progress]

40. I considered them a bunch of stinking rotters back in the Nixon years

though they've regularly continued to fall in my opinion since then