#Radical Republicans

[deadpresidents]

"Johnson is an insolent, drunken brute in comparison with which Caligula's horse was respectable."

-- Senator Charles Sumner (R-Massachusetts) on President Andrew Johnson

#History #Presidents #Andrew Johnson #President Johnson #Vice Presidents #Presidential History #Quotes About Presidents #Quotes #Charles Sumner #Senator Sumner #Reconstruction #Politics #Political History #Political Leaders #Political Rivalries #Radical Republicans #Civil War #Assassination of Abraham Lincoln #Lincoln Assassination #Inauguration of Andrew Johnson #Impeachment of Andrew Johnson #Johnson Impeachment #Political Feuds #Presidency #Congress #U.S. Senate

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Clay Jones

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 29, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

DEC 29, 2023

When asked at a town hall on Wednesday to identify the cause of the United States Civil War, presidential candidate and former governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley answered that the cause “was basically how government was going to run, the freedoms, and what people could and couldn’t do…. I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are…. And I will always stand by the fact that, I think, government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people.”

Haley has correctly been lambasted for her rewriting of history. The vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens of Georgia, was quite clear about the cause of the Civil War. Stephens explicitly rejected the idea embraced by U.S. politicians from the revolutionary period onward that human enslavement was “wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically.” Instead, he declared: “Our new government is founded upon…the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition.” 

President Joe Biden put the cause of the Civil War even more succinctly: “It was about slavery.” 

Haley has been backpedaling ever since—as well as suggesting that the question was somehow a “gotcha” question from a Democrat, as if it was a difficult question to answer—but her answer was not simply bad history or an unwillingness to offend potential voters, as some have suggested. It was the death knell of the Republican Party.

That party formed in the 1850s to stand against what was known as the Slave Power, a small group of elite enslavers who had come to dominate first the Democratic Party and then, through it, the presidency, Supreme Court, and Senate. When northern Democrats in the House of Representatives caved to pressure to allow enslavement into western lands from which it had been prohibited since 1820, northerners of all political stripes recognized that it was only a question of time until elite enslavers took over the West, joined with lawmakers from southern slave states, overwhelmed the northern free states in the House of Representatives, and made enslavement national. 

So in 1854, after Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act that allowed the spread of enslavement into previously protected western lands, northerners abandoned their old parties and came together first as “anti-Nebraska” coalitions and then, by 1856, as the Republican Party. 

At first their only goal was to stop the Slave Power, but in 1859, Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln articulated an ideology for the new party. In contrast to southern Democrats, who insisted that a successful society required leaders to dominate workers and that the government must limit itself to defending those leaders because its only domestic role was the protection of property, Lincoln envisioned a new kind of government, based on a new economy.

Lincoln saw a society that moved forward thanks not to rich people, but to the innovation of men just starting out. Such men produced more than they and their families could consume, and their accumulated capital would employ shoemakers and storekeepers. Those businessmen, in turn, would support a few industrialists, who would begin the cycle again by hiring other men just starting out. Rather than remaining small and simply protecting property, Lincoln and his fellow Republicans argued, the government should clear the way for those at the bottom of the economy, making sure they had access to resources, education, and the internal improvements that would enable them to reach markets. 

When the leaders of the Confederacy seceded to start their own nation based in their own hierarchical society, the Republicans in charge of the United States government were free to put their theory into practice. For a nominal fee, they sold farmers land that the government in the past would have sold to speculators; created state colleges, railroads, national money, and income taxes; and promoted immigration. 

Finally, with the Civil War over and the Union restored on their terms, in 1865 they ended the institution of human enslavement except as punishment for crime (an important exception) and in 1868 they added the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution to make clear that the federal government had power to override state laws that enforced inequality among different Americans. In 1870 they created the Department of Justice to ensure that all American citizens enjoyed the equal protection of the laws.

In the years after the Civil War, the Republican vision of a harmony of economic interest among all Americans quickly swung toward the idea of protecting those at the top of society, with the argument that industrial leaders were the ones who created jobs for urban workers. Ever since, the party has alternated  between Lincoln’s theory that the government must work for those at the bottom and the theory of the so-called robber barons, who echoed the elite enslavers’ idea that the government must protect the wealthy. 

During the Progressive Era, Theodore Roosevelt reclaimed Lincoln’s philosophy and argued for a strong government to rein in the industrialists and financiers who dominated society; a half-century later, Dwight Eisenhower followed the lead of Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt and used the government to regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, promote infrastructure, and protect civil rights. 

After each progressive president, the party swung toward protecting property. In the modern era the swing begun under Richard Nixon gained momentum with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Since then the party has focused on deregulation, tax cuts, privatization, and taking power away from the federal government and turning it back over to the states, while maintaining that market forces, rather than government policies, should drive society. 

But those ideas were not generally popular, so to win elections, the party welcomed white evangelical Christians into a coalition, promising them legislation that would restore traditional society, relegating women and people of color back to the subservience the law enforced before the 1950s. But it seems they never really intended for that party base to gain control.

The small-government idea was the party’s philosophy when Donald Trump came down the escalator in June 2015 to announce he was running for president, and his 2017 tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy indicated he would follow in that vein. But his presidency quickly turned the Republican base into a right-wing movement loyal to Trump himself, and he was both eager to get away from legal trouble and impeachments and determined to exact revenge on those who did not do his bidding. The power in the party shifted from those trying to protect wealthy Americans to Trump, who increasingly aligned with foreign autocrats.

That realignment has taken off since Trump left office in 2021 and his base wrested power from the party’s former leaders. Leaders in Trump’s right-wing movement have increasingly embraced the concept of “illiberal democracy” or “Christian democracy” as articulated by Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin or Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán, who has demolished Hungary’s democracy and replaced it with a dictatorship. On the campaign trail lately, Trump has taken to echoing Putin and Orbán directly.

Those leaders insist that the equality at the heart of democracy destroys a nation by welcoming immigrants, which undermines national purity, and by treating women, minorities, and LGBTQ+ people as equal to white, heteronormative men. Their focus on what they call “traditional values” has won staunch supporters among the right-wing white evangelical community in the U.S.

Ironically, MAGA Republicans, whose name comes from Trump’s promise to “Make America Great Again,” want the United States of America, one of the world’s great superpowers, to sign onto the program of a landlocked country of fewer than 10 million people in central Europe.

MAGA’s determination to impose white Christian nationalism on the United States of America is a rejection of the ideology of the Republican Party in all its phases. Rather than either an active government that defends equal rights and opportunity or a small government that protects property and relies on market forces, which Republicans stood for as recently as eight years ago, today’s Republicans advocate a strong government that imposes religious rules on society. 

They back strict abortion bans, book bans, and attacks on minorities and LGBTQ+ people. Last year, Florida governor Ron DeSantis directly used the state government to threaten Disney into complying with his anti-LGBTQ+ stance rather than reacting to popular support for LGBTQ+ rights. Missouri attorney general Andrew Bailey early this month used the government to go after political opposition, launching an investigation into Media Matters for America after the watchdog organization reported that the social media platform X was placing advertising next to antisemitic content. “I’m fighting to ensure progressive tyrants masquerading as news outlets cannot manipulate the marketplace in order to wipe out free speech,” Bailey said. 

Domestically, the new ideology of MAGA means forcing the majority to live under the rules of a small minority; internationally, it means support for a global authoritarian movement. MAGA Republicans’ current refusal to fund Ukraine’s war against Russian aggression until the administration agrees to draconian immigration laws—which they are also refusing to participate in crafting—is not only a gift to Putin. It also suggests to any foreign government that U.S. foreign policy is changeable so long as a foreign government succeeds in influencing U.S. lawmakers. Under this system, American global leadership will no longer be viable.

When Nikki Haley said the cause of the Civil War “was how government was going to run, the freedoms, and what people could and couldn’t do,” she did more than avoid the word “slavery” to pander to MAGA Republicans who refuse to recognize the role of race in shaping our history. She rejected the long and once grand history of the Republican Party and announced its death to the world. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#GOP #Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #history #Republican Party #Radical Republicans #extremism #authoritarianism #white supremism

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

want some positive world news? yesterday, in a truly historic moment, Colombia elected its first left-wing president. after 20 years of far-right rule, the traditionally conservative country has elected the remarkably progressive candidate Gustavo Petro (and his running mate Francia Márquez, who will be the first black woman to serve as the country's Vice President!)

for context, imagine if the U.S. had successfully elected Bernie Sanders (after 20 years of republican presidents). that's how big a deal this is. amidst a dangerous global rise in conservatism, this is an enormous win and a cause for hope.

#not a shitpost #also I love that Francia Marquez got elected on Juneteenth #THAT is how you celebrate Juneteenth #i've been watching this election closely and i almost cried when the results came in #and to my american followers: VOTE IN THE FUCKING MIDTERMS #hurry up and sign up to vote by mail i am glaring at you #the last fucking thing we need is republicans gaining seats #that will directly affect what legislation does and does not make it through #it's already difficult enough to pass anything borderline progressive in this hellforsaken country let's not make it WORSE ok #repeat after me: voting is damage control #it does not erase the extreme need for radical and systemic change but it is damage. control. #it is the FIRST STEP not the last

[republikkkanorcs]

#Republican insanity #republican assholes #never trump #maga morons #traitor trump #crooked donald #republican hypocrisy #republicans radicalize rural poor people

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Republicans have no honor, no dignity, no class, no morals…..

#republican assholes #traitor trump #crooked donald #republican values #traitor #republican hypocrisy #resist #Republicans have no honor #alejandro mayorkas #dhs boss impeached by radical republican traitors

[booasaur]

April 6, 2023 - Representative Justin Pearson speaking before he and another Black Democrat are expelled from the Tennessee State House for joining a protest against gun violence, days after six people were killed at a Tennessee school

#justin pearson #tennessee #us politics #gun control #he was so good #so was jones #the republicans are really just showing who they are and radicalizing more and more people #especially the youth #and helping propel charismatic effective orators like these two to the national stage #where they'll reach even more people #just sucks that literally part of this inspiration is a consequence of the massive racism they face

[futurebird]

Super duper extra-spicy double-plus hot crossed buns radical left

As a very woke radical leftist I'm beyond tired of hearing people like … Joe Biden and federal prosecutors(???) called "radical leftists."

They did not. They are not. They did not earn that title! That is mine! We are NOT the same OK?

Anyway, on the bright side, when real radical leftists start showing up what are the republicans gonna call us? "Super duper extra spicy double plus hot crossed buns radical left?" You spent your biggest move! You've got nowhere more shocking to go!

#radical left #leftist #anarchist #woke #us politics #republicans #politics

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

“I was particularly interested in the part of the book where you dive into the phenomenon of “conspirituality,” the combination of conspiracy theory and spirituality. You cite an article in which two social historians make the case that people are drawn to such thinking because they want to be part of a secret that “distinguishes them and makes them feel superior to the unenlightened public.””

#republican assholes #far right extremism #conspiracy theorists #toxic misconceptions #misinformation disinformation #radicalization #republican hypocrisy #traitor trump #crooked donald #maga morons

[tomorrowusa]

Ohio voters handed anti-abortion Republicans a stinging defeat. Those voters approved Issue 1 which puts reproductive freedom into the Ohio Constitution. The just passed amendment also protects the right to contraception and fertility treatment.

Results are still coming in. But with 85% of the votes counted, about 55.5% of Ohioans voted to protect reproductive freedom. And most of the remaining uncounted votes come from large urban counties which approved Issue 1 with over 65% of the vote.

Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment on Tuesday that ensures access to abortion and other forms of reproductive health care, the latest victory for abortion rights supporters since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. Ohio became the seventh state where voters decided to protect abortion access after the landmark ruling and was the only state to consider a statewide abortion rights question this year. The outcome of the intense, off-year election could be a bellwether for 2024, when Democrats hope the issue will energize their voters and help President Joe Biden keep the White House. Voters in Arizona, Missouri and elsewhere are expected to vote on similar protections next year. Ohio’s constitutional amendment, on the ballot as Issue 1, included some of the most protective language for abortion access of any statewide ballot initiative since the Supreme Court’s ruling. Opponents had argued that the amendment would threaten parental rights, allow unrestricted gender surgeries for minors and revive “partial birth” abortions, which are federally banned. Before the Ohio vote, statewide initiatives in California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont had either affirmed abortion access or turned back attempts to undermine the right. Issue 1 specifically declared an individual’s right to “make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions,” including birth control, fertility treatments, miscarriage and abortion.

It's a great victory for women and freedom in general. And it's a bad omen for GOP prospects in 2024.

Donald Trump carried Ohio both in 2016 and 2020. But the Republican insistence on controlling women's bodies will probably hurt the party there and elsewhere. And any attempt by the GOP to moderate its stand on abortion will result in major pushback by radical fundamentalist Christians who would like to return to the societal standards of the 17th century.

#ohio #issue 1 #reproductive freedom #abortion #a woman's right to choose #roe v. wade #dobbs v. jackson women's health organization #republicans #anti-abortion extremists fail again #radical fundamentalist christians lose #defeat for republicans #election 2023 #election 2024

[thefemalejoker42069]

I think we can all agree that the trans movement is the patriarchy on crack, but please don’t let the right use it to get you to support them in any capacity.

Opposing the trans movement from a feminist perspective is not the same as opposing it from a traditional conservative perspective. The religious right agrees with child marriage, forced birth, lowering the age of consent, women being kicked from the workplace, oppression of racial minorities, women not being able to vote, etc. They are absolutely not interested in protecting us or liberating us from oppression. They’ve made it perfectly clear throughout history that women and girls are disposable to them.

They are using the blatant absurdity of the trans movement to try and get women’s support, just so that they can throw us under the bus at their earliest convenience. Don’t fall for it.

#radblr #radical feminism #radical feminists please touch #I’ve seen ppl say they’re voting Republican just to oppose TRAs #radical feminist community #radical feminists do interact #gender critical #terfblr #this was inspired by a Twitter space I was in about the term terf

[deadpresidents]

"If there are any two men in the Country whose opposition and hatred are a certificate of good character and sound Statesmanship they are [Roscoe] Conkling and [Benjamin F.] Butler. I enjoy the satisfaction of being fully endorsed by the hatred and opposition of both of these men."

-- President Rutherford B. Hayes, on his Radical Republican political rivals -- Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York and former Congressman Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts -- in a personal diary entry, January 16, 1881

#History #Rutherford B. Hayes #President Hayes #Hayes Administration #Presidential Quotes #Quotes by Presidents #Politics #Political Rivals #Political Feuds #Roscoe Conkling #Benjamin F. Butler #Presidential Rivals #Presidential Politics #Presidential History #Political History #Political Quotes #Radical Republicans #Reconstruction

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

At this point, the MAGA Republicans have an agenda on education. It's focused on defunding and destroying higher education (since the college educated don't vote MAGA Republican, they are in a sense the focal enemy) and destroying confidence in and defunding primary and secondary education. All funding from primary and secondary education would then be shifted to institutions which in fact engage in political indoctrination to support MAGA Republican through, these are Catholic schools and white Evangelical schools. Hillsdale College in Michigan, a fundamentalist church-affiliated academy for production of the Stepford Wives or the Republic of Gilead, provides the model for the small quantum of higher education that can be tolerated.

#Salon #education #higher education #critical race theory #far right agenda #radical republicans #MAGA Republicans #Catholic Schools #White Evangelical Schools

[cuntwrap--supreme]

I've been doing a lot of grocery delivery in the country lately, so I ordered myself a nice bumper sticker so I fit in with everyone else's stuff :)

I've seen a lot of these lately, but they were all of a pride flag I don't recognize. Not sure which gender/sexuality has the red and white stripes with the blue with white stars in the corner, but I guess it's an ok design. The rainbow is the traditional LGBT flag, though, so I feel it symbolizes the collective queer community a little better and will be a little more noticeable/recognizable than niche flags, like this stars and stripes guy.

#queer #pride #rainbow #flag #gay #lgbt #fr tho I've seen so many q-anon and trump stickers that i feel like this'll either be really funny or I'll get my windows smashed in #for some reason the country here isn't just chill people eeking out a living doing what they can #it's all super well off people who immigrated from elsewhere in the us and are incredibly aggressive #I'm from the middle of nowhere. country folk are typically very kind even if they're a little ignorant to shit like being gay or trans. #but this is the kind of people where i got called a dyke twice just walking through kroger #i had the person behind me at mcdonalds yelling about my sticker that says i don't break for kids #anyone i know who has lived in that area for a long time hates all these new people #they've driven up housing prices to be just as much as in the city. they're all republicans who fled California or Illinois... #...and they brought with them their more radical views and hateful big-city attitudes #like yeah. this wasn't a place to be comfortably out as gay beforehand. now it's actively hostile instead of you get weird stares kinda shit

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

#us politics #twitter #tweet #conservatives #republicans #conservatives be like #republicans be like #religions #organized religion #Jesus Christ #pronouns #gender pronouns #respect pronouns #republican homophobia #radical christianity #john 18:6 #lavern spicer #us constitution #2022

[socialjusticeinamerica]

I’ve told you this before but I’ll repeat it. George “Dubya” Bush began the practice of paying Evangelical pastors to preach against Democrats and in favor of Republicans.

After coming out of rehab for coke addiction “Dubya” became a born again evangelical. As dumb as he is he quickly realized that southern and rural evangelicals were poorly educated and completely uniformed bible thumpers that could easily be bought off and used as a political propaganda props.

“Dubya”, who had deserted the Texas Air National Guard and had many scrapes with the law, had his record expunged by his father who had been director of the CIA. Papa Bush helped Nixon open China to Republikkkan corporations and then as VP assisted Reagan in his war on the American middle class and poor. When “wimpy” dad ran for President, Jr fell in with evil brain bug Karl Rove who put the coke addict in charge of buying evangelical clergy. A fairly easy task because evangelical churches are independent, for profit businesses with no hierarchy to answer to like the mainstream Protestants churches or the Catholics. The effort brought in so many new Republican recruits that it continues to this day.

During the Obama years the Justice Department investigated and revoked the non-profit status of evangelical and Baptist churches that were preaching Republican culture war bullshit. This infuriated them and was largely responsible for the massive backlash against Obama and the Dems. Although this was highly underreported it was a very sore point for the GOP thieves. Even today most Dems think the overreaction by Republicans to Obama was purely racism (and let’s face it they are racist bastards) when in fact it was partly that Barry Obama had cut deeply into their lucrative propaganda/fundraising in the south and rural areas. Although it’s not entirely clear that Obama led this effort to undermine the fascist GOP it shook them to the core. They need the pastors to tell the MAGAts how to vote and who to donate to.

Today the evangelical fake Christians of the old Confederacy are the backbone of the MAGA cult and they have been groomed to accept Trump as a “mercenary” for their bastardization of religion. They are willing to overlook his embodiment of the seven deadly sins because he pushes their agenda, not because he believes in it but because he needs their money and votes. It’s a match made in the bowels of Fox News Hell. They’re aware he’s the biggest sinner in the country but he’s their last best chance to set up a Christo-fascist state. Something that wasn’t even on their radar until the Bush dynasty, Karl Rove, and the RNC came knocking on their doors. They think they’re driving the car but they’re just the limo drivers for the oligarchs and their GOP puppets.

It should be noted that there are some cracks in the armor as many college age evangelicals have been speaking up against the tidal wave of cruelty and evil coming from Trump and the GOP. Somebody must have introduced them to the New Testament and Socialist Jesus. For the most part however the old guard televangelist figureheads have been silencing dissent. The young on both sides, while very vocal, haven’t exactly turned out in the massive numbers we keep hoping for.

Republicans still rely on a coalition of evangelical bible thumpers, far-right Nazis, southern/rural gun nuts, the wealthy, and Deep South Americanized Hispanics. The Dems are still largely a coalition of adult African-Americans, Northeast/West coast progressives, the over educated, urban dwellers, and union members (except for police unions). Thanks for reading and following.

#gop radicalization of evangelicals #republican assholes #evangelical assholes #George HW Bush #George Dubya Bush #Karl Rove #fuck the gop #christo fascists

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

In a keynote speech to a gathering of Christian nationalist lawmakers Tuesday night, House Speaker Mike Johnson compared himself to Moses, leading the GOP conference — and America — through the parted waters of the Red Sea.

Johnson addressed the National Association of Christian Lawmakers at the group’s award gala at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. Perhaps unaware that the event was being recorded for the NACL Facebook page, Johnson told the crowd: “I’ll tell you a secret, since media is not here.” (“Thank you for not allowing the media in,” Johnson added, alleging that journalists have been taking his comments “out of context” with “great joy for the last few weeks.”)

Johnson then revealed that — in the lead up to the “tumult” of Kevin McCarthy losing his gavel and the chaotic GOP process of selecting new Speaker — he had been speaking directly to God. “Look, I’m a Southern Baptist, I don’t wanna get too spooky on you,” he said, provoking some laughter from the attendees. “But, you know, the Lord speaks to your heart.”

The message he received from God, Johnson said, was to prepare for a “Red Sea moment” — both for the Republican conference “and in the country at large.” Johnson said found the directive confusing but he continued to seek the counsel of God.

“The Lord began to wake me up, through this three-week process, in the middle of night to speak to me,” Johnson insisted. “Now at the time,” he continued, “I assumed the Lord is going to choose a new Moses.” But because of his own lesser rank among the GOP’s leadership, Johnson said, he believed the heavenly message to be: “You’re gonna allow me to be Aaron to Moses,” citing the role of the Old Testament prophet’s brother and biblical sidekick.

But then Johnson watched as candidate after candidate failed to generate the necessary Republican support to win the Speakership. “Ultimately 13 people ran for the post. And the Lord kept telling me to, ‘Wait, wait, wait,’” Johnson recalled. “So I waited, I waited. And then at the end … the Lord said, ‘Now step forward.’” Johnson regaled the audience with his surprise to be tapped as the Moses figure: “Me?” Johnson said. “I’m supposed to be Aaron.” But that was not the message, Johnson insisted, recalling: “‘No,’ the Lord said, ‘Step forward.’”

Johnson’s speech to the National Association of Christian Lawmakers — a group that seeks to enact its anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ “biblical worldview” into law — is just the latest evidence that the politician who is now second in line for the presidency views himself as on a divine mission. Rolling Stone previously reported on Johnson’s exhortations to save a “depraved” America from God’s wrath and vengeance.

Johnson told the NACL crowd that his “core conviction” that “God wants us to seek Him for the path through the roiling sea.” The Speaker then underscored his pessimism about the state of the nation, asserting that America is facing the “greatest collection of challenges since maybe World War II, maybe the Civil War.”

America, Johnson insisted, is “engaged in a battle between worldviews” and “a great struggle for the future of the Republic.” The specifics of that struggle remained unspoken. But the NACL mission, according to materials promoting the gala, includes: “abolishing abortion”; restoring “traditional marriage between one man and one woman”; and “exposing the ungodly effort to undermine our culture by Leftists,”. Johnson added that he believed far-right Christians will prevail: “We should not be daunted. In the face of these challenges. Our hope is in the Lord, our hope, and our trust is in God.”

At the gala, Johnson was awarded with NACL’s “American Patriot Award for Christian Honor and Courage.” It was bestowed to recognize what the group’s leader, former Arkansas state Rep. Jason Rappert, described as Johnson’s “statesmanship, bold Christian leadership, and faithful service to our Lord Jesus Christ.”

#us politics #news #republicans #conservatives #alt right #conservative christians #gop #rep. Mike Johnson #National Association of Christian Lawmakers #rolling stone magazine #moses #old testament #anti abortion #Republican homophobia #2023 #radical Christianity