Heather Cox Richardson Quotes

The Senator had switched parties.

The Republican party had lurched so far to the right, that a Republican like Reagan could never win the nomination even though he could likely win a national election.

Lecture, FDR Presidential Library, Hyde Park, NY, June 24, 2006

The Republicans lost the Congressional election of 2006. See {616069}.

In 2010 there was a very conservative populist movement that not only took a very right wing position for traditional Republicans, but attracted many of the racists, Nazis, and extreme fringe movements that embarrassed many of the Tea Party members who, because it was a movement and not a disciplined party hierarchy, claimed that they could not be responsible for the hateful signs and slogans of a minority of people who would show up at a Tea Party rally. At the same time, the Tea Party endorsed some candidates who were not very well vetted and were so extreme or quirky (one had been into witchcraft) that orthodox Republicans didn’t want to be associated with them. The moderate Republicans especially were placed in an awkward position as some of the Tea Party candidates unseated incumbent Republicans in primary elections and then some made very weak candidates in the general elections while others were more successful. Palin, already at the populist and quirky wing of the Republican Party warned and threatened the moderates.

One of the reasons that Reagan was so popular and effective was the he was positive and civil in his public and political relations. Although he was clearly conservative, he worked very well with the Democrats in Congress and in the state. The Republican Party after Reagan had become totally negative and offered nothing positive and specific. Lack of comity and much nastiness had become the Republican legislative style and on Radio and TV the nastiness rivaled that of McCarthyism. Conservatives like Graham who were civil and polite to Democrats and everyone else, were actually castigated and attacked by other Republican leaders and spokespeople.

He was referring to the then Republican party. When the original Republican Party was founded, it was the much more liberal of the American political parties. After Lincoln and Emancipation, the vast majority of Blacks supported the Republicans. Most feminists of the time were also abolitionists and also supported the party, as did the Hispanics. Most of the young people were Republican. The Democrats were an “old white guy” party/ Over the years the Republican Party grew more conservative, and after Democratic President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act, almost all the racists in the country shifted from the Democratic party to the Republican and this alienated Blacks still further. The Republican Party opposed the Equal Rights Amendment and Affirmative Action, and then despite the efforts of President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain killed immigration reform which alienated most Hispanics. Women and youth shifted awar from the Republican party. Jeb Bush, who married a Hispanic and spoke Spanish fluently, also attracted women and many youth, but he was a Republican exception.

Essentially Trollope claimed that English political parties are by their very nature, conservative, in the sense that they tend to resist great change. This has tended to be true in America and other democracies, but there are a number of exceptions. Where political parties are totally unsuccessful, they have little to lose. Likewise, when a political party becomes overwhelmingly dominant, it tends to overreach and try and make ideological change. However when there is true contest among the parties, they tend to be conservative in the sense that even if they are liberal parties, they do not move in extreme ways.

In 1901, when Theodore Roosevelt became President to Hanna’s chagrin, the new president changed things and went after the must abusive trusts and large corporations.

Republican Party primary elections had become very contentious. The radical right and the Tea Party, though a minority of the party, had the power to destroy almost any Republican candidate’s chances. So those Republican political candidates were forced to pander to the extreme right and then try and backtrack to the center for the general election. As a result, few people believed the statements of Republican office seekers as no one knew what they really believed including members of their own party, Bush, no longer running for any political position, found himself with much more credibility and influence in the party than those who were running for office. The problem of appealing to party extremes was not unique to the Republicans at that time, but the degree and extent was unprecedented accounting for the distrust.

The liberals of the Republican party had been the powerful and often dominant wing of the party since Theodore Roosevelt had instituted his reformism. Rockefeller was trying to maintain its preeminence inside the party against the then new Republican extremists led by Barry Goldwater. He lost at the convention, as Goldwater was nominated as the Presidential candidate. He was trounced in the general election because of his extreme form of Conservatism. However, while the extreme right wingers lost the election, they had won control of the Republican Party that defined Republicanism for decades thereafter as a conservative movement. They would make “liberalism” a dirty word, and the party did not concern itself with human need much thereafter while fighting the change and globalization that was beginning.

Discussing his decision not to seek reelection as a Senator from Arizona. He also was a major public critic of the Republican President Donald Trump, this was regarded by the Party Base as party disloyalty and the base form the majority of voters in most primary elections.