The Party of Lincoln, by Doug Abramson – The Guest Spot

In MOTU’s latest rant, he marveled that “the party of Lincoln has become the party of dicks”. I had to laugh at that. Not the party of dicks, everyone knows that the GOP is run by assholes, but the party of Lincoln. The Republican Party, the Grand Old Party, the Party of Lincoln, the party that was formed to fight slavery and then fought to save the country has been dead for a long time. It didn’t happen all at once. In fact, it took most of the 20th Century.

The first death came in 1909, when Teddy Roosevelt left the White House in favor of his political ally William Howard Taft. While old TR wasn’t anti-Big Business, he did believe that they needed to be regulated for the public good. By public good, I mean that their products won’t kill the customers. When Taft became president, he reversed these policies. He chose Wall Street over Main Street. When Roosevelt decided that the party was letting the country down under Taft, he decided to run again in 1912. Long story short, the party big wigs decided that they wanted to be in Wall Street’s pockets more than winning the White House again. They’ve been in Wall Street’s pockets ever since.

The second death ocured in 1948 when the “Dixiecrats” walked out of the Democratic Convention to protest pro-civil rights policies in the party platform. The Democrats let the cracker bastards walk. Left to their own devices, they might have wondered around the political wilderness for a few years and died out. That didn’t happen. The GOP decided that votes in the South was more important than their founding principles and welcomed the bastards with open arms. They’ve been against civil rights ever since.

The third and final death started in 1972. In 1972, as part of his campaign to consolidate Republican power in the South, Nixion let the Christian Right taking over the party like the pod people ever since. The “Party of Lincoln” was started by people who felt that God wanted them to free a people from bondage. Now, thanks to the Christian nut jobs in charge, it wants to put everyone in chains to their warped view of God, and Big Business.

I started out by saying that the GOP was run by assholes. While that is true, it isn’t really fair. The real assholes are the ones that keep voting Republican.

Doug Abramson lives in Southern California and suffers through the Chargers and Padres seasons every year.