Present at the Cremation: The Long, Slow Death of the GOP?
Rob Diamond
HuffPost
Nowhere is it written that major political parties will live forever. In fact, over the course of the first 100 years of our country's history, Americans saw the rise and fall of numerous nationally powerful political parties. The Federalists and Democratic-Republicans ruled the day in the late 18th and early 19th century. By the 1850's it was the Whig Party and the Democratic Party battling for national political supremacy. The Whigs would ultimately be destroyed in 1856 by the question of whether to allow the expansion of slavery into the territories of the West. That gave rise to the Republican Party and henceforth the major two-party system that has dominated American politics for the past 153 years.
We are witnessing today, however, an unmistakable emergence of deep fissures within the Republican Party. These are serious indications of a momentous, generational shift underway in the American political landscape not seen in almost a century. It begs the question, are we watching the beginning of the end of the Republican Party--the long, slow death of the GOP?
The name of the aggressive and virulent upstart Party that is trying to push its Republican patriarch into an early grave is unclear--call it a re-energized national Conservative Party, a Social-Conservative Party or maybe even the "Tea Party" (the revolutionary-era moniker it seems to prefer). While the label may be in question, its faces are not. This is the Party of Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, Dick Armey, Glenn Beck, Grover Norquist, Michelle Bachmann and Mike Huckabee (just to name a few--yes, I left out Chuck Norris). They have launched a nationwide political insurrection--on the ground and in the airwaves--that is inflicting serious injury to the party of Lincoln, Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-diamond/present-at-the-cremation_b_338601.html
HuffPost
Nowhere is it written that major political parties will live forever. In fact, over the course of the first 100 years of our country's history, Americans saw the rise and fall of numerous nationally powerful political parties. The Federalists and Democratic-Republicans ruled the day in the late 18th and early 19th century. By the 1850's it was the Whig Party and the Democratic Party battling for national political supremacy. The Whigs would ultimately be destroyed in 1856 by the question of whether to allow the expansion of slavery into the territories of the West. That gave rise to the Republican Party and henceforth the major two-party system that has dominated American politics for the past 153 years.
We are witnessing today, however, an unmistakable emergence of deep fissures within the Republican Party. These are serious indications of a momentous, generational shift underway in the American political landscape not seen in almost a century. It begs the question, are we watching the beginning of the end of the Republican Party--the long, slow death of the GOP?
The name of the aggressive and virulent upstart Party that is trying to push its Republican patriarch into an early grave is unclear--call it a re-energized national Conservative Party, a Social-Conservative Party or maybe even the "Tea Party" (the revolutionary-era moniker it seems to prefer). While the label may be in question, its faces are not. This is the Party of Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, Dick Armey, Glenn Beck, Grover Norquist, Michelle Bachmann and Mike Huckabee (just to name a few--yes, I left out Chuck Norris). They have launched a nationwide political insurrection--on the ground and in the airwaves--that is inflicting serious injury to the party of Lincoln, Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-diamond/present-at-the-cremation_b_338601.html
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