Since its early stirrings as a political party, the organizing principle of the Republican Party has always been freedom.
In fact, it was created as a political force opposing the slavery of African peoples much enjoyed by the Democratic Party. It was the reason for the Civil War and when the victorious Republicans won, President Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, proclaimed a “new birth of freedom” for the country.
Republicans championed the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote over Democrat opposition and Republicans opposed Prohibition again over Democrat disagreement believing all adults had a right to drink as they saw fit.
As the GOP has evolved, freedom is still at the core of the party, despite the lies of collectivist Tim Waltz. Taking freedom from one parson and giving it to another is not freedom. It is despotism. Fascism.
Or, as Ronald Reagan said about the GOP in 1964, “maximum freedom consistent with law and order.”
On other issues, however, the party has evolved. On trade, it has gone from a high tariff party to a free trade party back to a protective trade party.
In 1970, two Democrat senators, Walter Mondale of Minnesota and Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts proposed tax cuts as a means to stimulate the torpid economy, but the Nixon Administration said no, the way to prime the pump was through massive federal spending.
The party began changing dramatically in 1964 when Barry Goldwater chose the equally conservative congressman Bill Miller of New York, eschewing the usual “ticket balancing” that had dominated the GOP previously. Eisenhower-Nixon, Nixon-Lodge and so forth.
This action by Goldwater began the process of driving liberals out of the party while attracting conservative Democrats. Thus, GOP mayor John Lindsay of New York becomes a Democrat while Texas Democrat governor John Connolly becomes a Republican.
Others followed suit.
And so, it has gone with George McGovern in 1972 and Reagan in 1980. Both furthered along the polarization of both parties.
And the evolution continues. Donald Trump has also changed the GOP making it more populist which means anti excessive corporate power, anti-excessive government power, more blue collar, more faith based, more prolife, more anticorruption, more antiestablishment, more anti neocon.
Neocons really are a group without a party although they enjoy a war raging in Ukraine currently. They have floated between the two parties for years and now are in high dungeon as neither party wants these warmongers.
Meanwhile, establishment Republicans like Mitt Romney supporters are moving to become Harris sycophants while anticorporation Democrats such as RFK, Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard have become Trump supporters. It stands to reason that establishment Republicans find themselves on the outs in the MAGA movement.
While the Democrats have been more or less static since the New Deal as the big government party, the Republicans seem to be on a more logical path as the anti-corruption, pro freedom party of federalism.
MAGA will be with the GOP for a long time.
Author Craig Shirley is the author of eleven best-selling books including six on Ronald Reagan and two on World War II as well as the definitive biography of Mary Bell Washington, George Washington’s mother. His latest book is, The Search for Reagan.
2024 Election
Ronald Reagan
neoconservatives
populism
conservatism
Donald Trump
MAGA movement