Reds in 1860

[redcliffsw]

From Al Benson, Jr co-author of  Red Republicans And Lincoln's Marxists:

"So much for those who vainly try to inform me that the Republican Party has a conservative foundation. Just the opposite is true. In 1860 the Republicans were the flaming leftist radicals of America. This was a revelation to me, who had, for years, been a registered Republican. After further research, I became an ex-registered Republican."

"Again, I have often wondered just how "conservative" some of our patriotic groups really are."

http://www.fireeater.org/Home/home.html

[Catwoman]

   Line up twenty Repub's and you'll get 20 different versions of that party.  The only constructive thing you can do is try to elect people to power who seem to be in line with what the general public needs...Hopefully, those who would elect to NOT spend the taxpayers' monies in frivilous manners, giving not one whit for what the common taxpayer is going through.  O's wife is our own little Marie Antionette.

[Warph]

Hmmmmm..... It has been said, "There is no divine right of political parties any more than there is a divine right of kings."  Political parties were not part of the vision of our founding fathers, and are not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution.  George Washington actually opposed the formation of political parties.... but they were necessary, however, as a way to focus political choice in the new republic.  Americans needed some way to organize various philosophical and policy differences.  Philosophical differences soon emerged as the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists.  Americans kept these two parties only as long as they played a useful function, and then easily developed new parties when the old ones failed to face the political needs of the country.

The Federalists disappeared, the Whigs replaced them, then gave way to the Republicans.  Thomas Jefferson's Republican Party became Andrew Jackson's Democratic Party... go figure.  The Populists of the late 19th Century, and the Progressives of the early 20th Century, failed to replace either the Democratic or Republican Party, but did force them to adopt their issues through much haggeling, back-biting and sheer threats.  They did not institutionalize a new permanent party, but they did accomplished their ideological mission by changing one or both of the existing parties.  Overall, the two-party system has served us fairly well.  A large factor in that success is that the two major parties could be forced to change by a third party threat.