The Party of Lincoln Is Long In The Tooth

In the latest issue of National Review, Baseball Crank has a big history lesson on the history of True Conservatism in the Republican Party. It was interesting to read in the context of something like 12% of Republican voters supporting Donald Trump’s impeachment and everyone from Ben Sasse to Liz Cheney to Bill Cassidy who represent this worldview getting censured. How can this rump of True Con geriatrics continue to rule the roost when their demographic base have become Democrats?

National Review:

“Republicans have, since the beginning, been the party of Abraham Lincoln. The Democrats never have been and never will be. But Lincoln’s party was never only the party of Lincoln. The early Republicans professed broad principles that still stir the party, but they were shaped by American nationalism, by Christian cultural conservatism, and by the regional ethos of the Midwest as it matured from the American frontier into the nation’s crossroads. Republican history is one of fusion: between universal classical-liberal ideas and the particular identity of a distinctively American conservatism. Both traditions are more continuous in the party than is typically acknowledged. The party has always included many voters and leaders who combined the two.

The presidency of Donald Trump strained the historic continuity of the party as much as any prior era had, but it is better understood as a disruption of the balance of power between the two tendencies. It remains to be seen whether the Republican Party will permanently abandon the fusionist project. In order to conserve the legacy of Lincoln’s party, it is necessary to understand its roots.

The Republican Party, alone among the major political parties in American history, was founded on a coherent set of principles: the classical liberalism of the American founding …

In the formulation of Michael Barone of the American Enterprise Institute, Republicans are those who see themselves as part of the American mainstream; Democrats, no matter how little else they have in common, are the remainder who don’t. The wild ideological swings of the Democrats over the years are the main reason we think of the parties as having “flipped.” Republican ideology has not, in fact, changed that much. Even the southward regional shift of the Republican center of gravity reflects changes in the regions themselves: Today’s New Englanders are less religious than their Republican forebears, while today’s white southerners are more prosperous and less isolated from the national culture.

Trump is not the first Republican leader to unsettle the old fusion. Moderates such as Eisenhower, Herbert Hoover, and George H. W. Bush were uncomfortable fits for both the classical-liberal tradition and the native conservative tradition. In Bush’s case, that led to a populist revolt by Buchanan and H. Ross Perot that temporarily unraveled the coalition. Trump appealed directly to the Perot tendency — but in so doing, he triggered a crisis of identity for the party’s classical-liberal wing. That is partly because the party has never before had a leader who was so willing to violate core commitments about the rule of law and the universalism of party principles.

And yet, many of the same voters who supported Trump voted for Romney, McCain, and George W. Bush. Trump’s voters continued to elect to Congress and state offices scores of Republicans who still speak in the same old Republican terms and support the same agenda. If Republicans turn away from the classical-liberal element of the party of Lincoln, it will not be because they passed through four years under Donald Trump but because they freely chose, after watching Trump, to turn their back on their own heritage.”

Haven’t these people turned their backs on their own heritage though?

The problem is that the Free Marketeer crowd who live in the suburbs and who have traditionally been the governing wing of the GOP for the last fifty years or so have been steadily choosing their modernist and cosmopolitan values over classical liberalism and free market capitalism. When given the choice at the polls in 2020 to support Donald Trump and his free market policies and pro-business judges or to call their fellow working class Republicans racist and bigoted, they go with virtue signaling.

Have you noticed it?

I’m not a Republican myself. I am just an observer and Independent voter. The party isn’t populist enough for my tastes. I turn on MSNBC or CNN these days and I am struck by the shift. It is like a chorus of middle class White professionals virtue signaling.

You see people like David French, George Will and Charlie Sykes on there. They are all on there calling Trump a racist. Max Boot is writing for The Washington Post. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has gone over to the Democrats. It looks to me like the Bushies have all gone over to the other side. The people who I used to watch on television in the 2000s and associate with the GOP are now Democrats.

Jeff Flake is a frequent guest on there:

The policy agenda and institutional conservatism cater to these people … who are now Democrats for cultural reasons. Does that make any sense? Why shouldn’t the Republican policy agenda cater to all working class voters who have come into the party over the past ten years? That’s where all the growth is these days. Trump lost the White Independent voters who supported him in 2016 because he catered too much to these people while they were migrating over to the Democrats.

About Hunter Wallace 12379 Articles
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26 Comments

  1. Oct 1965….THE PASSAGE OF THE 1965 IMMIGRATION RFORM ACT

    OCT 1965…..THE PASSAGE OF THE 1965 NONWHITE LEGAL IMMIGRANT INCREASE ACT

    POTUS ELECTION NIGHT….NOV 3 2020

  2. After what (((THEY))) did in OCT 1965…..

    THE WENT ON TO SLUAGHTER THE NATIVE BORN WHITE CHRISTIAN AMERICAN TEENAGER WORKING CLASS CREW…OF THE US LIBERTY…..IN 1967….

    While LBJ was getting his cock sucked by Matilde Krim in the Oval Office…..

    • The “respected” PBS historian Doris Kearns Goodwin was also intimately involved with LBJ while Lady Bird Johnson was in the next room having tea with Mrs. Hubert Humphrey, pretending not to know what was going on.

  3. Fusionist project?

    LMAO

    More like the bitch project. The head dictated where the party went and the feet followed. The head cannot win without the base. Yet, the head hates the base, is ideologically incompatible with the base, and has to use red meat on occasion to galvanize/corral the feet/base. Unfortunately, the feet is becoming more self-aware and this is causing problems to the head.

    The narrative that this was simply an egalitarian relationship (“fusion”) is just another cope and attempt to damage control.

  4. “The problem is that the Free Marketeer crowd who live in the suburbs and who have traditionally been the governing wing of the GOP for the last fifty years or so have been choosing their modernist and cosmopolitan values over classical liberalism and free market capitalism.”

    over classical liberalism and free market capitalism? Huh?

    Think they are still choosing that. They don’t want the nativism, protectionism, anti capitalism, that populism is bringing about.

    • Since the rise of Trump, these people have been torn between their cultural values – modernism, cosmopolitanism, antiracism, a middle class sense of feeling better than everyone else – and their views on free market economics. They are consistently choosing the former over the latter and migrating over to the Democrats. The policy agenda of the GOP hasn’t caught up with the demographic shift.

        • Yes, the GOP hasn’t changed its economic platform in spite of the constituency for it leaving to join the Democrats. It is self sabotaging. I’m having some fun pointing it out because the usual suspects who read this site know it is true.

          • The GOP has never been “classically liberal” in our lifetimes, though.

            On economic sure, but not on other issues. Reagan for instance, was nanny state and not really a Barry Goldwater 2.0.

          • The typical Republican suburban voter, the “good conservatives” who believe in the usual bullshit about All Men are created Equal, maybe has a BLM sign on the front lawn, agrees with NR, thinks scumbags like Rick Scott, David French and George Will are “intellectuals”, watch the communists on PBS and MSNBC (and believe those idiots, too ), are concerned about their stock portfolios and virtue signaling, disproportionately work in the FIRE economy i.e. Finance, Insurance, Real Estate. Their entire existence is wrapped up in the stock market, one way or another. The Fire economy feeds them and their children, pays for private school to avoid the third world, and provides them with the money to buy insulation from the diversity they publicly champion while staying miles away from it.

            When the stock market dies the FIRE economy dies with it. The good conservatives will be in a world of trouble then, they will find that they will have to enjoy the benefits of diversity, up close and personal. That is exactly what Dementia Joe and President Kuntmala Harris want too, diversity in the wealthy, White, liberal suburbs, some enrichment for them and their children. Let’s see how “conservative” they are then when Shaniqua and her brood of 6 monsters moves in next door while a herd of squat monsters from south of the Rio Grande live across the street, courtesy of their taxes. Their BLM sign won’t protect them.

      • I have lived in Utah and Arizona where I grew up around large Mormon communities. I can personally attest that among average Mormons both working-class and upper middle-class, there is a HUGE disconnect from their Mormon leaders both in the LDS Church and in politics.

        Jeff Flake and other Mormon GOP “leaders” along with the leadership of the LDS Church want open borders, tolerance for homosexuality and bringing in more “refugees” from 3rd world countries.

        Average Mormons who go to their Wards (Church) every Sunday do NOT share these views.

        Jeff Flake is from Snowflake, AZ. The town was named after two Mormon founding families: the Snow family and the Flake family. Not withstanding his honored position and good standing with the LDS Church, you will not find hardly one Mormon who agrees with him on most issues.

        98% of Snowflake voters voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020: in direct opposition of what Jeff Flake and leaders of the LDS Church have said about Trump and MAGA.

        The disconnect between is huge.

          • The mainstream Protestant Churches are on their way to pledging allegiance to the Pope, his Cardinals and Bishops. Someone should point this out to clowns like Russell Moore.

            Another big problem with Protestants, is no sane White man want to get involved in Church Governance. Who in their right mind wants to reduce crazy old ladies, and crazy old men to tears. That’s really what it would take to straighten things out. Would you want to slam the likes of Russel Moore and his wife as Papal whores in public. Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Knox ad infinitum would have done it, and thought nothing of it. (Brad you know your Church history).

            The Mormons are a cult in a league all to themselves. LOL.

          • OK, time to chime in. Y’all don’t know what the HELL you are talking about!

            0) “98% of Snowflake voters voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020: in direct opposition of what Jeff Flake and leaders of the LDS Church have said about Trump and MAGA.
            The disconnect between is huge.”

            Yeah, but if you aren’t MOR[m]ONS, it’s STILL somewhat of an autocratic ‘Church’ (it’s a cult, but we’ll let that pass), and there are PLENTY of schmucks who would prefer the Broadway BOM musical faggot version of their ‘faith,’ than ‘revert’ back to the Male Polygamous past of the LDS types- even as the latter is far more biblical, than the Josh Gad ‘Elder Price’ faggot-friendly former types, who are now protestantizing the ‘Latter Day Saints’ into one ‘evan-jelly-goo’ useless blob of political opinion, and feminized/faggotized sentiment.

            1) HW- “We see the same thing in the Southern Baptists. The average Southern Baptist dislikes Russell Moore.”

            We? Aren’t you a Lutheran? Maybe someone like James Edwards has a ‘voice’- but not among the SBC, who seem hell-bent (literally) on worshipping N-word c**k with all the fervor of a MILO. Start here- there are 40 PAGES of columns by Edwards (who was ‘non-personed’ by the SBC) chronicling the APOSTASY of the Baptists! https://www.thepoliticalcesspool.org/jamesedwards/?s=Southern+Baptist
            Also, check out Faith& Heritage- http://faithandheritage.com/?s=Southern+Baptist+Church
            47 POSTS!

            2) “The mainstream Protestant Churches are on their way to pledging allegiance to the Pope, his Cardinals and Bishops.” Kraft Jelly…

            What 19th-century BULLSHIT are you folks reading, that you still ‘fear’ the Pope? It’s as if the Fundie/Bibliolator fringe sects still are worried about Blanshard’s 1950’s screeds, on ‘Catholic Power,’ or something, or you’ve got your Hislop’s Two Bablyons on, for glasses!

            Vatican II (Vatican Ewww, as someone else calls it) literally GUTTED the RCC- what they once were, they are no longer. Now, all they are, is a cult with Carefully culled/groomed/raped former altar boys, acting as a Drag Queen show every Sunday at their equally gutted ‘Masses.’ Rome is not the Monolith you may think of her. Just a cursory read of Ann Barnhardt’s Trad RC screeds against Jorge Bergoglio, show you how CORRUPT it all is.

            “Another big problem with Protestants, is no sane White man want to get involved in Church Governance. Who in their right mind wants to reduce crazy old ladies, and crazy old men to tears.”

            Sometimes, you have to break a few eggs, or break down False Altars. Men rule, women submit. That’s it. End of effing story. Remove the WHORES FROM THE ALTARS!
            Wake up. If what HW is saying is true, an Ethnocentric, White Aware MALE- LED RELIGION THAT ENCOURAGES SAME, could lead to either a Reformation (or a RESTORATION) of Christendom. Anything less, is bitch festing.

      • Any thoughts on the shitfit that Mitch McConnell threw in the impeachment trial? I didn’t watch it it but I was shocked by the vehemence of his condemnation of Trump and his culpability for the Siege and Storming. McConnell sounds categorically confused to me. Like the suburban conscience in the GOP.

        Why did the people ever move into the burbs if they so like blacks and cosmopolitan sociability? The burbs are nice but very much a white thing.

  5. This is all horseshit. Maybe – MAYBE – you could say that Eisenhower was “the party of Lincoln.” But the modern GOP is the Party of Nixon, then Reagan, then George W. Bush. Now Trump.

    The whole “party of Lincoln” thing was just an early version of “Democrats are the REAL way-sists!”

    The Yankee establishment that Lincoln represented has been dead since FDR.

    I hope people realize that when Republicans do this, they are calling Southern White men “racists” and denying that is their own base of support.

    It’s beyond just “cucking” – it is an in-your-face insult to the only people willing to take Republican dipshits seriously.

    I hope that Southern White men tell the Republican party to stick it where the sun don’t shine. The Republicans do not deserve our vote.

    • Oddly McConnell is that Lincolnite. His vehemence looks calculated to stop the exodus of suburbanites.

  6. Heh, Snowflake Ariz. Growing up in Arizona, this was one of those,”I’ll bet you don’t know how the town of Snowflake got its name”. Then you got to show how much of a native historian you were by telling them about how the name came about. Both commentators are right, ordinary Mormons are not on the same wavelength as their leaders. They played a very big part in settling the southwest

  7. These Republican establishment types all look like the same upper middle class, went to a good college dweebs to me. They sit on the talk shows and go through this dumb ass virtue signaling, they’re not racist, they’re not homophobic. What a bunch of assholes. This pretentious horseshit would have looked childish to sophomores in high school 65 years ago. How did this country get so frigging stupid?

  8. As bad as Lincoln was to start a war with the south, his Southern VP Johnson did more damage to his country men than Lincoln would have done if he lived. Lincoln didn’t love blacks, he wanted them freed so they could be deported. You can;t deport property, but you can deport people.

    It was Lincoln that ordered Grant to let the surrendering Southerners go home with their rifles and horses after the war. Grant wanted to make examples of them .I am not defending the tyrant but he was killed before it could all play out. .

    • Dishonest Abe did a 180° on getting rid of the obsolete African farm machinery after the war when he gave the speech declaring his intent to give nigger bucks the vote, which caused JWB to say “This means nigger citizenship. Now, by God, I’ll put him through.”

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