Republican Party Is Not The Party Of Lincoln

Nor has it been for a long time.

Yes… I know John Boenher, Mitch McConnell, and Eric Cantor-ing-down-the-virginia-plantation-road… “you have lots of black friends“, and as you love to tell the world when confronted with cameras and microphones: you are the party of Lincoln!

Yet there is a light-year-separation of policymaking philosophy between the modern Republican Party and the party of which Lincoln was a member and led. Just because you say his name doesn’t magically annex what he believed, what he did, and what he represented.

Republican Party: we will not let you inherit Lincoln’s legacy simply because the name of the party is the same. No… you can’t claim birth rights to Lincoln’s coffers of political capital. We won’t allow that… not without first auditing your voting records, and assessing a heavy death tax on American ideals that you have systematically killed for fundraising purposes and while vying for six-figure lobbying jobs. No… you are no Lincoln, so stop exploiting his name to make your party appear less hateful, spiteful, and afraid of anything “other.”

The Republican Party has become little more than a party driven by hatred and racial anxiety. Lincoln may have been a republican (of a very, very different Republican Party), but there is no way he would have been accepted by the Republican Party of the 21st Century. He would have been fighting against them. The GOP’s best hope is Lincoln would have been a RINO… No… Reagan would have been a RINO… Lincoln would have been a Progressive with an active Daily Kos account. (Author’s note: I tried to find a non-wiki link to define RINO … but all I could find were über-red websites that use the President’s middle name in every reference, and – at their most polite – call the American President, “a communist Kenyan” … so truth is, I didn’t want to give them the link… but that also wholly proves my point. As such, it’s worth noting how the political situation on the right has reached such an absurd break with reality that the extreme right wing of the Republican Party is now trying to eat its own head; all in the name of patriotism and “Preserving the American Way” that they clearly do not understand.)

No GOP… you are no longer “The Party of Lincoln.” Nor, at this point are you the party of your most recent “we’re cool by proxy” poster child, Ronald Reagan. Both historical republican icons would have been primaried by your gerrymandered purity districts and left to work in the private sector. As so… you better stop claiming it before you embarrass yourselves any more than you already have.

The Republican Party no-showed the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Granted, I’m sure there were republicans in the crowd, but those in leadership didn’t bother…. way to go with the whole, “we’re reaching out to minorities” plan y’all have. Even though the true leader of the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh, is claiming on his trolling show (sells very shiny lures made of plated gold) that no republicans were invited… they all were… and their non-attendance solidified in our heads the fact we all already knew in our hearts: the Republican Party anti-equal rights party.

The Republican Party Platform does not believe in equal rights for all American citizens. The leadership has dramatically failed, and the stunning absence of their presence validated that the Republican Party is now one of hate and white spite. It’s not a party that has any hope of making it into the next century. It will die kicking and screaming into oblivion. What was once the Grand Old Party – by means of its fear-mongering and fundraising tactics – will have hung itself with its own Southern Strategy rope from a lonely, angry, and leafless tree sitting in a morally rotten dirt field; incapable of even supporting the life of a single, bitter weed.

As good citizens, if anyone hears a member of the Republican Party leadership try to defend themselves one more time with “We’re the party of Lincoln”, then we as true Americans have every right to throw rotten vegetables at them in the town square. Public shaming. They are destroying Lincoln’s legacy with every name-sharing claim. Modern republicans who evoke Lincoln’s name should be ashamed – we should shame them, publicly, for trying to look less hate-and-fear-mongeting by desperately holding onto to “The Great Emancipator’s” coattails.

Lincoln knew what it meant to show up. He knew what it meant to have honor, (to seek facts, seek truth, and not believe things like education and intelligence are detrimental to American government). Lincoln understoond that a leader stands tall for that which he believes, and knew how to fight wisely and with passion (indeed, they can co-exist). Real American leaders fight for equality inside our borders – not just in the Middle East as a means to oil rights and winning giant defense contracts. Real leaders – those people who have a right to say they are “the party of Lincoln” – do a lot more than just talk about equality, they work for it. Above all else, they don’t name drop Abraham Lincoln and then in the dark of night pass legislation that creates third class citizens of the poor and minorities in America.

Republican Party, you are not the party of Lincoln. Those who claim it deserve public shaming. There’s no hope for reeling the extreme right wing back into reality, but the republican leadership should be forced to stand on the political alter – be boo’d and hissed by the entire country for allowing their party to become what it has in the 21st Century: a hate-filled, greedy, anti-matter-manifestation of everything Lincoln stood for.

… You didn’t even show up, Eric Cantor-ing. You didn’t bother, John Boehner. The Bush family had a legitimate health excuses (except Jeb who had no excuse, but he’s still considering running for president), and I bet you both Bush presidents would have showed up to the March on Washington’s 50th had they been able. They are both better than any current republican leader in Washington (… that might be the first time I’ve complimented W…. that requires a pause…). You, however, “Republican Party Leadership”… you had “scheduling conflicts” for an event that was 50 years in the making.

You should be ashamed… but I suppose that’s another characteristic of the modern Republican Party: it feels no shame; a person needs honor and a strong moral compass to feel shame. No… you’re not the party of Lincoln… you’re the ones fighting him from the other side.