How Republicans used to be:

[volstork]

[RKP5637]

1. I would think they would be embarrassed by this ass in the WH, but so many love him

and/or are too cowardly to stand up to him or their constituents. However, I think for many of the GOP today, tRump is cut from the same piece of cloth that they are ...

[RainCaster]

20. Cut from the same piece of s**t, actually.

I am so appalled at what the GOP has become. Can somebody dream up a new party to replace them? Maybe the All-Night Party?

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Minnie Cox never returned to her position.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/theodore-roosevelt-mississippi-postmaster/

[volstork]

3. Thank you for that information.

I should have checked Snopes!

[progressoid]

5. A hundred years later... "On 14 July 2008, the Indianola post office was renamed in her honor"

On 14 July 2008, the Indianola post office was renamed in her honor with the passage of House Bill 4010.

[FoxNewsSucks]

14. Not surprised by that,

I couldn't imagine she'd want to return to that town even if they hadn't threatened her.

I hope she had some grandkids or great-grandkids around to see the PO named after her.

[Celerity]

34. She did go back, and opened a bank. NT

[DFW]

4. The reason Teddy Roosevelt is considered as a great president

He understood that the job was one of service to the nation, and not a perk the nation granted to him. Also--he understood that the onus was upon HIM to do good, and it was the right and the duty of the nation to call him out if he did wrong.

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

The only post-WWII Republican who even had a whiff of understanding this was Eisenhower. I think, ironically enough, that Bob Dole, as president, would have understood this as well, even though I am VERY glad we never had to find out.

Calvin Coolidge was (to my very biased way of thinking) far too beholden to the God Squad for me to admire him too much, but he did have his head screwed on straight about a few issues. He came out once with a quote that came close to mirroring TR's quote above:

“When a man begins to feel that he is the only one who can lead in this republic, he is guilty of treason to the spirit of our institutions.”

[erronis]

9. Always enjoy your viewpoints. I met quite a few Republicans back in the 50s - 70s

only because my father worked with many administrations (Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon...). Many of them were fine people even if anti-social programs.

Things really went south (southern strategy?) with Nixon although there was plenty of skulduggery during every one. Reagan epitomized the "government is the problem" altho he made government the problem. The beginning of saying-what-you-don't-mean?

Once the vultures got their claws into government via lobbyists, bribes and blackmail, there was no more sense of governance for the people. They're still here.

As Shakespeare might have said: "First, get rid of K Street."

[japple]

17. I remember when there were good Republicans. Things started to sour in the 1970s.

Newt Gingrich and the Dawn of a Toxic Political Era

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/04/books/review-burning-down-house-newt-gingrich-julian-zelizer.html

[KentuckyWoman]

28. I agree with you

I have always supported Democrats but Republicans seemed at least have decent hearts and work from a fact based environment... up until the run up to Reagan. Sometimes I wondered if it was simply derangement from Nixon getting busted.

Add in the rise of 24 hr cable news and all the changes that destroyed reliable information....

[plimsoll]

24. My stepfather and I were discussing politics back in 1996

Yes you could do that with a Republican back then. I said I preferred a moderate, he said Bob Dole is a moderate, I disagreed at the time. I think he was on to something.

[Laelth]

6. Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive Republican.

He was a completely different political animal than the Coolidges and Tafts of the party. Roosevelt was an aberration.

-Laelth

[JHB]

10. Current Republicans love to claim hims as their own, but their counterparts at the time...

...(which would be a mix of Republican and Democratic factions) called him a "socialist" for some of the policies he championed.

[Laelth]

12. Precisely. n/t

-Laelth

[volstork]

15. He would be a solid democrat now,

as would Eisenhower.

Those republicans don't exist anymore.

[crickets]

7. K&R for the post and the discussion.

[BamaRefugee]

8. So I guess Don Jr. and Eric are "Roosevelt Republicans"

[erronis]

11. Absolutely a fair question. I don't know how to classify these types of people.

I wouldn't like them back then, or now.

[BamaRefugee]

13. Teddy Roosevelt LOVED killing animals that had absolutely no chance to fight back. i don't get it

either.
You wanna prove you're a big bad he man? Go after them naked, and bare handed.
Otherwise FUCK OFF.

[volstork]

16. Have to agree with you.

I have no understanding of those who seek to kill animals for "sport."

[keithbvadu2]

22. Carl Akeley

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/80239/time-carl-akeley-killed-leopard-his-bare-hands

https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,h_2301,w_4088,x_0,y_675/f_auto,q_auto,w_1100/v1554925614/shape/mentalfloss/80239-field_museum-csz5974c.jpg

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

18. Comparing TR with Uday/Qusay, ...

TR led a charge up San Juan Hill.

Don Jr and Eric military records are less stellar.

[keithbvadu2]

25. The Trumps are not shy about proclaiming how much they have 'sacrificed'.

The Trumps are not shy about proclaiming how much they have 'sacrificed'.

Visit to Arlington Cemetery reminded Donald Trump Jr. of all his family's 'sacrifices,' he writes

https://www.stripes.com/news/us/visit-to-arlington-cemetery-reminded-donald-trump-jr-of-all-his-family-s-sacrifices-he-writes-1.606501

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

30. Imagine my tears of sympathy for the Trump family's sacrifices. nt

[mgardener]

26. A lot of Roosevelt's kills were donated to museums

Museum of Natural History and Smithsonian

A View of Animals That Theodore Roosevelt Shot - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/nyregion/a-view-of-animals-that-theodore-roosevelt-shot.html

Smithsonian–Roosevelt African Expedition - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithsonian%E2%80%93Roosevelt_African_Expedition

[pansypoo53219]

19. i have a small 60's? "why i am a republican" card. eisenhowerish.

so not what they are now.

[FakeNoose]

23. Ike's 1956 Party Platform (for re-election)

I love sharing this on DU:

[Squinch]

21. TR was no peach. He did great things (trust busting and national parks) but he also

did really, really horrible things.

[Blue_true]

29. Romanticism and 20-20 hindsight cause people to overlook serious faults.

TR, Wilson, FDR, JFK, LBJ had them big time. Wilson in particular did some horrible things to staunch a rising Black middleclass.

[dalton99a]

27. Heck, look at that asshole Nixon:

— The National Environmental Policy Act (1969), which among other things required that all federal agencies produce environmental impact statements on the possible negative effects of any and all regulations. It also created the President’s Council on Environmental Quality.

— The Environmental Protection Agency (1970).

— The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, 1970). Proposed by Nixon “...for better protection of life and property from natural hazards…for a better understanding of the total environment…[and] for exploration and development leading to the intelligent use of our marine resources…”

— The Clean Air Act (1970).

— Earth Week (1971).

— The Clean Water Act (1972).

— The Endangered Species Act (1973).

His opponents claimed, naturally, that all of these seemingly noble gestures were politically motivated. Nixon didn’t care about he environment: he knew lots of Americans did care, and he wanted to divert attention from the disaster in Vietnam. There’s probably a grain of truth in it, but so what?

And his 1974 plan for comprehensive health insurance

The current vintage of Republicans are fucking traitors and thieves

[Nitram]

32. I hate it that Nixon gets any credit at all for the EPA. He fought the concept tooth and nail, but

ended up signing the bill into law once he accepted that the Democratic majority in both houses of Congress would pass it over a veto. Nixon was a politician first and foremost, and he wanted credit for a progressive bill if it was inevitably going to pass.

[Nitram]

31. My thought is that Teddy was anything but a typical Republican. He even ran as an independent when

he ran for president as a member of his Progressive ("Bull Moose&quot Party.

[NNadir]

33. Although they are now the party of racists, once upon...

...a time, they were pushing against racism and bigotry, beginning with Lincoln, continuing with Grant, up to and including TR.

Our party was like their party as late as 1960, although there was considerable dissent.

The push against racism in the Democratic Party began with the greatest Democrat of the 20th century, Eleanor Roosevelt, and became official under LBJ.

I have read accounts of Ms. Roosevelt having had to be nice at dinners in the White House with the likes of segregationists like James Eastland.

We now oppose racism while they revel in celebrating it.

Above all, we must fight to restore decency to America.

MAKE AMERICA DECENT AGAIN. MADA!