Maddow's ULTRA: FFS, the GOP has been trying to destroy this country since after Abe Lincoln!

[Samrob]

Last edited Fri Nov 18, 2022, 05:35 PM - Edit history (1)

You have to hear it for yourself. Talk about investigative journalism...

[reymega life]

1. abe Lincoln was probably killed by republicans

[LeftInTX]

6. Geez...Abe Lincoln was a Republican himself

Booth was a member of the "Know Nothing Party"

FWIW: The Democrats were the dominant party of the South until the 1960s. Even Strom Thurmond was a Democrat at one time. He tried to create a Dixiecrat party, but then went back to the Democrats. In 1964, he converted to the GOP...

[brush]

9. No. He was a republican and it was the socially liberal party back then.

Last edited Fri Nov 18, 2022, 11:52 PM - Edit history (1)

Socially liberal back then of course was not what that means today. The Democrats were the dominant and conservative party of the south.

Booth, who killed Lincoln was with some obscure, even more racist party.

[Caliman73]

2. Not necessarily the GOP

You need to remember that at the time of the Civil War the Republican party actually represented the liberal ideology insofar as they favored a more scientific (for that time) approach to things. They supported a stronger National government for the protection of the people. They would have been more akin to the Democratic Party of today (minus the racism that was fairly universal).

Maddow has framed the ULTRA series as an examination of extreme right wing movements in the US, hence the name ULTRA, as in ultra right wing.

Conservatives and their extreme right pawns, have been trying to create an autocratic, White Supremacist, nationalist, Christian Dominionist country since they failed at creating one in the Confederate States of America.

[ITAL]

5. Yeah, it's complicated

The Republicans were the party of banking and business pretty early on, but they were also the liberal social issues party.

It's wrong to say the CSA was ever autocratic though. Several states threatened seceding from the confederacy because they thought their federal government was becoming too centralized with things like their drafts, etc.. Say what you will about states rights, they really did believe in them slavery or not.

[Caliman73]

8. The CSA was too short lived to become autocratic. It would have.

Conservatism leads to autocracy unless restrained. It is in the nature of the ideology.

White Supremacy was relatively well entrenched throughout the United States, Union and Confederacy but because of the difference in the economies of the regions, the issue of slavery was a major dividing point. It isn't that people in the North (at least most people) cared about the equality and dignity of Black people. There were certainly people who did and they were very passionate. The Southern economy was dependent on slave labor so all of the "drafts" and other problems that the South had with the Union were inextricably linked to slavery. They only believed in the State's right to own and expand slavery. They didn't care about "States rights" or sovereignty when they planned to invade and turn Latin America into a plantation.

It certainly is complicated, but fairly straightforward on the issue of slavery, racism, and White Supremacy when we are talking about Conservatives.

[ITAL]

12. No, that's just not true

States Rights were deeply entrenched in the Southern outlook. They seceded from the Union over slavery, but it's not like they favored big autocratic government and they certainly didn't favor it in the CSA. The compact theory of government went all the way back to Thomas Jefferson. There wasn't even agreement on if a federal government could build roads or if that was purely a state issue.
The CSA never would have moved toward autocracy even if they had won their independence, it would have eventually collapsed in an Articles of Confederation sort of way and probably been gobbled up by the British empire.

[Joinfortmill]

3. It's timely, that's for sure.

[brush]

4. Back then wasn't it the Democratic Party?

Last edited Fri Nov 18, 2022, 11:50 PM - Edit history (1)

Lincoln and the Republicans were the reformists trying to keep the Union together and after the war, instituted reconstruction.

The Republican Party, as now constituted, came to be when the Dixiecrats left the party because of LBJ's civil rights legislation and the seating of Fannie Lou Hamer's Freedom Democratic Party at the Democratic National Convention in 1964,

The republican party began the southern strategy then to attract the racist dixiecrats who then moved to the republican party...all those events came about and now this is where we are.

[LeftInTX]

7. Yes, until the 1960s

[Caliman73]

10. Yes. The operative word would be Conservative.

Not simply a political party.

We need to remember that parties are the vehicles for political ideologies.

We Democrats/Liberals tend to be more decentralized because we have different interests and no singular unifying idea that binds us together.

Conservatives have a defined world view, that maybe not every single Conservative believes in completely, but enough do, or the leadership does and uses tactics to keep a hold on the party. Conservatives believe in a hierarchical structure to society, which should naturally be dominated by the "most fit", meaning the Wealthy, White, Protestant Christian man. All of the other stuff are just details and tactics on how to achieve that structure and maintain it.

[uponit7771]

11. +1,