Republican Lincoln was a progressive who believed in amnesty for the south and who charted a progressive course for the nation before being cut down by an assassin’s bullet changing history and the GOP forever.
Out of this trauma right wing forces seize the GOP and Congress and immediately stage the political lynching of moderate Democrat Andrew Johnson. From this point forward it was a battle in the GOP between progressives and conservatives birthed out of Lincoln’s death.
Republican Grant then took command of the nation. He was a war hero who saved the Union and something of a pacifist not afraid to criticize the nation’s lust for unjust wars. Sadly he got swallowed up by Wall Street and so began their rise to power and control of the party.
The progressives struck back with Rushmore like Theodore Roosevelt who was a liberal before the term came into popular use. Unfortunately he was betrayed by stealth conservative Taft and the party formally split allowing Democrat Woodrow Wilson to step into the presidency.
At that point the right had the upper hand with the GOP through successive presidencies up until the rise of another war hero Dwight Eisenhower who reigned over a period of peace and prosperity neutralizing the right though they were always lurking in the shadows.
Democrat Kennedy becomes president, is assassinated and history is once again changed with the candidacy of Barry Goldwater and the rise of the ideological right and the slow decline of the Rockefeller wing of the party.
Arriving next for the GOP is Nixon, who though controversial, is fairly liberal on the domestic front and while he did prolong the Vietnam War he did end it.
Democrat Jimmy Carter becomes president but history is changed once again with the Iranian Hostage Crisis and the conservatives permanently take control of the GOP with Ronald Reagan who by the way appears moderate by today’s Republican standards.
So begins the unraveling of the once tolerant party of the abolitionists. The GOP turns into a party of exclusiveness, control, divisiveness, and racism all powered by a thirst for war. Bush Senior becomes a prisoner of the right and loses to Democrat Bill Clinton while Bush Junior rises to power pumped up on the Jesus juice of fundamentalist Christians and Wall Street money.
Today the party is controlled by right wing extremist money men who make Franco look like FDR, Tea Party fanatics who adhere to the doctrine of anarchy disguised as liberty and intolerant theocrats who use Jesus as a tool for unchecked war and greed.
Yes a few progressives remain with Rudy Giuliani and the two senators of Maine but all else is of the extreme right or a prisoner of the right as seen in Mitt Romney. So the soul of the GOP has been captured and it ain’t returning any time soon. RIP.