The Party of Lincoln

Yes, technically, the Republican Party is the American political party that has descended from Abe Lincoln. There, I said it. But that's sort of like saying Jefferson was a Republican, which he was. So I guess it's more like saying Clarence Thomas is black. Well, maybe it's like Hitler was a Catholic. Okay, W is a Yale graduate.

No, think Ruth Westheimer and Laura Schlessinger. Now there's a paradox!

It can be confusing. Lincoln was perhaps our greatest President. Everybody's gushing all over him as we celebrate his 200th birthday. So how could the advancement of our civilization be in any way associated with what we know today as the Republican Party?

In order not to be befuddled by the specious Republican claim on Linclon, I have to remind myself that when I'm facing north, east is to my right. But when I'm facing south, it's to my left. American political parties re-orient themselves left and right as well.

Under Lincoln, the Republican Party was the left-wing, Liberal, anti-slavery party. Even though Lincoln acted more like a conservative henchman at times, suspending habeus corpus, for example, he was, like Jefferson, a irreligious, forward-thinking, bleeding-heart, Liberal. He would have driven a Volvo.

Lincoln's Democrat opponents, as well as his assassin, were cold-hearted, capitalistic, right-wing, Bible-citing supporters of slavery and the aristocratic feudalism that depended upon it.

Here's Lincoln at his visionary best:

Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.

Does that sound like a Republican?

Conservatives have given us slavery, the Dred Scott Decision, Prohibition, the Great Depression, Plessy v. Ferguson, Senator Joseph McCarthy, racial segregation, Watergate, Reaganomics, creationism, and the most corrupt and incompetent Administration in American history—our eight-year nightmare.

So for a tax-slashing, anti-science, Bible-thumping conservative to claim any affinity with Lincoln is just plain nonsense. Those who do so either mean to deceive or don't know what they're talking about. I really don't know which is worse.

I take solace from the birthday boy, who said famously, "You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

Labels: Bible, conservatism, liberal, liberalism, Lincoln, slavery