Radical Change History of the Republican Party

Radical Change: History of the Republicans from Lincoln to Trump | Terra X


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 Nov 5, 2024
Cosmopolitan, liberal, left-leaning - that's what the Republicans stood for in the first decades after their founding. Abraham Lincoln, who became the first Republican president of the USA in 1860, campaigned for the abolition of slavery and, as someone who himself came from a humble background, did not forget the small farmers. He gave them arable and pasture land if they could farm it successfully. This triggered a real run on the areas in the western states and accelerated immigration and settlement of the country in an unprecedented way. During the Civil War years, Republicans made politics for the little people.
To this day, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington commemorates the first Republican president. But the party has changed a lot since its early years around 150 years ago. Not least because of the people who largely shaped the party program. There is now a world of difference between Lincoln and his ideals and Trump's politics, which flirts with populism and xenophobia. How did this radical change in the party come about? This is the party history of the US Republicans.