That was a pretty good tl;dr.
The tl;dr of the tl;dr is: The Democratic party is now the party of Lincoln.
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Going back a little farther than Lincoln, I just re-located a quote I like from another former President (not Republican, though…):
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty
This resonated for some reason that I can’t quite put a finger on.
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Possibly relevant:
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From my perspective, Republicans are still very much republicans, that is to say, the political descendents of Whigs & Puritans:-- people who claim to be supporting some higher good, while enriching themselves and the banker class, pushing hard for free trade, and being utterly indignant when they are denied their right of oppressing others whose views do not match their own. I forget who said it, and the exact wording, but something like “Cromwell made the world safe for capitalism”. And it is the Whigs & Puritans who largely shaped American society & politics.
In today’s world, at least in the US & UK, we got a bunch of Whig parties running under other names. (The UK Conservatives, despite being colloquially refered to as Tories, are nothing like the Tories of the 17th & 18th centuries, nor even like (at least the Disraelian) Conservatives/Tories of the 19th.)
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Washington? I could check but I’m trying to rely on memory. I remember that he discouraged the formation of political parties.
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