Is Abe short for something else? I was being facetious about red v. blue silliness but I would love to hear how freeing the slaves was the conservative position, having a hard time seeing how that would work.
Well, it works like this. First republican Abe makes clear he wants to free the slaves, then wins the presidential nomination position in the republican party. Then he gets elected by the republican american people to be president as a republican. Then 7 republican states secede from the US and shortly thereafter they wage war. Then the republican Lincoln wins and a period of slave liberation and movement towards equal rights on a federal level begins.
Also, according to wikipedia: "The republican party [..] founded by anti-slavery activists in 1854".
Now I'm no republican, as a north european you'll find me to be more of the social/liberal kind (yeah.. those two can be together), but I think the republican party has a pretty swell history.
> Then the republican Lincoln wins and a period of slave liberation and movement towards equal rights on a federal level begins.
Right, but during the 20th century there was a pole shift in US political parties. To oversimplify a bit: FDR made the Dems the party of economic liberalism and Lyndon Johnson made them the party of civil rights (on which Johnson famously stated: "We've lost the South for a generation").
The democratic party used to be full of bigoted racists before and during the 60's, let's not forget that.
Both parties have nothing to do with the parties they used to be even 50 years ago.
The republican party became evangelical/right wing in the end of the 70's. But it is not sustainable because of demographics.
A funny fact is most Latinos and Blacks are culturaly more conservative than liberal ( christians / anti-gay ...) , but given the hate on the right they are not going to vote for republicans. And Obama is certainly not a communist. He is not even a progressive.
Agreed, and I'd add that the other biggest issue pushed Abe and Thaddeus McCotter was the issuance of Greenbacks (United States Notes). Today, this and similar reforms aren't a Red/Blue issues either, they're the establishment vs. the anti-establishment of both parties.
