Would Lincoln Be a Democrat Today?
 

As his Whig party crumbled in the middle of the fight over slavery and free territories, Abraham Lincoln had a major hand in founding the Republican Party, a northern faction that was the chief rival to the southern-based Democrats.

Clearly, times have changed. And now, says Lincoln screenwriter Tony Kushner, the GOP would not be recognizable to the 16th president, or a party to which he would belong.

"The Republican party today has turned into a group of people who don’t actually believe that government is a good thing," he told The Hollywood Reporter this week. "You can’t have any connection to Abraham Lincoln if you think that. Lincoln was a lawyer who had a profound belief in the conviction that government was a great blessing for humanity, and certainly wouldn’t have read Ayn Rand. He wouldn’t have had any interest."

Instead, Kushner surmised, the man who is often called the Father of the Republican Party would be a Democrat.

"Oh there’s no question," Kushner asserted. "He was a progressive, centrist candidate who believed in government, taxation, created the federal income tax, created the federal bank, created the draft, believed in a strong federal government and believed in equality, believed that the government had a role to play in protecting in minorities from the majority and tyranny."

Doris Kearns Goodwin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who wrote the book on Lincoln, Team of Rivals, on which director Stephen Spieberg's film is partly based, also cited the parties' flipped stances on government's role in the economy and people's lives.

"The Republican Party and the Whig Party, of which Lincoln was a member, believed that government had a role in helping to move the country forward through building dams and dredging rivers and making harbors better, and the transcontinental railroad, much like what we call stimulus today," she told THR. "He also believed government had a role in helping people rise to the level of their talent in their discipline, that sort of equal opportunity role, in that sense he might find the principles of the Democrats congenial."


http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...emocrat-390846

nah...he would be deemed a "socialist" so would Eisenhower, you know it, we know it. admit it. :kimblair:

He would NOT be a Democrat.

I doubt it. Some people want to be somebody, some people want to do something, Abe was the latter, gosh I hope he's in Heaven...:cheers:

Hey Z06

:seeya:

I thought you swore you'd never post here until Will was no longer a mod.

What changed your mind? Was it that the temptation to gloat after the election won out over your vow never to return while Will is still a PRC mod?

The timing of your reappearance suggests so. :funny:

Never heard anything said of him being a liar, thief, or hypocrite and I highly doubt that he wiped his ass with our constituition.

:iagree: Wouldn't be much of a democrat then...

We're arguing whether someone that was a Republican 150 years ago would be a Democrat today?

Hell...a moderate Democrat 50 years ago wouldn't be a Democrat today. The party has moved so far left...

Uh, Lincoln and congress passed a TEMPORARY income tax for funding of the war effort.

Income tax was not instituted in peace time until Democrats passed one in 1894.

The 16th amendment was ratified in 1913.

The Republican Party still stands for everything you listed today.

The Obama stimulus did not result in new dams or any great improvements to our nation. It was spent on no-show union construction sites in blue states like NY/NJ, repaving perfectly good existing roads at random here in the south, and blown on campaign contributor's "green energy" scam shell corps.

"government had a role in helping people rise to the level of their talent in their discipline, that sort of equal opportunity role"

Yep. Still our position. Throwing money at people to perpetuate a state of poverty and lack of education is not part of that.

Democrats have strengthened and preserved poverty.

Reagan would be run out of town by the tea party faction.

Paid for a bunch of new bridges down here. :cert:

I disagree.

:rolleyes:

Lincoln was an intelligent man, so NO he would not be a DoMOCrap.....

as for stimulus, you should see the gross waste and stupid crap they did here pissing it away on the roads and highways, as if no one in charge knew WTF they are doing, UNbelieveable....all this shit is doing but making traffic WORSE.....and will be much worse due to stupid design work even when it's done.....

and I could have spent maybe 10% of the money and did a more effective job....

:sadangel::dance:

He raised taxes, added more than 60,000 government employees, expanded the powers of the EPA, and granted amnesty for illegals.

They would have his head on a pike.

Just as Kennedy could never get the Dem nomination promising to send men to the Moon, telling people they shouldn't ask what Government could do for them and going to church and stuff. .

The same Tea Party faction that nominated Mitt Romney (he did in fact win the Tea Party vote across the primaries)?

:rofl:

The left's stereotype of the Tea Party couldn't be further from reality.

And Lincoln freed slaves, which goes completely against the Democrat goal of keeping the poor poor, while claiming to help...

Romney did not win the tea party vote in the primaries.

Regardless, Romney is a liar that told republicans one thing in the primaries and another in the general election. Reagan would not have done that.