I had a conversation with a young man who identified himself as a conservative Republican. I did not ask his age, but I think he is in his twenties. One of the questions I asked him was whether he supported the decision by Republican members of Congress to obstruct everything President Obama wanted to do even if it would benefit the country. His response was that the Republicans had to take that step because they knew President Obama’s pattern of behavior in the Senate. That Senator Obama would introduce a bill with specific additions that he wanted and refused to let the bill go through unless everything he wanted remained in the bill. I explained that what he described is something that many members of Congress do routinely and are called pork barrel projects. I also told him that the reason we do not have funding to fight the Zika virus is because of what the Republicans have attached to the Zika bill.
I advised him to read the 1860 Republican platform. He said he was sure it is different from today. I said yes, it is because in that platform the Republicans were pro-labor and did not want to change the naturalization laws. He thought the change in the Republican and Democratic parties came in the 1830s and 1840s. I was surprised by that but did not take the time to tell him that the Republican Party did not even exist in until the 1850s. I did explain that the big change happened in the 1960s when the Democratic party embraced Civil Rights. Prior to that, it was actually a Republican President who began desegregation.
He is not the only one who does not really know the history of the party to which they belong. The Republican party began in the North. The only time the Republicans had control of the Southern States prior to the 1960s was during Reconstruction when the Democratic leadership in the former Confederate States were not allowed to hold office. But that really only lasted about twenty years.
Another fascinating piece of history which I did not share with him and that present day Republicans in the South either do not know or have conveniently forgotten has to do with the Confederate Flag. They embrace the Flag. They wave and display the Flag with pride and say it represents their heritage. But what they fail to acknowledge, have perhaps forgotten or just do not know is that Flag was the symbol of the States who left the Union because the FIRST REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT was elected. Rather ironic, isn’t it?
So why such a lack of knowledge? Why did this young conservative Republican think that what Senator Obama did regarding writing bills was an exception? Why did he not know that is a practice of many in Congress. Why did he not know the history of the Republican Party and why should it matter? It’s quite easy for people to find something they like in any political party, but shouldn’t they know the history of the party? Shouldn’t they understand where the party began, how it has developed and whether or not it has grown or retreated backwards?
As a Democrat, I must own my party’s history. I cannot escape the the impact of the Southern Democrats before, during and after the Civil War. I must acknowledge everything, good and bad, that Democrats have done.
The last question I asked the young conservative republican was “Would you have voted for Abraham Lincoln?” He did not answer.
Moderately liberal, liberally moderate, American flag waving Democrat! Bachelor of Arts in History with concentration in Early American History and Abraham Lincoln
Graduate student pursuing a Master of Arts Degree online in American History at Southern New Hampshire University