What’s happened to the Republican Party?

Back on March 20, 1854, a group of abolitionists met in a small schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin, to fight back against the expansion of slavery. A couple months later in July of 1854, the Ripon group joined with thousands of other anti-slavery activists in Jackson, Michigan, and together they formed what would be called the Republican Party.

The Republican Party was formed on strong anti-slavery sentiments, and, at least for its early history, did some good for our country and for the American people. In fact, the early Republican Party was pretty progressive. After all, it was the Republican Party that invented the income tax during the Civil War.

And by the end of the Civil War, the Republican Party had created a national banking system, established new taxation laws, and provided funding for schools and homes across America. Decades later, the party was still showing its progressive roots.

When he was president at the dawn of the 20th century, Republican Theodore Roosevelt railed against the wealthy elite, despising the, “small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power.”

And it was the Republican Roosevelt who argued that America must have, “an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him.”

Nearly 50 years after Teddy Roosevelt left The White House, Republican Dwight Eisenhower entered it. Eisenhower, like many of his Republican predecessors, had some progressivism in him.

Eisenhower supported increased government funding for schools and education, and even thought it was important for the government to fund roads, hospitals and other parts of America’s infrastructure.

Imagine that!

Unfortunately, the days of Eisenhower’s, Roosevelt’s, and Lincoln’s in the Republican Party are long gone, and so too are that party’s progressive beginnings. What started out as a good idea in Ripon, Wisconsin and Jackson, Michigan has turned into a nightmare for America and for We The People.

Today’s Republican Party, the modern-day Republican Party, hasn’t done a single positive thing for We The People in nearly a hundred years. Instead, that party consistently does things that hurt our economy, hurt our society, and hurt our country.

Today’s Republican Party has sold out to the wealthy elite, and only cares about helping the rich get richer. They take millions of dollars in donations from lobbyists and mega-donors, all the while corrupting our democracy and electoral process.

Republicans today are in bed with the likes of Big Oil, ensuring that Big Oil can get even bigger, while our planet slowly gets destroyed. Republicans today support policies that have destroyed a once flourishing working-class. Like Scott Walker in Wisconsin, they want to rid America of the labor unions that helped to build this country and make it great.

Today’s Republicans go out of their way to sabotage a sitting President, and deliberately try to sabotage foreign policy and diplomatic efforts.

Today’s Republicans don’t care if millions of Americans can’t get access to lifesaving and affordable healthcare, and they don’t care if millions of Americans are struggling to put food on the table each and every night.

Today’s Republicans don’t care if our bridges are crumbling, our roads buckling, or our electrical grids failing. They don’t care if more Americans are in debt than ever before or if college education in our country is becoming a luxury that only the wealthy-elite can afford.

While the Republican Party may have started out with some progressivism in its blood, today all that party cares about is money, big business, and serving the needs of the wealthy elite.

Today’s Republican Party is completely corrupt. It’s that simple. And in America, when something is filled with corruption, we get rid of it. We shut it down.

So, maybe it’s time to shut down the Republican Party, and replace it with something that might actually do some good for the American people. Time to bring back the Whig Party?