Portal:Republican Party
The red, white, and blue Republican elephant, still used a primary logo for many state GOP committees
The Republican Party, commonly referred to as the GOP (abbreviation for Grand Old Party), is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, the other being its historic rival, the Democratic Party. The party is named after republicanism, the dominant value during the American Revolution. It was founded by anti-slavery activists, modernists, ex-Whigs, and ex-Free Soilers in 1854. The Republicans dominated politics nationally and in the majority of northern States for most of the period between 1860 and 1932. There have been 19 Republican presidents, the most from any one party. The first was 16th president Abraham Lincoln, who served from 1861 to 1865, when he was assassinated, and the most recent being 45th and current president Donald Trump, who took office on January 20, 2017. The Republican Party's current ideology is American conservatism, which contrasts with the Democrats' progressive platform (also called modern liberalism). Further, its platform involves support for free market capitalism, free enterprise, fiscal conservatism, a strong national defense, deregulation, and restrictions on labor unions. In addition to advocating for conservative economic policies, the Republican Party is socially conservative (particularly in its opposition to abortion), and seeks to uphold traditional values based largely on Judeo-Christian ethics. Once dominant in the Northeast and Midwest, the party's core support now comes from the South, the Great Plains and the Mountain States, as well as from conservative Catholics, Mormons, and Evangelicals nationwide. The Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) is an organization that works within the Republican Party to advocate equal rights for LGBT people in the United States. Log Cabin Republicans was founded in 1977 in California as a rallying point for Republicans opposed to the Briggs Initiative, which attempted to ban homosexuals from teaching in public schools. In addition to sanctioning the termination of openly gay and lesbian teachers, the proposed legislation authorized the firing of those teachers that supported homosexuality. While mounting his imminent presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan publicly expressed his opposition to the discriminatory policy. Reagan's condemnation of the bill—epitomized in an op-ed piece in a California newspaper—played an influential role in the eventual defeat of the Briggs Initiative. In the midst of this victory, gay conservatives in California created the Log Cabin Republicans. The group initially proposed to name themselves Lincoln Club, but found that name was already in use by the Lincoln Club of Orange County, another California Republican organization, so the name Log Cabin Republicans was chosen as an alternative title. This designation calls attention to the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln. The Log Cabin Republicans suggest that Lincoln founded the Republican Party on the philosophies of liberty and equality. These principles, Log Cabin argue, are consistent with their platform of an inclusive Republican Party. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe. He was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–43 and the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944–45 from the Western Front. In 1951, he became the first Supreme Commander of NATO. Eisenhower was of mostly Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry and was raised in a large family in Kansas by parents with a strong religious background. He graduated from West Point in 1915 and later married Mamie Doud, with whom he had two sons. After World War II, Eisenhower served as Army Chief of Staff under President Harry S. Truman and then accepted the post of President at Columbia University.  Republican In Name Only is a pejorative term used by conservative members of the Republican Party of the United States to describe Republicans whose political views or actions they consider insufficiently conservative. The acronym RINO emerged in the 1990s.
|
