Are Republicans Going The Way Of The Whigs?

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by: TimR12 Total views: 72 Word Count: 587 Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 Time: 3:30 PM 0 comments

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At this time in American Society, the Republican Party has become ineffective and obsolete. They have refused to change what they consider time honored values that mostly concern social issues. Unfortunately for the Republicans and right wing conservatives, most Americans have taken a more moderate view on things such as abortion, gays, religion and issues that favor big business rather than the middle class and poor.

Follow up:

Of course, the Grand Old party has also the problem of an extremely popular Democratic President and major infighting of it's members to take control of whats left.

Lets look at how the defunct Whigs party has so much in common with the currently struggling GOP.

Around 1833, the Whig party was formed by such notable National Republicans as John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, who formed to oppose the policies of President Andrew Jackson. To the Whigs credit, they helped improve manufacturing and supported improvements to roads, railroads and other public use properties such as public schools.

What brought the Whigs down was it's refusal to change according to the public's view on a social issue of the time. Slavery and expanding it. The will of the American people no longer supported Slavery as a normal way of life, and the Whig party members could not agree on moving with the view of society as a whole and into a new age, or continue on with the old, and unpopular values of the party. Most southern members wanted to expand slavery while the northern whigs fought against the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.

By 1860, most Whigs had moved either to the Democratic or newly formed Republican party, became conservatives or created a new group (now defunct also) called the Constitutional Union Party. But no matter where the Whig members moved to, their members and issues were absorbed into new and existing parties.

In the past election of Barack Obama, the majority of American voters soundly let the Republicans know that their old values are out of date and no longer acceptable. So what do the Republicans do? They decide to push their out of date ideas on social issues and tax breaks for big business even harder. This means they are not only fighting the President of the United States, but the will of the majority of Americans.

Like the Whigs, the GOP refuses to change with the times, and doesn't seem to realize that if they have no support from the majority of Americans, they will soon be 'going the way of the Whigs'. They also refuse to discuss the social issues important to most voters, and instead have decided to focus on tax breaks for big business, and on the whole, have become the obstructionist party.

At this point, the Republican and conservatives need to focus on listening to the American people and move towards helping people, rather than their own image. There are more important issues for everyone that far exceed the GOP's desire to gain power again, and people simply don't want the same old 'Southern good ole boys' values controlling their lives anymore. That was the message of the last election by the voters in America.

I'd like to say that some people may not agree with this article, but to repeat a well known, and wise saying, 'Those that forget the past are doomed to repeat it'.