About:
"No, the GOP won't abandon Trump no matter for what reason; he's the last."
Thank you, SemDem! Your contribution was eye-opening.
The Party of Abraham Lincoln is no longer the Party of Abraham Lincoln. The GOP has become totally unrecognizable. I lived in the South when the Great Flip-Flop took place, though as a teen, I never saw any real change. The poor were still poor — the rich were still rich.
I was lucky. I had a couple of heroes.
One, my 6th-grade math, science and history teacher, my first football coach, stayed precisely the same. Beyond my Mom and Dad, and my Grandma, he was one of my stabilizing influences.
He always stood behind us — when we were right, he said so — when we were wrong, he said so. God help anyone that would harm us. He was an Auburn Football Alum, an O-lineman, and a "good and decent man." He simply wouldn't tolerate anyone messing with his kids, boys and girls alike. I can't even imagine a deranged murderer of children entering our safe haven classroom back then. Kids today aren't nearly as fortunate as we were.
This is a significant indicator of what has happened to our Country during the last 55+ years. “Gone, gone, gone.” (Jeff Bridges to Hailee Steinfeld in 2010’s True Grit.)
My other life-changer was President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States of America. He, and his AG Brother, Bobby, "saw a wrong and tried right it." Ironically, I heard that he had been taken away from us during World History class, just 6-days before 1963’s Thanksgiving. It was my first experience with reality.
Almost forgotten in the seams of our history is a parting speech by the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces during WWII, then the GOP’s 34th President of the United States of America, Dwight David Eisenhower. His speech, delivered on the evening of January 17, 1961, warned us of the power held by the ‘Military-Industrial Complex.’ It seemed to be forewarn us about a change in the GOP’s philosophy. This was the GOP of Abraham Lincoln and the last time we saw it.
After Ike, the GOP gave us Watergate, Trickle-down Economics, the Iraq War (in fairness, caused Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, but then the VP and DOD-inspired fruitless search for WMD, and finishing the job Daddy Bush had started), 911, a $280B bail-out of Wall Street (it started at $700B, or 6.5% of our National Debt on Jan 1, 2009 — 19-days before President Barack Obama inherited it. [citation: nationaldebtbusters]), and Trump.
At the time, the GOP believed in Madam Liberty’s statement,
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
(Part of Emma Lazarus’ sonnet “The New Colossus”)