Party of Trump passes Party of Lincoln torch to the Democrats
I would like to propose a name change for one of our political parties — namely, the Democrats. I believe we should start referring to them as The Party of Lincoln.
I know there are cynics who will accuse me of shilling for the Democrats here, but let me assure you my party loyalty is decidedly shallow. Just consider my roots: I was raised in a moderately conservative Republican household in Lakeland (Queen City of Western Polk County) at a time when Republicans were as scarce as hen’s teeth in Central Florida.
Also, the Moore clan today is quite diverse, consisting of Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and one or two conspiracy theorists who believe that “politics” is an infectious disease introduced to our planet by hostile aliens.
So please don’t think of me as merely partisan.
I offer this name change as a public service based on a couple of facts. First, there is the way the South has shifted from solidly Democratic to hard-core Republican. This is because the two parties changed their posture since the Civil War and voters changed their loyalties accordingly.
Lincoln practically invented modern liberalism when he used federal power to compel the South to stop treating people like property. The South responded by saying, “You and your Yankee friends best not be tellin’ us how to run our affairs down here.” This sentiment lives on among Southern conservatives who still nurture a deep distrust of Washington, D.C.
Modern Southern conservatives who resent federal government activism don’t remember its connection to Abraham Lincoln. So, in recent years, as the Republican Party cranked up its anti-big-government rhetoric to a fever pitch, switching to the GOP seemed like a logical step for these Southerners.
At the same time, AfricanAmericans flipped the other way. Having benefited early on from Lincoln’s policies, they at first signed up as loyal Republicans. But today their loyalties are mainly Democratic. The parties, in other words, have pulled an out-and-out switcheroo. If Lincoln were to show up now, his lanky frame would feel no warm embrace from the conservative, states-rights-obsessed GOP.
In fact, I’d go so far as to say that today’s Republicans have more affection for statues of Robert E. Lee than they do for the memory of Honest Abe, and that’s something we can’t say about the Democrats.
Then there is the issue of Trump’s “style.” In many ways, he is a kind of anti-Lincoln, the perfect opposite of our 16th president. When we hear Trump speak, we don’t think, “Wow, he is so Lincolnesque,” or “Such phraseology — now, there’s a quote that will be remembered through the ages.”
To emphasize this point, let’s play a quick game of “Who said that?” I will offer quotations from these two presidents, and see if you can tell which ones belong to Abe and which to Trump.
“The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.”
“He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”
“I’m very highly educated. I know words, I know the best words.”
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds …”
“Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don’t know what to do. Love!”
With that, I’ll rest my case. But I can’t say I have absolutely no qualms about rebranding the Democrats as “The Party of Lincoln.” After all, I don’t really see a potential Abraham Lincoln on the Democrats’ horizon, but maybe I’m just not looking hard enough.
As for the Republicans, if they lose their Party of Lincoln label, what can we call them? Well, this question answers itself, doesn’t it? Clearly, they are The Party of Trump. Unless, that is, Trump decides he is too modest to accept the honor of having something so big named after him.