07 June 2022

From Lincoln to Trump - the Birth and Obsolescence of the Republican Party

As we learn more about how clearly Trump and his supporters were intent on overthrowing democracy on 6 January 2021, it will be really fascinating to see how many Republicans side with Trump (as senators like Cruz and Rubio have done) and how many side with democracy (like Romney and Cheney have done).

Lincoln was the first Republican president and so incredibly visionary and progressive. Trump could easily be the GOP's last president and was even more focused on the past than Lincoln was the future. The telegraph was incredibly revolutionary technology at the time of Lincoln. It no longer is. Politics and policy is no different from technology. What defines state of the art in one generation is quaint in the next.

Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the same day. A pity that the GOP wasn't also influenced by Darwin. Failure to evolve might be the simplest explanation of why Lincoln will go down in history of one of our greatest presidents and Trump as one of our worst.

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