What Happened to the Republican Party of Lincoln, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Goldwater & Reagan?

If Abraham Lincoln were alive today it is likely he'd keel over in a dead feint upon learning what the Republican Party has become 150 years after his tragic demise via a bullet  fired by a reactionary Southern fanatic.

Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower would also likely be appalled.

Republican William McKinley, thought to be a conservative Republican in his day, would  likely be appalled at the behavior of those considered to be conservative Republicans in 2015.

In 1898 McKinley was dragged, reluctantly, into war with Spain, over Cuba.

When the Spanish American War was so easily won, with the United States taking possession of Puerto Rico and the Phillippines, President McKinley did not crow about "Mission Accomplished" aboard an American battle ship, even though, in that war, the mission was actually accomplished.

When Barry Goldwater became the first conservative presidential nominee for the Republicans since Calvin Coolidge, Barry Goldwater was thought to be, by many, far too right wing conservative to be president. As the years passed after his smashing defeat by LBJ, Goldwater seemed to become a much more reasonable Republican.

I suspect Barry Goldwater would be appalled by what passes for conservative Republicans in 2015. Be it Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson or any of the other Republican embarrassments currently seeking to be the next American president.

Like Donald Trump.

If Barry Goldwater were alive today would he agree to go on the Rush Limbaugh Show? I don't think Barry Goldwater would be able to restrain himself from reacting to some of Limbaugh's nonsense.

What if Ronald Reagan was still alive and firing on all cylinders? Reagan always seemed to be a decent, nice guy. He worked with the Democrats to find common ground. Reagan and House Leader, Democrat Tip O'Neill, had a cordial relationship, trying to do what the two thought was best for America.

I found the two memes you see above, on Facebook, both from the good people at NOTEAPARTY / AGAINST TEAPARTY. I thought the No Tea Party / Against the Tea Party people summed up the current Republican situation quite succinctly....

Before The Murder Of Cecil The Lion Teddy Roosevelt Bagged 9 Lions In Africa

The murder of Cecil the Lion by a psychopathic American dentist has outraged, appalled and disgusted people all over the planet.

The murdering dentist thinks he is participating in the sport of hunting. He lured Cecil from his home, shot him with an arrow, then trailed Cecil for 40 hours before completing the murder with a gunshot. Followed by severing Cecil's head and skinning him.

The fact that much of the world is outraged over the murder of Cecil the Lion indicates the planet has evolved into being a more humane planet over the past hundred years.

In March of 1909, shortly after turning over the presidency to William Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt took off to Africa to do some big game hunting in a year long safari.

At the end of year long safari hunt Roosevelt listed nearly 300 animals that he "bagged".

"Bagged" is Roosevelt's word for killed. Among the animals Roosevelt listed as having bagged were nine lions, five elephants, thirteen rhinoceroses, and seven hippopotamuses.

This safari was known as the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition. The purpose of the safari was to hunt for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and New York City's American Museum of Natural History.

In addition to the 300 animals Roosevelt bagged, the Expedition as a whole killed or trapped some 11,400 animals, ranging from insects to rats to hippos to elephants.

Of the 11,400 specimens taken, 512 of were big game animals,  including six rare white rhinos. The animals killed which were intended for exhibits were skinned, preserved in salt and shipped to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.

Tons of dead animals were shipped back to America. It  took many years for the Smithsonian to taxidermize them all.

After the safari Roosevelt wrote about the experience in African Game Trails, were Roosevelt detailed the excitement of bagging the big game.

Roosevelt must have received some criticism about his mass murder of so many defenseless animals. Roosevelt defended the mass murder by saying, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned".

I suspect if Teddy Roosevelt was still around he would join in the world wide condemnation of the murder of Cecil the Lion.

Booker T. Washington Having Dinner With Teddy Roosevelt Was Not The Most Damnable Outrage Ever

"Booker Washington and Theodore Roosevelt at Tuskegie Institute" 

What you are looking at here is Booker T. Washington and President Theodore Roosevelt at the Tuskegie Institute.

Recently an idiot murdered nine fine Americans thinking doing so would set off a race war.

Instead the idiot murderer set off American revulsion at remnants of racism and white supremacist hate mongers.

America has come a long ways since the Civil War regarding all Americans of any make or model being being treated as promised by the U.S. Constitution.

White supremacist racism in the South used to be way worse. In 2015 the hatemongers are small in number.

As an example of how far we've come let's go back to the turn of the previous century, about a month after Theodore Roosevelt became president after the assassination of William McKinley, read this blurb from the Wikipedia article about Booker T. Washington...

When Washington's second autobiography, Up From Slavery, was published in 1901, it became a bestseller and had a major effect on the African-American community, its friends and allies. In October 1901 President Theodore Roosevelt invited Washington to dine with him and his family at the White House; he was the first African American to be invited there. Democratic Party politicians of the South, including future Governor of Mississippi James K. Vardaman and Senator Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina indulged in racist personal attacks when they learned of the invitation. Vardaman described the White House as....

"so saturated with the odor of the nigger that the rats have taken refuge in the stable", and declared "I am just as much opposed to Booker T. Washington as a voter as I am to the cocoanut-headed, chocolate-colored typical little coon who blacks my shoes every morning. Neither is fit to perform the supreme function of citizenship."

Tillman said, "The action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that nigger will necessitate our killing a thousand niggers in the South before they will learn their place again."

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Multiple newspapers in the South editorialized that Roosevelt having dinner with Booker T. Washington in the White House was the "most damnable outrage ever."

Contrast South Carolina in 2015 with South Carolina in 1901. If a South Carolina senator in 2015 said that which Senator Tillman said I would think he would be ousted from the Senate, arrested, charged with some sort of hate crime, tried, convicted and likely jailed.

We have a ways to go, but America has come a long way from the days when racist idiots were in the majority.