Republican Party 
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4/11/2021
A Reason Republicans May Not Wish to Proclaim Themselves the Party of Lincoln
by Tim Lynch
The fledgling Republican Party needed to expand its appeal beyond its antislavery position, which remained its greatest asset and liability through the end of the Civil War. The party risks national ruin if it becomes the party of Trump and his Big Lie about the 2020 election results.
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SOURCE: Heather Cox Richardson
4/7/2021
April 6, 2021: On the Republican Party
by Heather Cox Richardson
Since the time of Lincoln, the Republican Party has been part of a bipartisan understanding that expanding the nation's infrastructure – meaning investing in all sorts of supports to economic and social activity – has been a boon to prosperity. That commitment is fraying today.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
3/26/2021
Bill Brock was the Forgotten Father of the Modern GOP
by Seth Blumenthal
Bill Brock lost two related battles: to keep the Republican Party establishment in charge of conservative policy priorities and to marry fiscal conservatism with some more moderate positions on social issues. A biographer argues that conservatism and the country are worse off for not following Brock.
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3/21/2021
Rally 'Round the Rune: Fascist Echoes of the CPAC Stage
by Mark Auslander and Jay Ball
The incorporation of a Norse rune associated with the SS into the stage of the recent CPAC conference probably isn't an accident; the choice reflects the cultural cachet of Norse myth on the far right, the conservative movement's desire to maintain deniability about its ties to the far right, and the recognition that the design would be crystal clear to viewers of internet memes.
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SOURCE: Heather Cox Richardson
3/13/2021
Letters From an American, March 13, 2021
by Heather Cox Richardson
What are the historical underpinnings of the immigration system, and what do politicians really mean by invoking a "border crisis"?
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SOURCE: The New Yorker
3/8/2021
What Is Happening to the Republican Party?
by Jelani Cobb
The historian and New Yorker writer consults a roster of political historians (including Marsha Barrett, Thomas Patterson and Heather Cox Richardson) to ask whether Trumpism has the potential to break the Republican Party as previous factional splits have disrupted prior incarnations of the American party system.
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SOURCE: New York Times
3/9/2021
The G.O.P. Isn’t Going to Split Apart Anytime Soon
by Jamelle Bouie
The Times columnist checks in with a number of political historians and argues that, while pundits are comparing today's GOP to the Whigs and Federalists, a more vital comparison is to the 19th century Democratic Party, which held on to power through aggressive use of anti-majoritarian institutions.
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SOURCE: The New Republic
3/8/2021
The John Birch Society Never Left
by Rick Perlstein and Edward H. Miller
Journalists are calling for the Republicans to follow the lead of William F. Buckley and stand up to far-right extremists in their ranks. The problem is that neither Buckley nor the GOP of the 1960s did any such thing, instead perfecting the technique of speaking to two audiences.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
3/8/2021
What the Election of Asian American GOP Women Means for the Party
by Jane Hong
The success of Asian-American Republican women candidates in Orange County suggests that the parties' efforts to appeal to a multiracial electorate must focus on the distinct histories and concerns of ethnic communities.
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3/2/2021
Historians on CPAC 2021
The annual conservative meeting showed that Donald Trump still holds the steering wheel of the Republican Party. Historians on the speeches, the stage design, and the golden idol.
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SOURCE: New York Times
Trumpism Grips a Post-Policy G.O.P. as Traditional Conservatism Fades
by Jonathan Martin
This year's CPAC meeting shows a remarkable Trumpian orthodoxy among Republican officials that stands out in contrast to the intense public debates that have followed previous electoral defeats.
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2/28/2021
Twenty Years Ago, Rioters Tried to Stop a Presidential Vote Count – and Succeeded
by Robert Brent Toplin
On November 22, 2000 a mob succeeded in deciding a presidential election.
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SOURCE: The Week
2/18/2021
Rush Limbaugh Taught Republicans To Rage
by Neil J. Young
Even from the perspective of today's degraded political culture that he helped bring about, Limbaugh's cruelty remains shocking.
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SOURCE: MSNBC
2/20/2021
As Long as Trump Controls the GOP, We Won't Have a Third Party
by Kevin M. Kruse
For a variety of institutional reasons, pro-Trump and Never-Trump factions will fight to control the Republican Party, rather than to create a competitor to it.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
2/25/2021
The Republican Party Is Now in Its End Stages
by Tom Nichols
"The Republican Party has become, in form if not in content, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of the late 1970s."
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2/21/2021
Cynicism and Political Blunder: A Postscript to “The January 6th Assault on Congress and the Fate of the GOP’s Faustian Bargain"
by Jeffrey Herf
Mitch McConnell's decision to condemn Trump after voting for his acquittal wasn't just an act of cowardice. The acts taken together constitute a major tactical blunder in the emerging battle for control of the Republican Party.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
2/15/2021
McConnell’s Task: Purging the Crackpots and Bigots
by Kevin M. Schultz
William F. Buckley Jr. was able to advance conservative ideas by publicly dissociating from antisemites, Ayn Rand cultists and John Birch conspiracists on the right-wing fringes. Mitch McConnell's problem leading America's conservative party is that all those groups are back with a vengeance.
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SOURCE: New York Times
2/17/2021
Rush Limbaugh, Talk Radio’s Conservative Provocateur, Dies at 70
The conservative talk radio host and de facto head of the Republican Party died on February 17 after a long career of airing right-wing grievances and attacking liberals, feminists, environmentalists, Democrats, and Black political leaders.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
2/16/2021
Convicting Trump would have Required Accepting a Half-Century of Republican Guilt
by Steven M. Gillon
Senate Republicans could not convict Donald Trump without also accepting their party's collective blame for the politics of white male resentment and Christian nationalism that the party has cultivated for decades before MAGA.
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SOURCE: The Guardian
2/15/2021
Jews Fear what Follows after Republicans Applauded Marjorie Taylor Greene
by Deborah Lipstadt
"Having spent decades studying, teaching, researching and fighting antisemitism, Greene’s claims were familiar territory. All of them – space lasers, 9/11, school shootings, Trump’s election loss and so much else – shared a common theme: conspiracy."
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