More Than Half Of Young Americans Are Going Through An Extended Period Of Feeling Down Depressed Or Hopeless In Recent Weeks; 28% Have Had Thoughts That They Would Be Better Off Dead Or Of Hurting Themself In Some Way
Fifty-one percent of young Americans say that at least several days in the last two weeks they have felt down, depressed, or hopeless19% say they feel this way more than half of the time. In addition, 68% have little energy, 59% say they have trouble with sleep, 52% find little pleasure in doing things. 49% have a poor appetite or are over-eating, 48% cite trouble concentrating, 32% are moving so slowly, or are fidgety to the point that others notice and 28% have had thoughts of self-harm
Among those most likely to experience bouts of severe depression triggering thoughts that they would be better off dead or hurting themself are young people of color , whites without a college experience , rural Americans , and young Americans not registered to vote .
In the last two weeks, 53% of college students have said that their mental health has been negatively impacted by school or work-related issues; overall 34% have been negatively impacted by the coronavirus, 29% self-image, 29% personal relationships, 28% social isolation, 25% economic concerns, 22% health concernsand 21% politics .
The Ideology Of Old Republicans And Modern Democrats
Lincoln; was an;anti-slavery Republican;in;his day. In terms of pushing for social justice, using federal power, and taxation;his position was similar to todays progressivesocial liberal.
The Federalists and;Whigs;who became the Republicans were often classically conservative in terms of trade, taxes, and general authority. However, factions like;Conscience Whigs,;Half-Breeds, and Radical Republicans worked along with the fact that Republicans were not the Confederate pro-slavery South and drew a lot of progressives in Americas first 100-or-so years especially in the mid-1800s at the height of tension over slavery.
With that noted, we can say the;anti-slavery;Republicans of Lincolns time;roughly held;the beliefs of their predecessors the;Federalists;and;Whigs, but ;also of;todays modern Progressives and;Democrats.
Compared to their opposition the above major parties;are roughly;pro-north, pro-banking, pro-federal power, pro-northern factory, and pro-taxes. They favor collective;rights over individual rights,;typically using Federal power to ensure the;welfare of the collective. Thus, they;are;classically;conservative in terms of favoring authority, but liberal in terms of social policy.;So they are, as a party, classical conservatives;and social liberals;.
TIP: See this documentary from 1992 to understand New Democrats.
The Republican Sixth Party Strategy Where The Tea Party And Alt
Everything noted so far leads up to one other thing that needs to be discussed on its own .
After Voting Rights 1965 it wasnt just a matter of switching the South, it was a matter of taking that 1930s conservative coalition to the next level and the Republicans;switching themselves .
No social conservative faction was strong enough on its own to win an election, not after Voting Rights, but together, under a strategically planned big tent, the social conservatives and establishment conservatives;could create a siren-like;Frankensteins monster;to push for free-enterprise; and socially conservative values against the progressive state an increasingly progressive Democratic Party .
This story involves:
The Powell memo, the southern strategy, the John Birch Society, the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan, Norquist, Roger Aisle, Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, Fox News, Reagan, Right-Wing Radio, Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, and a vast;right-wing conspiracy aimed at getting;the many different social conservative and establishment conservative factions to adopt;each;others ideology .
Essentially, the Conservative Coalition in their fight against Communism and liberal democrats since WWI, but especially when their hand was forced post 1965, have created the modern right-wing populist political machine to counter the lefts own political machine .
Also Check: Why Do Republicans Hate Planned Parenthood
Is The Republican Party Fascist An Expert Explains The 7 Themes That Dominate Fascism Movements
Writing in the Washington Post four years ago, journalist Michael Kinsley gave this blunt assessment of the man about to become president:
“Donald Trump,” Kinsley wrote, “is a fascist.”
Four years later, it’s fair to ask: Is the Republican Party fascist?
It’s an incendiary question. It’s also a serious one. Even after the assault on the U.S. Capitol, eight Senate Republicans and 138 Republican members of the House of Representatives still voted to overturn a free and fair presidential election. It is just the latest example of a party that is well to the right of most conservative parties in the democratic world.
That alone wouldn’t make the Grand Old Party fascist. The word itself is hard to characterize. As one of Adolf Hitler’s biographers has put it, “trying to define ‘fascism’ is like trying to nail jelly to the wall.”
But it’s also real, as I learned working for an English-language newspaper in Rome in the mid-1980s. There, I attended a neo-fascist rally in the Piazza del Popolo complete with searchlights and elderly men, all wearing the same berets, a sign, my interpreter told me, that they once belonged to Benito Mussolini’s infamous Blackshirts.
While no two fascist movements are entirely alike, during fascism’s heyday in the 1920s and 30s, they shared several common themes. All of those themes are present in today’s Republican Party.
Impeachment Wasnt Popular Until Right Before Nixon Resigned
When the House of Representatives voted in February 1974 to give the House Judiciary Committee subpoena power to investigate Nixon, it did not have the weight of public opinion behind it. According to a poll conducted by Gallup just days before the vote, only 38 percent of Americans were in favor of impeachment. And although a solid majority of Americans did eventually come to support impeachment, that moment didnt arrive until quite late in the game.
But this didnt mean the public wasnt souring on Nixon as the Watergate scandal unfolded. After winning a , the president began his second term with an approval rating around 60 percent, according to FiveThirtyEights tracker of presidential approval. Then that spring saw a stunning 30-point drop in Nixons support starting around when one of the people charged with breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters confessed to a judge that he and the other conspirators had been pressured to stay silent.
Read Also: How Many States Are Controlled By Republicans
Black People Kept Civil Rights At Gop Forefront In Late 19th Century
African Americans remained active in the Republican Party and, for a time, kept voting and civil rights at the forefront of the party’s agenda. When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the 1875 Civil Rights Act in 1883, several Northern state governments controlled by Republicans created their own civil rights laws. John W.E. Thomas, a former enslaved person who was the first;African American elected to the Illinois General Assembly, introduced the 1885 Illinois Civil Rights Act.
But white Southern intransigence made it impossible to enact any meaningful protections at the federal level. That, combined with the rise of a new generation of white Republicans more interested in big business than racial equality, cooled GOP ardor for Black civil rights.
Republicans started taking the Black vote for granted, and the Republicans were always divided, Foner said. There were those who said, Weve really got to defend the Black vote in the South. And others said No, no, weve got to appeal to the business-minded voter in South as the party of business, the party of growth.
Fact check:Devastating 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre wasn’t worst U.S. riot, isn’t ignored in books
The Great Migration of;African Americans from the South, which began just before the United States entry into World War I, brought many Black;people into cities where they could vote freely and put them in touch with local Democratic organizations that slowly realized the potential of the Black vote.
The Trump Era: 20162020
Businessman Donald Trump won the 2016 Republican primaries, representing a dramatic policy shift from traditional conservatism to an aggressively populist ideology with overtones of cultural identity politics. Numerous high-profile Republicans, including past presidential nominees like Mitt Romney, announced their opposition to Trump; some even did so after he received the GOP nomination. Much of the Republican opposition to Trump stemmed from concerns that his disdain for political correctness, his support from the ethno-nationalistalt-right, his virulent criticism of the mainstream news media, and his expressions of approval for political violence would result in the GOP losing the presidential election and lead to significant GOP losses in other races. In one of the largest upsets in American political history, Trump went on to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.
In addition to electing Donald Trump as president, Republicans maintained a majority in the Senate, in the House, and amongst state governors in the 2016 elections. The Republican Party was slated to control 69 of 99 state legislative chambers in 2017 and at least 33 governorships . The party took total control of the government in 25 states following the 2016 elections; this was the most states it had controlled since 1952.
In 2017 Donald Trump promised to use protective tariffs as a weapon to restore greatness to the economy.
Also Check: How Many States Are Controlled By Republicans
Release Of The Transcripts
The Nixon administration struggled to decide what materials to release. All parties involved agreed that all pertinent information should be released. Whether to release unedited and vulgarity divided his advisers. His legal team favored releasing the tapes unedited, while Press Secretary Ron Ziegler preferred using an edited version where expletive deleted would replace the raw material. After several weeks of debate, they decided to release an edited version. Nixon announced the release of the transcripts in a speech to the nation on April 29, 1974. Nixon noted that any audio pertinent to national security information could be from the released tapes.
Initially, Nixon gained a positive reaction for his speech. As people read the transcripts over the next couple of weeks, however, former supporters among the public, media and political community called for Nixons resignation or impeachment. Vice President Gerald Ford said, While it may be easy to delete characterization from the printed page, we cannot delete characterization from peoples minds with a wave of the hand. The Senate Republican Leader Hugh Scott said the transcripts revealed a deplorable, disgusting, shabby, and immoral performance on the part of the President and his former aides. The House Republican Leader John Jacob Rhodes agreed with Scott, and Rhodes recommended that if Nixons position continued to deteriorate, he ought to consider resigning as a possible option.
Last Baseball Game Played At Historic Yankee Stadium
The Dixie Democrats seceding from the Democratic Party. The rump convention, called after the Democrats had attached President Trumans civil rights program to the party platform, placed Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Governor Fielding L. Wright of Mississippi in nomination.
Up until the post-World War II period, the partys hold on the region was so entrenched that Southern politicians usually couldnt get elected unless they were Democrats. But when President Harry S. Truman, a Democratic Southerner, introduced a pro-civil rights platform at the partys 1948 convention, a faction walked out.
These defectors, known as the Dixiecrats, held a separate convention in Birmingham, Alabama. There, they nominated South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond, a staunch opposer of civil rights, to run for president on their States Rights ticket. Although Thurmond lost the election to Truman, he still won over a million popular votes.
It was the first time since before the Civil War that the South was not solidly Democratic, Goldfield says. And that began the erosion of the southern influence in the Democratic party.
After that, the majority of the South still continued to vote Democratic because it thought of the Republican party as the party of Abraham Lincoln and Reconstruction. The big break didnt come until President Johnson, another Southern Democrat, signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
Don’t Miss: Donald Trump Political Buttons
Why Did Parties Switch Platforms And Members
The common thread of each major switch, aside from war, was civil rights. Or maybe we could more fairly say, state-enforced social and economic justice versus individual liberty;as is illustrated by;the charts on this page.
Civil rights aside, since before the first party was formed, our founding fathers have fought each other tooth and nail over the direction of the country. The biggest issues have been:;big business versus small business, big government;versus small government , big government versus small government , whether or not to have;a central bank, and;how much;local and foreign credit and debt was the right amount.
We can see how some of the above;values are consistent for a given quadrant of the political sphere, but not for a specific party in a two party system or even a faction or member of a party at a given time!;We can also see how specific groups have shifted their interpretation of these things over time, and how some groups simply pay lip-service to the overarching ideals.
The;planks and platforms of each opposing group have;changed over time, as specific stances on these issues were taken, and as public opinion changed with the times.
Whats Dividing Republicans And Democrats On Healthcare Reform
Since the Affordable Care Act became law in 2010, Republicans have been determined to destroy it while Democrats insist its the countrys best chance at reforming healthcare to make it affordable and accessible. Both parties want reform, but the approach has been fundamentally different and for good reason. There are basic, core reasons why conservatives and liberals cant get on the same page when it comes to healthcare reform.;Lets take a moment to dig into the details and figure out what is exactly keeping Republicans and Democrats from being able to find a middle ground on healthcare reform, so far.
Democrats want the federal government to legislate and administer healthcare while Republicans want private industry to helm the healthcare system with as minimal input from the federal government as possible.
Of course, there are always exceptions within each party because people arent one-dimensional. Moderates on both sides, for instance, would seek compromise wherever possible. But in general, these core ideological differences make healthcare reform particularly challenging, especially when one party holds more power. In 2010, Democrats passed the ACA without a single rightwing vote.
Also Check: Which States Did Not Vote For Trump
History Of The Democratic Party
The party can trace its roots all the way back to Thomas Jefferson when they were known as Jeffersons Republicans and they strongly opposed the Federalist Party and their nationalist views. The Democrats adopted the donkey as their symbol due to Andrew Jackson who was publicly nicknamed jackass because of his popular position of let the people rule. The Democratic National Committee was officially created in 1848. During the civil war a rift grew within the party between those who supported slavery and those who opposed it. This deep division led to the creation of a new Democratic party, the one we now know today.
The Fifth Party System And American Liberalism And Conservatism
In more modern times we can;to look at;the Fifth Party;System in which race, social justice, the;currency debate, religious issues like Temperance and Prohibition, and other issues of modernization seen in earlier systems had already split the parties into many factions. In this era, we;can see a telling split by comparing;the socially conservative anti-communist classical liberal Republican Hoover to;the big government pro-worker social liberal Democrat FDR;.
To fully grasp what happens from;Hoover and FDR on, itll help to quickly discuss;American liberalism and conservatism and how they;relate to other ideologies like progressivism.
Although we can see shadows of most modern political ideologies;in any age of recorded;history by looking to old nation-states like;Sparta, Athens, and Rome;or to revolutionary Britain, America, and France, American liberalism and conservatism undergo a noticeable change in the Gilded Age and Progressive era. Given this, the general;tension over social issues, and thus the use of government, can be described in modern times;as being between a few;general political ideologies:
NOTE: Many;elites are classical liberals and/or conservatives, yet most issues discussed in politics between voters are social issues . For example, almost everyone on K street and Wall Street are neoliberals and neoconservatives, yet the average voter votes on;social justice issues. Think about it.
Also Check: Did Trump Say Republicans Are Stupid
Senate Watergate Hearings And Revelation Of The Watergate Tapes
On February 7, 1973, the United States Senate voted 77-to-0 to approve 93 S.Res.;60 and establish a select committee to investigate Watergate, with Sam Ervin named chairman the next day. The hearings held by the Senate committee, in which Dean and other former administration officials testified, were broadcast from May;17 to August;7. The three major networks of the time agreed to take turns covering the hearings live, each network thus maintaining coverage of the hearings every third day, starting with on May;17 and ending with on August;7. An estimated 85% of Americans with television sets tuned into at least one portion of the hearings.
On Friday, July 13, during a preliminary interview, deputy minority counsel Donald Sanders asked White House assistant Alexander Butterfield if there was any type of recording system in the White House. Butterfield said he was reluctant to answer, but finally admitted there was a new system in the White House that automatically recorded everything in the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room and others, as well as Nixons private office in the Old Executive Office Building.
Political Firsts For Women And Minorities
From its inception in 1854 to 1964, when Senate Republicans pushed hard for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 against a filibuster by Senate Democrats, the GOP had a reputation for supporting blacks and minorities. In 1869, the Republican-controlled legislature in Wyoming Territory and its Republican governor John Allen Campbell made it the first jurisdiction to grant voting rights to women. In 1875, California swore in the first Hispanic governor, Republican Romualdo Pacheco. In 1916, Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first woman in Congressand indeed the first woman in any high level government position. In 1928, New Mexico elected the first Hispanic U.S. Senator, Republican . In 1898, the first Jewish U.S. Senator elected from outside of the former Confederacy was Republican Joseph Simon of Oregon. In 1924, the first Jewish woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives was Republican Florence Kahn of California. In 1928, the Republican U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Charles Curtis of Kansas, who grew up on the Kaw Indian reservation, became the first person of significant non-European ancestry to be elected to national office, as Vice President of the United States for Herbert Hoover.
Recommended Reading: Did Trump Say Republicans Are The Dumbest