Republican Party (United States)

Republican Party
AbbreviationGOP
ChairpersonMichael Whatley
Governing bodyRepublican National Committee
U.S. President-electDonald Trump
U.S. Vice President-electJD Vance
Senate Minority LeaderMitch McConnell
Speaker of the HouseMike Johnson
House Majority LeaderSteve Scalise
FoundersAlvan E. Bovay[1]
Henry J. Raymond[2]
... and others
FoundedMarch 20, 1854; 170 years ago (1854-03-20)
Ripon, Wisconsin, U.S.
Merger ofWhig Party[3][4][5][6]
Free Soil Party[7]
Anti-Nebraska movement[8]
Headquarters310 First Street SE,
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Student wingCollege Republicans
High School Republican National Federation
Youth wing
Women's wingNational Federation of Republican Women
Overseas wingRepublicans Overseas
Ideology Factions:
Political positionCenter-right[14] to right-wing[15]
International affiliation
CaucusesProblem Solvers Caucus
Republican Governance Group
Republican Main Street Caucus
Republican Study Committee
Freedom Caucus
Colors  Red
Senate
49 / 100
House of Representatives
220 / 435
State Governors
27 / 50
State upper chambers
1,110 / 1,973
State lower chambers
2,948 / 5,413
Territorial Governors
0 / 5
Territorial upper chambers
12 / 97
Territorial lower chambers
9 / 91
Website
gop.com Edit this at Wikidata
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The Republican Party, also known as the GOP (Grand Old Party), is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States. It emerged as the main political rival of the then-dominant Democratic Party in the 1850s, and the two parties have dominated American politics since then.

The Republican Party was founded in 1854 by anti-slavery activists who opposed the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which allowed for the potential extension of slavery to the western territories.[19] The party supported classical liberalism and economic reform[20] geared to industry, supporting investments in manufacturing, railroads, and banking. The party was successful in the North, and by 1858, it had enlisted most former Whigs and former Free Soilers to form majorities in almost every northern state. White Southerners of the planter class became alarmed at the threat to the future of slavery in the United States. With the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, the Southern states seceded from the United States. Under the leadership of Lincoln and a Republican Congress, the Republican Party led the fight to defeat the Confederate States in the American Civil War, thereby preserving the Union and abolishing slavery.

After the war, the party largely dominated national politics until the Great Depression in the 1930s, when it lost its congressional majorities and the Democrats' New Deal programs proved popular. Dwight D. Eisenhower's election in 1952 was a rare break between Democratic presidents and he presided over a period of increased economic prosperity after World War II. Following the 1960s era of civil rights legislation, enacted by Democrats, the South became more reliably Republican, and Richard Nixon carried 49 states in the 1972 election, with what he touted as his "silent majority". The 1980 election of Ronald Reagan realigned national politics, bringing together advocates of free-market economics, social conservatives, and Cold War foreign policy hawks under the Republican banner.[21] Since 2009, the party has faced significant factionalism within its own ranks and has shifted towards right-wing populism.[a]

In the 21st century, the Republican Party receives its strongest support from rural voters, evangelical Christians, men, senior citizens, and white voters without college degrees.[32][33] On economic issues, the party has maintained a pro-business attitude since its inception. It supports low taxes and deregulation while opposing socialism, labor unions and single-payer healthcare.[34][28] The populist faction supports economic protectionism, including tariffs.[35][36] On social issues, it advocates for restricting abortion, discouraging and often prohibiting recreational drug use, promoting gun ownership and easing gun restrictions, and opposing transgender rights. In foreign policy, the party establishment is interventionist, while the populist faction supports isolationism and in some cases non-interventionism.

  1. ^ The Origin of the Republican Party Archived March 22, 2012, at the Wayback Machine by Prof. A. F. Gilman, Ripon College, WI, 1914.
  2. ^ Widmer, Ted (March 19, 2011). "A Very Mad-Man". Opinionator. The New York Times. Retrieved March 12, 2017.
  3. ^ "Political Parties | Northern Illinois University Digital Library". digital.lib.niu.edu. Archived from the original on May 17, 2024. Retrieved May 27, 2024.
  4. ^ Howe, Daniel Walker (Winter 1995). "Why Abraham Lincoln Was a Whig". Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association. 16 (1). hdl:2027/spo.2629860.0016.105. ISSN 1945-7987.
  5. ^ "Historical Context: The Breakdown of the Party System | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History". www.gilderlehrman.org. Archived from the original on May 18, 2024. Retrieved May 27, 2024.
  6. ^ "Major American Political Parties of the 19th Century". Norwich University Resource Library. Retrieved May 28, 2024.
  7. ^ McPherson, James (2003) [1988]. The Illustrated Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Oxford University Press. p. 129. ISBN 978-0-19-974390-2.
  8. ^ James M. McPherson, Ordeal by Fire: Volume I. The Coming of War, second edition (ISBN 0-07045837-5) p. 94.
  9. ^ a b Smith, Robert C. (2021). "Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, and the Future of the Republican Party and Conservatism in America". American Political Thought. 10 (2): 283–289. doi:10.1086/713662. S2CID 233401184. Retrieved September 21, 2022.
  10. ^ Morgan, David (August 21, 2023). "Republican feud over 'root canal' spending cuts raises US government shutdown risk". Reuters. Archived from the original on October 1, 2023. Retrieved May 13, 2024.
  11. ^
  12. ^ Wilbur, Miller (2012). "Libertarianism". The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America. Vol. 3. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications. pp. 1006–1007. ISBN 978-1-4129-8876-6. While right-libertarianism has been equated with libertarianism in general in the United States, left-libertarianism has become a more predominant aspect of politics in western European democracies over the past three decades. ... Since the 1950s, libertarianism in the United States has been associated almost exclusively with right-libertarianism ... As such, right-libertarianism in the United States remains a fruitful discourse with which to articulate conservative claims, even as it lacks political efficacy as a separate ideology. However, even without its own movement, libertarian sensibility informs numerous social movements in the United States, including the U.S. patriot movement, the gun-rights movement, and the incipient Tea Party movement.
  13. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Arhin-2023 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ Sources for center-right:
    • Gidron, Norm; Zilbatt, Daniel (2019). "Center-Right Political Parties in Advanced Democracies" (PDF). Annual Review of Political Science. 22: 18–19, 27–28. doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-090717-092750. ISSN 1094-2939. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 23, 2023. Retrieved June 17, 2024.
    • Keckler, Charles; Rozell, Mark J. (April 3, 2015). "The Libertarian Right and the Religious Right". Perspectives on Political Science. 44 (2): 92–99. doi:10.1080/10457097.2015.1011476. To better understand the structure of cooperation and competition between these groups, we construct an anatomy of the American center-right, which identifies them as incipient factions within the conservative movement and its political instrument, the Republican Party.
    • Donovan, Todd (October 2, 2019). "Authoritarian attitudes and support for radical right populists". Journal of Elections, Public Opinion & Parties. 29 (4): 448–464. doi:10.1080/17457289.2019.1666270. A strict two-party system, such as the United States, does not fit the tripolar logic. If authoritarian attitudes exist in an electorate that effectively has no potential for anything but a choice between one centre-left and one centre-right party, people with such attitudes may find a place in one of the two dominant parties.
    • Carter, Neil; Keith, Daniel; Vasilopoulou, Sofia; Sindre, Gyda M. (March 8, 2023). The Routledge Handbook of Political Parties (PDF). p. 140. doi:10.4324/9780429263859. ISBN 978-0-429-26385-9. By comparison, the U.S. Republican Party (Gould 2014) is something of an outlier. This is principally a product of the uniqueness of the U.S. party system. Indeed, major shifts in the party's ideological focus can only in part be explained by its longevity (founded in 1854). Unlike its Liberal/Conservative counterparts in the Anglosphere and Europe, the Republican party machine is considerably weaker than any of its counterparts and the frequency of elections has profoundly shaped the way political elites relate to their party and develop policy ideas. Historically, the electoral system has buttressed a true two-party system, which meant building broad coalitions. Today that instinct is countermanded by growing electoral boundary manipu- lation which sees the party aim to disenfranchise ideological opponents, while narrowcasting to its own ideological base. These features are either unique or extreme by comparison to other centre-right parties discussed here. Given this, it is not surprising that where comparisons between parties have occurred, they have focused on ideological dimensions, policy ideas and the exchange of campaign techniques (see Wineinger and Nugent 2020). A primary driver of comparisons between the USA and other Anglosphere centre-right parties appears to be cultural and language affinities, and if anything, this highlights the relative lack of comparison between centre-right parties in the Anglosphere (such as Australia, the UK, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland) which share greater institutional similarities.[failed verification]
  15. ^ Sources for right-wing:
    • McKay, David (2020), Crewe, Ivor; Sanders, David (eds.), "Facilitating Donald Trump: Populism, the Republican Party and Media Manipulation", Authoritarian Populism and Liberal Democracy, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 107–121, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-17997-7_7, ISBN 978-3-030-17997-7, retrieved June 13, 2024, the Republicans changed from being a right of centre coalition of moderates and conservatives to an unambiguously right-wing party that was hostile not only to liberal views but also to any perspective that clashed with the core views of an ideologically cohesive conservative cadre of party faithfuls
    • Greenberg, David (January 27, 2021). "An Intellectual History of Trumpism". Politico Magazine. Archived from the original on April 11, 2024. Retrieved June 13, 2024. The larger ideology that the president-elect represents is a post-Iraq War, post-crash, post-Barack Obama update of what used to be called paleoconservatism: On race and immigration, where the alt-right affinities are most pronounced, its populist ideas are carrying an already right-wing party even further right.
    • Wineinger, Catherine; Nugent, Mary K. (January 2, 2020). "Framing Identity Politics: Right-Wing Women as Strategic Party Actors in the UK and US". Journal of Women, Politics & Policy. 41 (1): 5. doi:10.1080/1554477X.2020.1698214. ISSN 1554-477X.
    • Jessoula, Matteo; Natili, Marcello; Pavolini, Emmanuele (August 8, 2022). "'Exclusionary welfarism': a new programmatic agenda for populist right-wing parties?". Contemporary Politics. 28 (4): 447–449. doi:10.1080/13569775.2021.2011644. ISSN 1356-9775.
  16. ^ "Members". IDU. Archived from the original on July 16, 2015.
  17. ^ "Regional Unions". International Democracy Union. Archived from the original on June 17, 2010. Retrieved August 19, 2024.
  18. ^ "About – ECR Party". European Conservatives and Reformists Party. August 4, 2022. Archived from the original on July 1, 2023. Retrieved August 19, 2024.
  19. ^ Brownstein, Ronald (November 22, 2017). "Where the Republican Party Began". The American Prospect. Archived from the original on December 29, 2021.
  20. ^ Fornieri, Joseph R.; Gabbard, Sara Vaughn (2008). Lincoln's America: 1809–1865. SIU Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-0809387137. Archived from the original on July 24, 2019. Retrieved February 4, 2018.
  21. ^ Devine, Donald (April 4, 2014). "Reagan's Philosophical Fusionism". The American Conservative. Archived from the original on April 4, 2023. Retrieved January 18, 2023.
  22. ^ Cite error: The named reference Biebricher-2023 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  23. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ward 08-26-22 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  24. ^ Cite error: The named reference Punchbowl Old GOP was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  25. ^ Cite error: The named reference McCarthy 2009 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  26. ^ Kight, Stef W. (February 13, 2023). "GOP's old guard on verge of extinction as Trump allies circle Senate". Axios. Archived from the original on February 15, 2024. Retrieved February 14, 2024.
  27. ^ Ball, Molly (July 19, 2024). "Trump Hasn't Changed, but the GOP Has". The Wall Street Journal.
  28. ^ a b Gerstle, Gary (2022). The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0197519646. Archived from the original on June 26, 2022. Retrieved August 1, 2024. The most sweeping account of how neoliberalism came to dominate American politics for nearly a half century before crashing against the forces of Trumpism on the right and a new progressivism on the left.
  29. ^ Dawsey, Josh; Arnsdorf, Isaac; Vozzella, Laura (July 19, 2024). "Trump's overhaul of GOP shows his sway but leaves some on sidelines". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on July 21, 2024. Retrieved August 4, 2024.
  30. ^ Cite error: The named reference Not Coming to Milwaukee was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  31. ^ Cite error: The named reference Economist 10312020 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  32. ^ Cite error: The named reference Polarization by education was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  33. ^ Cite error: The named reference cambridge.org was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  34. ^ Cite error: The named reference New Fusionism was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  35. ^ "How Trump Could Deal Another Blow to Already Hobbled WTO". Bloomberg News. September 4, 2023.
  36. ^ Haberman, Maggie; Goldmacher, Shane; Swan, Jonathan (July 8, 2024). "Trump Presses G.O.P. for New Platform That Softens Stance on Abortion". The New York Times. Archived from the original on July 18, 2024. Retrieved July 9, 2024. The platform is even more nationalistic, more protectionist and less socially conservative than the 2016 Republican platform that was duplicated in the 2020 election.


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