4 ms·
If I'm remembering my history right, there were two main reasons for the name. It was, in part, a callback to the older, defunct, Democratic-Republican party th
by ricree 13y ago
If I'm remembering my history right, there were two main reasons for the name. It was, in part, a callback to the older, defunct, Democratic-Republican party that had been around in the early US.
It was also a mild dig against the Democratic party, implying that their support of slavery stood against republican ideals.
- oelmekki 13y agoI see, thanks for clarifying. I don't know much about early US history, I think I'll dig in, because having democrats being pro slavery and republicans anti slavery is something I wouldn't have expected.
- xionon 13y agoThe Democrats used to be pretty racist; before the American civil war, they supported slavery, and afterwards supported segregation, while the Republicans generally opposed slavery (Lincoln was a Republican, for example). As a result, the US South used to be heavily Democrat, and the north was heavily Republican. They basically flipped in the 40's and 50's due to the Democrats support for civil rights and the "southern strategy" (basically: appeal to racism, sometimes subtly, sometimes not, to get votes in the South) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy Today's (US) Republican party is nothing like the Republicans from 100+ years ago. It's kind of sad.
- coldpie 13y agoIt was 150 years ago. The parties have changed quite a lot since then.
- ecopoesis 13y agoIn the US, we had six party systems since the revolution. Each time we translation, we get two mostly new political parties which sometimes reuse the names of the defunct parties. Wikipedia has a good description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_system#United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_system#United_States
- tehwalrus 13y agoyou (GP) could also check out the XKCD of american political history. it has quite a few of the party names that people used throughout (which are entertaining, in a geeky kind of way): http://xkcd.com/1127/ http://xkcd.com/1127/ full res: http://xkcd.com/1127/large/ http://xkcd.com/1127/large/
- oelmekki 13y agoThanks you all, this has been very instructive. I realize I had a massive misinterpretation about left and right in the US. That's because, in France, left wing has always been associated to humanism (humans first, economics then) and universal rights (the whole world deserve to have rights), while right wing is most about economics and nationalism. From what I understand, US left wing is historically about equality for the "real USians" (kind of nationalism of the poors) while right wing, until getting own by far right in XXth's end, was for a very liberal society, be it in term of economics or in term of social rights. This would explain a lot in the recent NSA reactions, where we were very shocked that the debate seemed to focus on whether or not US citizen were spied, rather than if mass surveillance was a problem at all. Am I correct, here ?
- hnal943 13y agoI don't think the parties have changed much. The same moralist convictions that caused Republicans to be anti-slavery in the past are the same ones that make them anti-abortion today, for example.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoFor extra comedy points, the American Republican party formed largely from the American Whig party, which named itself after the British Whig party, which is today known in the UK as the Liberal Democrats.