can obama care be abolished

today’s republican party opposes big government.it’s culturally conservative. its demographic support is strongest among white voters, andit usually dominates elections in the south. and its 2016 presidential nominee has beenheavily criticized for inciting racial tensions. but things weren’t always this way.yet over the past 160 or so years, the party has undergone a remarkable transformationfrom the party of abraham lincoln… to the party of donald trump. and to understand how the gop got the wayit is today, you have to go back to when it first came into existence — in 1854, just7 years before the civil war. there are two parties at this point, the whigsand the democrats. america is quickly expanding

westward and there’s an intense debate overwhether the new states should permit slavery the democratic party, with strong supportin the south, has become increasingly pro-slavery. but the whigs are divided on the issue. theirnorthern supporters are really afraid that the growing number of slave states would havetoo much political influence, which they feared could hurt free white workers economicallyso in 1854, the country is debating whether or not the new states kansas and nebraskawill allow slavery. the can’t agree and the party ends up collapsing. the former whigsin the north form a new party that will fight against letting slavery expand further; theycall it the republican party. by 1860 the republican party become increasinglypowerful in the north, enough so that a little

known republican named abraham lincoln winsthe presidency. even though lincoln promises he won’t interferewith slavery in the states that already have it, he and his party are still too anti-slaveryfor the south to tolerate. so 11 southern states secede from the union, forming theconfederate states of america. the northern states decide to fight to keep the union together,and the civil war ensues. the result is a northern victory and the abolition of slaverynationwide. after the war, republicans begin fightingto ensure freedmen in the south have rights. a year after lincoln’s assassination, theparty passes the civil rights act of 1866, which said black citizens have the same rightsas whites. they fight to make sure that black

men have the right to vote, with new lawsand constitutional amendments. but something had happened during the civilwar that began changing the young republican party. government spending during the warmade many northern businessmen really rich. gradually, these wealthy financiers and industrialistsstart taking more and more of a leading role in the republican party. they want to holdon to power, and they don’t think that fighting for black rights in a mostly white countryis the best way to do that. meanwhile, the south is resisting these newracial reforms, often violently. and most white republican voters and leaders now feelthat they’ve done enough for black citizens in the south, and that it was time to emphasizeother issues. so in the 1870s, the party basically

gives up on reforming the south, decidinginstead to leave it to its own devices, even if that meant black citizens were oppressedand deprived of their new right to vote, and the region was politically dominated by whitedemocrats. fast-forward to the new century. by the 1920s,the republican party has become, essentially, the party of big business. this works outquite well for them when the economy was booming, but not so well when the economy crashes in1929 and the great depression begins. franklin d. roosevelt and other democratsare swept into power, and begin dramatically expanding the size and role of the federalgovernment, in an attempt to fight the depression and better provide for americans. republicansoppose this rapid expansion, defining themselves

as opposition to bigger government, an identitythat the party still holds today. then, going into the 50s and 60s, race andthe south return to the forefront of national politics, with the civil rights movement attemptingto end segregation and ensure blacks truly had the right to vote.civil rights isn’t purely a partisan issue, it’s more of a regional issue with northernersfrom both parties supporting it and southerners from both parties opposing. then 1964, it’sdemocratic president lyndon johnson who signs the civil rights act into law. and it’srepublican presidential nominee barry goldwater who opposes it, arguing that it expands governmentpower too much. a massive switch-up takes place. black voters,many of whom had already been shifting from

republicans, convert almost entirely to theirnew advocates, the democrats. and white voters in the south, who had been staunch democrats,start to really resent “big government” interference here and in other matters, likeabortion rights and school prayer. over the next three decades, whites in the south switchto the gop, which makes the south an overwhelmingly republican region. by the 80s, the party beginsto resemble the gop we are familiar with today. republicans elect ronald reagan, who promisesto fight for, business interests, lower taxes, and traditional family values. then, as the 21st century begins, americais going through a major demographic shift in the form of hispanic immigration, bothlegal and illegal.

democrats and business elites tend to supportreforming immigration laws so that over 10 million unauthorized immigrants in the uswould get legal status. but “tough on immigration” policies and rhetoric become popular on therepublican right. then, when mitt romney loses his bid for thepresidency in 2012, he gets blown out among hispanic voters — exit polls showed that71% of them backed barack obama. and the republican party starts to look more like a party forwhite voters in an increasingly nonwhite country. given demographic trends, republican leadersworry that if they keep losing hispanic voters by that much, they’ll lose their chancesof winning the presidency. so in 2013, some key republicans in the senate — includingrising star marco rubio — collaborate with

democrats on an immigration reform bill thatwould give unauthorized immigrants a path to legal status. but there’s a huge backlash from the republicanparty’s predominantly white base, which views the bill as “amnesty” for immigrantswho broke the rules. this exacerbates gop voters’ mistrust of their own party’sleaders, which had already been growing. and that makes the political landscape of2015 is fertile ground for a figure like donald trump, an outsider businessman who wants tobuild a wall on the border with mexico. trump isn’t a traditional conservative, but heappealed to republican primary voters’ resentment and mistrust of party elites, as well as theirstrong opposition to growing immigration trends.

and even though he was loathed by party leaders,he won enough support in the primaries to become the gop nominee for president. now, the republican party is once again ata major crossroads as it tries to meet the political challenges of the 21st century.it’s possible that the turn toward trump and his ideas this year will be rememberedas an aberration, and that a new generation of republican politicians will find a wayto be more than just the party of white resentment — rediscovering their roots as the partyof lincoln. but it’s also possible that trump is just the beginning, and that theparty will increasingly play to white voters by appealing to racial tensions. it’s upto republican voters and leaders to decide

just what they want their party to be.

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