How did We Go From Lincoln to Trump?

For the first time in the country’s history, a former president is charged with 34 felony counts. Donald Trump turned himself in to New York authorities, who prosecuted him, briefly arrested him on April 4. Trump has pleaded not guilty, leading to four pending legal proceedings, including another criminal charge in Georgia for election interference.

No matter the lawsuits against him, the inflammatory statements or the disconnection with reality, at the moment Donald Trump is the undisputed leader of the Republican Party. How is this possible?

From Lincoln to the Great Depression

In the first half of the nineteenth century, two groups dominated the political scene: The Whig Party and the Democratic Party. The Whigs began to have internal divisions on issues such as the abolition of slavery, which opened the way for a new group of northern politicians, including Abraham Lincoln, to form the Republican Party.

After the Civil War, Republicans were extremely dominant. From 1869 to 1932, all U.S. presidents were Republican with only two exceptions.

Over time, Lincoln’s party stopped making social reforms and instead shifted their main focus to supporting businesses. All went well until the start of the Great Depression in 1929.

The country, which plunged into a deep crisis, sought a new course and elected Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. He implemented an ambitious plan called the “New Deal” that expanded the functions and scope of the federal government, created new programs (including Social Security), and invested in infrastructure construction.

Battle Against Civil Rights

During the 1950s and 1960s, racial tensions returned to the center of the political debate. In 1964, Democratic President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, declaring racial segregation illegal. Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater opposed the law, arguing that it would give the government too much power.

Diego Barahona A.

Meanwhile, virtually all black voters became Democrats and Goldwater lost the election.

In the following decades, Republicans focused on promoting conservative fiscal and social policies, with Ronald Reagan as one of its most prominent leaders.

Between the 1980s and the early twenty-first century, a new political actor entered the scene. The Latino population grew and gradually increased its electoral participation. However, not everyone liked this.

Against the Undocumented

After George W. Bush’s presidency, many Republicans started embracing anti-immigrant positions. This cost them the presidential elections of 2008 and 2012, in which 70% of Latino voters supported Democrats.

Republican leaders realized that it would hurt their chances of winning the presidency if they did not gain the support of minorities such as Latinos. Thus, in 2013 they attempted to pass an immigration reform bill in the Senate.

This unleashed the fury of ultra-conservatives, ultimately generating a revolt within the party and causing lasting distrust between the leadership and the base. This discontent paved the way for the emergence of Donald Trump.

Trump is not a traditional conservative (in fact, for much of his life he identified as liberal), but he embodies the anger of one group that is expressing its discontent by targeting others. His undeniably racist and xenophobic attitude has even been denounced by his own party members.

Today the Republican Party is kidnapped by a tiny but very active and noisy ultra-conservative sector, which thinks that immigrants are the cause of all evil. This drags the party from Lincoln’s social justice policies to Trump’s extreme and discriminatory stances.

It is a pity that a character loaded with prejudices and now criminal charges, represents an important sector of the population. Will there be other better-qualified candidates among the Republicans?