“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. … Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavour to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
— Abraham Lincoln, November 1864.
Yes, that’s the same Lincoln proudly claimed by the party that just pushed through a tax plan giving corporations and the ultra-wealthy the biggest tax break they’ve ever had. It’s also the party that is waiving every regulation that in any way restrains the voracious and short-sighted appetites of the ultra-wealthy and their corporations. It is the party that openly despises the very government that Lincoln struggled to preserve. And it is the party that chose, elected and supports a president who is rude, arrogant, unstable, openly racist, sexist and a pathological liar, just about as thoroughly opposite from Honest Abe as anyone could possibly be.
Conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, the vast majority of Americans rightly admire Lincoln for his humility, compassion for the downtrodden, wisdom, magnanimity in victory and his honesty. These are the values that truly made and continue to make America great.
Today’s Republicans need to seriously ask themselves how they went from being the actual Party of Lincoln to the Party of Donald J. Trump.
Ken Dammand
Tulalip
