Would you abolish the Republican Party?

[The Arizonan]

If you had the power and the chance to abolish the modern day Republican Party, would you do it?

Sorry, Abraham Lincoln. I still like you though.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!

[Technocracy Timmy]

That'd depend on what replaced it. If it allowed the rise of a grown up version of the Libertarian Party (ala Mike Lee, rather than Gary Johnson), then I'd be all for it.

So basically nothing like Libertarianism?

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Duh.

[Xing]

I'd support repealing it and then later replacing it with something tremendous once we figure out what the hell is going on.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

It's a hate group devoted to destroying representative government in the US, masquerading as a political party. What would people say about the things the GOP says and does if it wasn't already an established and powerful part of American politics?

[OSR stands with Israel]

If in the case you abolish the GOP , you get in return a Conservative party that is capable of winning elections across the board immediately, and that party resembles Reagan conservativism (the Actual Version of it not the Tea Party/Libertarian/Trumpist version of it ) then yes 

[Koharu]

I'd support repealing it and then later replacing it with something tremendous once we figure out what the hell is going on.

This. Only it needs to be TREMENDOUS!! for accurate feel.

In seriousness, since our system works the way it does, another party containing most of the members of the current GOP would just reappear. We'd have to find a way to get to the heart of the matter with compassion to really fix this issue, and simply doing away with the GOP wouldn't do that.

Unfortunately, though, I'm afraid we're heading towards what Washington (and thus Hamilton and Madison) warned against in his farewell address.

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http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp

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In my mind, the Constitution has already been negatively affected (the cap on Representatives was one of the worst decisions as it also made the electoral college imbalanced, giving more power to less populated states) as these folks warmed against, and now, as predicted, "unprincipled men" have used the spirit of revenge to gain power and twist the system to their own ends.

I do not know how to fix this issue, but "abolishing" a party without another option would only entrench the members in their desire for one-upmanship and revenge.

[Santander]

Yes, so we could finally have a conservative party that wasn't tainted by Lincoln.

[Cold War Liberal]

I'd support repealing it and then later replacing it with something tremendous once we figure out what the hell is going on.

[RINO Tom]

Effectively, yes, but definitely rebrand and keep the glorious name.

[Orser67]

Probably not, since I can't imagine it's replacement would be any better. Also, the last time one of the major parties collapsed, we had a civil war, so I would definitely be worried about turmoil arising from the abolition of the Republican Party.

[Beet]

In theory sure, but can you imagine what would come after it? The Democrats thought they pulled a clever one by killing off the Whigs in 1852...

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

The thing about "oh, but the right would get violent!" is, that's likely going to happen anyway. It's happening now, with the Trump-correlated rise in hate crimes. From Trump the Terrorist on down to the openly Nazi human scum who follow him, the right openly encourages violence.

(I do not think pre-emptive violence directed against the right is a just or viable response. We do need to be prepared for when they resort violence.)

[Mr. Reactionary]

Yes, so we could finally have a conservative party that wasn't tainted by Lincoln.

[TML]

I would be glad to get rid of the current iteration of the Republican Party - I believe that it has acquired some characteristics which I would consider authoritarian.

As long as it purges its authoritarian elements, I would be fine with them taking viewpoints opposite of my own.

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

Only if the Democratic Party goes with it.

[alancia]

Yes, so we could finally have a conservative party that wasn't tainted by Lincoln.

[DataGuy]

No.

It's interesting to see people accuse the GOP of authoritarianism, then at the same time dream of its abolition and the one-party dominance by Democrats that would follow. Most of those who wish to eliminate the GOP just hate its ideas on a fundamental level and would also want to abolish any replacement similar to it, so what they truly desire themselves is a lack of meaningful ideological competition.

[Dr. MB]

Depends what comes after it.

[HillGoose]

No, but I'd like to let all the racists, the big-government "populists" and the Puritanical ultra-religious know that it's not a place for them. Those people could go found their own party.

[IceSpear]

No, but I'd like to let all the racists, the big-government "populists" and the Puritanical ultra-religious know that it's not a place for them. Those people could go found their own party.

There'd be hardly anyone left after that purge, lol.

[Skunk]

No, who else am I supposed to blame everything for?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Yes, so we could finally have a conservative party that wasn't tainted by Lincoln.

Yes, so we could finally have a conservative party that wasn't tainted by Lincoln.

I have no use for any form of conservatism that doesn't embrace and cherish Lincoln's legacy (even if it disagreed on some of his methods). Conservatism at its root base is and should be about the opposition to arbitrary rule and the inequity that results from it. There is nothing more arbitrary than the slave powers who embraced and abandoned ideology when convenient for the preservation of their cash maker. They didn't give a damn about state's rights when it came to Northerners who objected to being forced to hunt down their slaves for them, or when it came to being forced to accept them bringing their slaves north as "protected property under the constitution". There is nothing conservative about political expediency for personal profit!

Conservative is not and never has been about smaller government uber alles (That is libertarian not Conservative). Conservatism is for restraining the imbalance created by the overbearing weight of the federal government and the detrimental effect that it has on the federal system by usurping powers from the people to the government and the states to the Washington DC. Conservatism would never endorse the abolition of government though, nor even of the federal government. Conservatism is about restraining the bureaucratic state and its rules because it is arbitrary and not elected. 

The simple fact of the matter is that we have had an alliance of convenience with various groups who ever the course of the last 70 years have hijacked conservatism. Eliminating the GOP will not solve the problem because American Conservatism as it presently exists, is fundamentally rotten to the core, completely out of touch the current needs of its voting base and hopelessly contorted by extremists who are pulling the thing in five different directions and trying to exterminate everyone who disagrees with them.

Conservatives have let neo-liberals (emphasis on liberals) dictate our economic policy to the point where the greatest disruptive force (something conservatives would naturally oppose in terms of a foreign threat or social upheaval) has come from within in the name of unrestrained Creative Destruction and free trade. We have let our foreign policy be dictated by the Wilsonian Left, so that now we have a whole generation of people who despise the right and the Republican Party because of a war embraced and fought for Wilsonian justifications. We have let the religious right dictate social policy to the point that rather being an ideology based on the stability of faith, family and community, its known for divisiveness and hate.

American Conservatism is one big clusterf@%K and it did not have to be this way. When we started allowing each faction to pull us in five different directions at the same time and also demand purity with each knew set of demands, you end up like the spokes on a wheel shooting out in every direction, but the key thing is you are being pulled further and further apart. You cannot be for smaller government and be in people's bathrooms and bedrooms and other country's business. You cannot be for the stability of faith, family and community and perpetrate the greatest economic upheaval since the Great Depression on large swaths of rural and urban America and embracing radical proposal to abolish/eliminate government.

Conservatism was about being the voice of reason, about checking the radical impulses of everyone else and fighting for that simple family in that simple village who just wants to live their lives in peace. But how many times has it been us who has busted in the front door and ripped them apart? We bitch endlessly as Conservatives about broken families being the root cause of poverty, yet how many times have conservatives sent their fathers to die in foreign wars or come back suffering from PTSD and told you are on your own, meanwhile the kids and wife suffer b/c smaller government!?  How many times have conservatives locked their father's up for ridiculous lengths of time in the name of the war on Drugs? How many times have conservatives sent the father's job to China and told them to "work harder or be smarter next time"?

"Movement Conservatives" have done more to destroy the American Family in the past 30 years then Liberals ever could have dreamed. For 30 years, we have been perfectly fine with using government to break sh**t and then are the first ones to cry foul when someone one wants to use Government to fix it. And yet you wonder why every person of color hates us and why the youngest generations of Americans are coming to devour us alive?
 
It is not the Republican Party that is the problem, It is not even Donald Trump (he is just the manifestation the chickens coming home to roost) it is American Movement Conservatism, its inconsistencies, its simultaneous extremism and conformity with impossibly inconsistent sets of demands and its complete lack of awareness as to the damage it has caused. 

[OSR stands with Israel]

^^

Well American Conservatism during the 1920s was basically Libertarianism and on the Domestic Side was Libertarianism from 1896-1932 and maybe even 1876-1932.


American Conservatism after 1932(and 1940 in the GOP) was in the Wilderness until 1976 .Also even during the Wilderness years American Conservatism was basically Libertarianism till around 1960 and then basically became Neo-Liberalism after that.


So I dont think there ever was an era where Conservatism wasnt Libertarian or Neo Liberal