America's Twisted Meaning of the Word Repulican

[Kurai Tsuki]

Has anyone noticed that the American meaning of the word republican seems to be twisted from its original one, and, more importantly, the meaning that the rest of the world has? Ordinarily it would refer to someone who wants her country to be an independent republic, and to have its land controlled by its own people, for example, the Irish Republican Army. The word essentially means somebody who favors a republic, where the power rests in a body of citizens. It seems like the true meaning of the word is actually a very progressive one.

But in the ‘states it seems to refer to some sort of conservative plutocrat, twisted by the actions of the “republican party.”

Here are some exerpts from excerpts from the Webster website. (http://www.webster.com)


republican
Function: adjective
1 a : of, relating to, or having the characteristics of a republic b : favoring, supporting, or advocating a republic c : belonging or appropriate to one living in or supporting a republic <republican simplicity>


Main Entry: re·pub·lic
Pronunciation: ri-&#39;p&-blik
Function: noun
Etymology: French république, from Middle French republique, from Latin respublica, from res thing, wealth + publica, feminine of publicus public -- more at REAL, PUBLIC
1 a (1) : a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government b (1) : a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government c : a usually specified republican government of a political unit <the French Fourth Republic>

[Hate Is Art]

the two American partys names are just names, try and read anymore into and you&#39;ll fry your brains&#33;

[toastedmonkey]

i agree with DN,

after the last "election", i would hardly call bushes lot "democrat", would you?

[Misodoctakleidist]

I don&#39;t think they call themselves that either.

[Hate Is Art]

hehe&#33; poor toaste, outsmarted by a guy who is afraid of pianos&#33;

[toastedmonkey]

oh yeah, bushes party are the republicans arent they?

oops :(

[Saint-Just]

I think it used to (or still is) called the Republican and ..... Party. I can&#39;t remember exactly what it was. They had a strange emblem too, one of an elephant.

[Kaan]

Yeah, Bush is a Republican. My understanding of Republicanism is that it is representative democracy. Rather than voting on things, we vote on people who vote on things for us. This is more or less what Americans have (it is slowly disintegrating though, remember how bush won?). As American politics slowly moves closer to the right, true Republicanism seems progressive, but its still class society.

I also don&#39;t really understand the meaning of the elephant (or the donkey) either.

[SittingBull47]

it&#39;s basically the same fucking thing. Either way America&#39;s fucked because there&#39;s no third party (left-wing) candidate. Hmm...which candidate do we want to lead us to hell? I had a picture, but unfortunately i don&#39;t know how to post pics.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30 2004, 11:43 AM
The word essentially means somebody who favors a republic, where the power rests in a body of citizens. It seems like the true meaning of the word is actually a very progressive one.

But in the ‘states it seems to refer to some sort of conservative plutocrat, twisted by the actions of the “republican party.”

Here are some exerpts from excerpts from the Webster website. (http://www.webster.com)


republican
Function: adjective
1 a : of, relating to, or having the characteristics of a republic b : favoring, supporting, or advocating a republic c : belonging or appropriate to one living in or supporting a republic <republican simplicity>


Main Entry: re·pub·lic
Pronunciation: ri-&#39;p&-blik
Function: noun
Etymology: French république, from Middle French republique, from Latin respublica, from res thing, wealth + publica, feminine of publicus public -- more at REAL, PUBLIC
1 a (1) : a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government b (1) : a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government c : a usually specified republican government of a political unit <the French Fourth Republic>
Almost anything that&#39;s not a monarchy can be considered a republic; the original was the Roman Republic which can hardly be considered a popular democracy or anything like that.

Anyway, both Democrats and Republicans favor the current bourgeois-democratic republic so there&#39;s no contradiction to their names.

[praxis1966]

Misuse of the words republican and democrat in reference to the to major Amerikkkan political parties is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Consider the fact that the term "liberal" is generally used to refer to those of leftist political orientation. In the broader historical sense, the term liberal applies to the romantic political theorsists like Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Jefferson. In other words, a "liberal" is someone opposed to monarchical rulership the economic policies of mercantilism and instead favors a representative democracy and capitalism. This would make the Amerikkkan Republican Party the real liberals since they have closer historical ties to the aforementioned theorists.

[Guest1]

Originally posted by [email protected] 31 2004, 04:20 PM
Misuse of the words republican and democrat in reference to the to major Amerikkkan political parties is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Consider the fact that the term "liberal" is generally used to refer to those of leftist political orientation. In the broader historical sense, the term liberal applies to the romantic political theorsists like Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Jefferson. In other words, a "liberal" is someone opposed to monarchical rulership the economic policies of mercantilism and instead favors a representative democracy and capitalism. This would make the Amerikkkan Republican Party the real liberals since they have closer historical ties to the aforementioned theorists.
Here&#39;s the worst part, the Republican and Democratic parties completely switched at one point in history.

They went through a period of complete apathy, where no one cared about voting at all, and at one point each party decided to "redefine" itself to attract voters again. So the Republicans became rightwing, and the Democrats became less rightwing, and the people were so apathetic that they didn&#39;t even notice.

[synthesis]

I think CyM simplified the matter a little too much. So will I, but perhaps this will flesh things out a bit more for the person who posed the question. Most people don&#39;t know the history of American politics and therefore things can get pretty confusing.

EDIT: Uh, I didn&#39;t really realize how long this would get. If you, the reader, find yourself getting bored, scroll to the seventh paragraph.

At America&#39;s birth as a sovereign state, there were two political parties: the Democratic-Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson and the Federalist Party of Alexander Hamilton. The Republicans advocated strict adherence to the tenets of the Constitution, which meant that whatever powers the Constitution did not explicitly grant to the government could not be performed. They also proposed an economic ideology similar to laissez-faire capitalists today. The Federalists advocated corporate subsidies, national debt, and other such modern capitalist staples; they also preferred a loose interpretation of the Constitution.

The ultimate class difference between the two was that the Republican Party supported the Southern agricultural establishment, whereas the Federalist Party supported the Northern industrial establishment. This conflict, which dominated American politics for the next century, was America&#39;s version of the victory of bourgeois forces over the old order of aristocratic slave-owners (serfs in Europe).

The Federalist Party later dissipated and the Democratic-Republican Party split into the Democratic Party and the Whig Party, with pro-Andrew Jackson forces in the Democratic Party and anti-Jackson forces in the Whig Party. The Democrats, at this point, were a populist group with mass support in the South. The Democratic platform at that point mostly appealed to poor whites; harsher policies towards blacks and Native Americans were common themes.

The Republicans formed out of the failure of the Whig Party. They were either free-soilers or abolitionists and were worried about the disproportionate amount of influence that the Southern states had in Congress.

I have to gloss over the Civil War here; it&#39;s not important to your question. For various reasons, agricultural workers fell into a deep shithole later in the century, and Democrats were there to soak up the votes. Southern Democrats fulfilled the same role that Western populism always has, whether we&#39;re talking about Hitler, Mussolini, Wallace, McCarthy, Huey Long, or anyone else: fighting for the "common white man" over racial minorities and the ruling bourgeois establishment, in other words, they were reactionaries.

With the exception of Grover Cleveland, the presidency was dominated entirely by Republicans until the Depression. The reason for this was because of the Antebellum split between Northern and Southern Democrats - the Northerners opposed the Southerners&#39; desire to continue and expand slavery so to have more influence in Congress. Anyways, Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, oversaw a great deal of the gains of the Progressive era. Woodrow Wilson, a reformist Northern Democrat, was elected before World War I because the Republican vote was split.

Here&#39;s where things start to get relevant. The Republican Party had taken advantage of material conditions in the 1920&#39;s on a platform of laissez-faire capitalism; essentially, they believed in getting out of the way of the seemingly unlimited growth of the 1920&#39;s, as America emerged out of WWI being the leading world power. After everything went to shit during the Depression, Roosevelt, a Northern Democrat, then took advantage of his own material conditions and seized upon a massive coalition of the down-and-out, including skilled and unskilled wage-laborers, agricultural workers, and racial minorities. This is where we find the modern conception of the &#39;progressive&#39; Democrats and the &#39;conservative&#39; Republicans.

With the exception of Eisenhower, Roosevelt&#39;s New Deal Coalition dominated American politics for about thirty years. The problem was that the gains of unions and the economic recovery from World War II created a mostly-white middle class who then resented the Democrats&#39; continual push for more public spending.

Blah, blah, blah, I could go on, as the Nixon/Reagan/Wallace white-middle-class populism is important, but I think you get the point, which is that the origin of America&#39;s political party names and the politics they represent is extremely complicated. Read more about it if you want. Wikipedia.org is a great place to start.