#whigs

[azspot]

Whig ideology—or “the Whig Counter-Reformation,” as Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called it—denies the existence of enduring social classes in the United States, or else suggests that there are no enduring conflicts between the classes. Social misery is the product of either rare misfortune or the failure of indolent individuals to seize opportunity.

Whiggism Is Still Wrong

[mycandlesblog]

Why Are UK Conservatives Called Tories?

The Conservative Party in the UK is known colloquially as the Tory Party. Its supporters are generally called Tories. Why?  Many Americans m

[deadpresidents]

Is it true there's only been one Whig President?

And did he get anything done before his death?

No, technically, there were four Whig Presidents: William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, and Millard Fillmore. But it was more like three-ish because Tyler was nominally a Whig when he was elected as Harrison's Vice President in 1840, but when he assumed the Presidency following President Harrison's death, Tyler clashed with his fellow Whigs in Congress and was booted from the party just a few months into his term after more issues and the resignation of practically his entire Cabinet.

Whig Presidents definitely had a rough time, though. And the man who was arguably the most famous Whig of his time, Henry Clay, lost all of his bids for the White House -- even in 1844 against the first dark horse, James K. Polk. Harrison and Taylor were the only Whigs who were ever actually elected President. Harrison died just a month into his term, and was succeeded by Tyler who, as I previously mentioned, wasn't exactly winning any Whig-of-the-Year contests or being picked to be on the cover of the Whig video game. Taylor lasted a bit longer than Harrison did, but he also died in office, and Fillmore -- the last Whig President -- succeeded him. Fillmore was probably the "best" of the Whig Presidents, but that's kind of like being the most “dignified” Trump.

But...Whigs can also claim some credit for Abraham Lincoln! Lincoln was a ardent Whig for most of his political career prior to the formation of the Republican Party in the mid-1850s.

[tomorrowusa]

History Professor Allan Lichtman at American University, in conversation with Joshua Johnson, compared the Trump Republican Party with the Know Nothing Party of the 1850s.

Since the Civil War, starting new US parties which actually last and aren’t just vanity projects for those involved has resulted in a trail of political wreckage. An attempt to start a brand new party of anti-Trump Republicans would probably not be any more successful. 

The late political scientist Richard Hofstadter nailed it.

Third parties are like bees: once they have stung, they die.

Whether people like to hear this or not, the only way to beat lying Trumpist Republicans is by voting Democratic in large numbers.

Starting a new party may attract a few dissident Republicans, but it may also siphon away moderate voters from the Democrats. It’s those moderate suburbanites who helped put Joe Biden in the White House. Democrats control both chambers of Congress by very narrow margins. Few sane people would want Trumpists Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene to become committee chairs under a Speaker Kevin McCarthy. 

If Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Mitt Romney, and the other high profile dissident Republicans want to squeeze Trumpness out of the GOP then they need to effectively wreck the party and still be around to pick up the pieces of what’s left.

To recycle a phrase from the Vietnam War, they need to destroy the party in order to save it. Trump is so insinuated into the party that only a long series of stinging defeats will make what’s left of the GOP come to its senses.

[trashcanalienist]

*travels back in time and kidnaps Henry Clay* Whig snatched

[muddypolitics]

it’s weird to watch a rambling stream-of-consciousness crazy old man on TV and then try to process that he is actually president of the US

The fact that the GOP is enabling and even promoting this lunacy will not end well for the party.

Will the GOP disappear like the Whigs?

[everythingieverloved]

Fear of Popery now reached such a peak that a sizable section of the political nation was no longer prepared to tolerate the prospect of a Catholic king. In January 1679 Charles II dissolved Parliament, but a new one was summoned for the spring, and it was clear that when it met, the King would face calls to disinherit his brother. The country became so polarized that political parties emerged, with allegiances divided between those who favored excluding James from the throne, and those who wished to preserve intact the hereditary succession. The two groupings soon acquired names, originally intended as insults. Those hostile to the Duke of York were known as “Whigs,” short for “Whiggamore,” a term formally applies to extremist Presbyterian rebels in Scotland. Their more traditionalist opponents were dubbed “Tories,” after the lawless Catholic bandits who rampaged in Ireland. The labels would outlast the Exclusion Crisis, and bitter divisions along these lines would become so entrenched a feature of political life that when Anne came to the throne the two parties became her declared “bugbears.”

“Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion,” Anne Somerset

[thephantomofthelibrary]

But George III, who became king in 1760, wanted to end the dominance of 'old corps' Whigs, so the Tories enjoyed a resurgence.

Michael J. Turner, Pitt the Younger: A Life