Will MAGA Replace the GOP?

When I was a kid, we had the same two political parties that we have today. The Republican party represented what we called ‘big business,’ which basically meant the Chamber of Commerce. The Democrats represented what we called ‘labor,’ which basically meant the United Federation of Teachers and all the other unions.

The Republicans were often referred to as ‘conservatives,’ the Democrats were the ‘liberals.’ What this basically meant was that conservatives were in favor of tax cuts and liberals wanted the government to give money directly to the people who didn’t have enough money of their own to spend.

The Republicans tended to be white and Protestant, the Democrats were everyone else. The Republicans also wanted the country to be run by men, the Democrats enlisted women and even a few blacks in their ranks. I’m obviously speaking in rather narrow terms, because even the most conservative Republicans and the most liberal Democrats often strayed across party and partisan lines.

So, for example, it was a conservative named Ronald Reagan who made the White House smoke-free and put health warnings on cigarette packs. On the other side, it was a liberal Democrat named Barack Obama who by extending the George H. W. tax cuts, enacted the second biggest, tax cut after Reagan’s 1981 tax plan.