OBITUARY: The Republican Party (1854–2024)

R.I.P. G.O.P.

It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of the Republican Party, a once-vibrant political institution that played a significant role in shaping American politics for over a century and a half. 

The Republican “GOP” Party took its own life on 5 November 2024 with the assistance of its youngest spawn, The MAGA Movement (now The MAGA Party). 

Already struggling on life support after brutal attacks by The MAGA Movement in 2016 and again in 2020–2021 and yet again in 2024, the Republican Party persisted through ups and downs in its health for almost another eight years. However, its diminishing health had left it less able to perform day-to-day activities.

Founded in 1854 in Ripon, Wisconsin, the party was a protest to the recently enacted Kansas-Nebraska act which allowed for the owning of other human beings in territories newly conquered and colonized by the United States of America. The Republican Party started as an underdog, fighting against the status-quo of believing that owning human chattel was acceptable and biblically correct.

In its early years, the Republican Party emerged as a powerful force against the expansion of slavery, led by figures such as Abraham Lincoln, who would become the first Republican president. The party's commitment to preserving the Union during the Civil War and its subsequent efforts during Reconstruction, although cut short, laid the groundwork for many of the civil rights advancements that followed. 

Throughout the Gilded Age, though, The Republican Party championed capitalism, solidifying their influence in national politics as the party of business. However, the Great Depression marked a turning point, as the party struggled to respond to the unprecedented economic crisis, the capitalistic ideals they had nurtured over the last several decades where discredited, ultimately leading to a significant decline in support.

During this time, prominent Republicans such as Joseph McCarthy, Strom Thurmond, and Jessie Helms worked tirelessly to roll back the achievements of their parties founding fathers. They took on the moniker of “conservative” and used the term “liberal” as the most disgusting word conceivable to them.

However, the liberal spark in the Republican Party had not yet been completely extinguished. For much of the early and mid-20th century, Republican activists worked diligently for woman’s rights, pro-choice legislation, and voting rights. 

The earthquake of the departure of the relatively liberal Republican President Richard Nixon for a spree of crimes against the American people solidified the control of the conservative wing of the party. After Nixon, the Republican Party completed the transformations it had started decades before, working against the very civil rights that had once been the bedrock of the party and solidifying around a pro-wealth and anti-labour philosophy. 

The late 20th century saw a resurgence of the Party under Ronald Reagan, who reinvigorated the party around nationalist conservative values, combining economic conservatism with social conservatism leading to capitulation to business interests over citizens and a militaristic foreign policy while attracting the socially conservative focused working class by promising suppression of what they felt to be an increasingly liberal media.

The early 21st century saw the Republican party back in control after eight years of primarily Democratic control that had left the country with a budgetary surplus for the first time in almost thirty years. However, with the events of 9/11, the Republican Party declared the “War on Terror”. They first convinced US allies to invade Afghanistan (the location of the terrorist plot’s architects) but then convinced only the United Kingdom to invade Iraq, a country that had not been involved with the 9/11 terrorist attack.

The war exhausted the budget surplus almost immediately. This, along with tax cuts put in place by Republicans, ballooned the national deficit beyond precedence. By 2008, in the midst of an economic down turn and a general weariness of a seemingly endless war on terror, the Republicans found themselves on the outs again.

The party regrouped, and, after several unsuccessful attempts by economic conservatives at the Presidency, the party nominated Donald Trump who brought with him his populist MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement. Despite his non-traditional style, Trump caught on with a significant portion of the US electorate who were unconcerned with the quality of his character.

Despite the apparent chaos in the Republican Party, Trump’s populist message to working class citizens allowed them to capture the Electoral College in 2016, if not the popular vote. 

By 2020, the party's identity had became irrevocably intertwined with its spawn — the increasingly fascistic and socially conservative MAGA Movement. This, along with Trumps handling of a pandemic that left over a million Americans dead, lead to both an electoral and popular vote defeat for Trump, costing the Republican Party the White House.

In recent years, internal feuding between Republican economic conservatives and MAGA social conservatives resulted in ideological rifts growing. Increasingly, The Republican Party’s youngest spawn took on family business responsibilities from their parent, promoting their socially conservative message and ignoring Republican economic conservatives. This eventually led to an almost complete departure of economic conservative intellectuals from its ranks but gaining The MAGA Movement complete control of the party, inevitably leading to the Republican Parties death. 

Despite the failure of the MAGA Movement insurrection of 6 January 2021 — where Trump ordered his Vice-President not to accept electoral college ballots that would show him to have lost the election — The MAGA movement still prevailed within The Republican Party. In 2024 Trump was able to not only regain The Republican Party nomination but win the presidential electoral college and popular vote as well, thus killing off the last remnants of the Grand Ol’ Party.

Unable to reconcile its rich history with the demands of contemporary governance, The Republican Party chose self-destruction to make way for The MAGA Party to rise in its place. 

The Republican Party leaves behind a complex legacy—one that includes significant contributions to civil liberties and economic policy contrasted with its later unwavering devotion to illiberalism and anti-democracy. 

The Republican Party is survived by its youngest spawn, The MAGA Party, its estranged sibling, The Democratic Party, and its parent, The United Staes of America, which is not expected to survive long past the death of it’s child.

In lieu of flowers, The MAGA Party requests mourners purchase merchandise from the still active Republican Party web site, with all proceeds going directly to The MAGA Party.