I was talking with a prominent older African-American Democrat the other day and told him I thought I might be a “Lincoln/Grant Republican and a 
RFK Democrat” based on what they believed back in the day.
He thought for a moment and said, “You know, I just might be one of them too!”
If enough responsible adults in America band together under similar bedrock political principles and philosophy that underpinned Lincoln/Grant Republicans and RFK Democrats in days gone by, they might be the ruling majority for the next 100 years.
Eighty percent of the American voting population have never been on the extremes on either end of the political spectrum dating back to the Federalist vs Democratic Republican divide in 1800. Perhaps only 5% on each end of the political spectrum can reasonably be tagged as being — and voting — “super-liberal” or “super-conservative” to begin with. Most people are too busy working and raising a family to get too involved with politics until right before an election anyway.
Abraham Lincoln gets credit for ending slavery because Union troops won the Civil War. It was Union General U.S. Grant who really “freed the slaves” when he became president in 1868 as a Republican. He sent U.S. troops into Southern states to make sure newly-freed slaves could vote and participate freely in the democratic process. Republicans since the formation of the Grand Old Party (GOP) have traditionally also been supporters of free markets and individual freedom with minimal government interference.
Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) was the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy who served as his attorney general. He was the civil rights Democratic presidential candidate in 1968 before he was assassinated by Sirhan B. Sirhan.
RFK and JFK were considered the more “liberal” candidates in the 1960s because of their civil rights advocacy, but they were fervent anti-communist believers in a strong national defense (both stared down Khrushchev during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis), and supported free enterprise and capitalism (JFK slashed taxes in 1961).
JFK once famously said he cut taxes because he wanted the private sector to be as healthy as possible. After all, he reasoned, business owners, corporations and workers had to be prosperous in order to pay the taxes liberals needed for their idealistic social programs.
RFK was a law-and-order AG as he ruthlessly prosecuted the Mafia across the nation. The Democratic Party may have been considered “liberal” in the 1960s, but compared to the modern Progressive Socialist Democratic Party of 2021, the party of JFK and RFK were 10 standard deviations to the right along the political spectrum scale.
Equality under the law. No special treatment for anyone based on race, gender, creed or religion — either favorably or to their detriment. Freedom. Capitalism. Personal privacy. Low Taxes. Restrained federal spending and regulation. Anti-communism. Balanced budgets. Those are the fundamental principles that 80% or 150 million American registered voters could embrace in a new majority political party.
American politics has been bitterly divided over the issue of abortion since 1973, much as the issue of slavery made the U.S. “a house divided,” as Lincoln memorably stated. There may not be room for a new national centrist center/right party to emerge until the issue of abortion is either resolved by medical science or the Supreme Court returns it back to the states thereby removing it from the national scene.
Once it does get resolved one way or another, is there any doubt that the vast majority of thoughtful reasonable American voters would support a political party that espoused the principles of Lincoln/Grant Republicans and RFK Democrats? The Nov. 2 elections in Virginia, New Jersey and in a city attorney election in Seattle showed that Americans across the country are tiring of the relentless effort by socialist lefties to destroy long-standing American principles of law and order; respect for the law such as border enforcement; parental control of public education and responsible financial management of their tax dollars.
Memo to all politicians on both sides: Instead of always trying to divide Americans along racial, gender and religious belief lines, why not try to unite us all behind the common-sense principles of the Lincoln/Grant Republicans and RFK Democrats of yesteryear?
It is all right there in the history books to copy and follow.
