Ron Bryant: The News of the Death of the G.O.P. Is Greatly Exaggerated

History teaches us a very important lesson when it comes to politics.  Don’t ever count out a political party just because it’s going through some rough times.  Conventional political wisdom is ringing the death knell of the Republican Party.  After all, the GOP has lost the last two presidential elections, and the party lost to a person that should have been easy to beat, not because of race, but because Barack Obama arguably had the least political and leadership experience for a presidential candidate in American history.

Of the political parties that have died—Federalist, National Republican, and Whig, as well as a host of third and “also ran” parties, historical changes brought about their demise.  In 1814, the Hartford Convention made the Federalists look like traitors, especially when the New England states planned to leave the Union if the War of 1812 had continued much longer

The National Republicans could only be counted as a transition party as the dominant Democratic-Republican Party split into two factions.  One faction became the Democrats of today, and the other the Whig Party of Kentucky’s own Henry Clay.

Clay and the Whigs had something that kept them going for over two decades—a hatred of Andrew Jackson and the Democrats he made in his image.  With the demise of Jackson, as well as continuing divisive issues such as slavery, states rights, tariffs, and the death of Clay in 1852, the Whigs fell apart.

Democrats seemed far more resilient than their opposition.  Before the Civil War, they dominated American politics.  Except for four Whig presidents (two of those succeeded to the presidency upon the death of the president), the White House and Congress remained Democrat territory.

The Republican Party, formed in 1854 out of former Whigs, anti-slavery Democrats, and disgruntled third party supporters, nominated Abraham Lincoln in 1860.  His victory set the stage for the secession of eleven southern states, and the beginning of the Civil War.  Some political pundits of the day said the Democrats were finished as a viable political party.  After all, the Confederacy was controlled by Democrats.

Republican politicians noted that the Democrats did not die out as soon as they had expected.  In fact, they remained a healthy opposition to decades of Republican control of the presidency.

From 1860 until 1932, the Democrats elected only two presidents.  Political observers of today would have already written the obituary and buried them for that many defeats.  Their demise would have been greatly exaggerated.

With the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, the Democrats roared back to life and retained the presidency (with the exception of the eight years that Dwight D. Eisenhower held the office) from 1933 to 1969.  Now it was the turn of the Republicans to play dead.

Conventional wisdom again said one of the two major political parties in the U.S. would soon give up the ghost.  With the defeat of Richard Nixon by John Kennedy in 1960, and the beating Barry Goldwater took from Lyndon Johnson in 1964, the Republicans at last seemed to be going the way of the Dodo.

The election of 1968 proved that life had not left the Republicans.  Richard Nixon overcame his own political obituary and won not only the 1968 presidential election, but overwhelmingly defeated George McGovern in 1972.

As the Watergate scandal came to light and Nixon had to resign the presidency in 1974, the Republicans took a trouncing at the polls.  The Democrats won the presidency in 1976, and they still controlled Congress.  Their future looked brighter than ever.  However, in 1980, along came Ronald Reagan.  The Democrats not only lost the 1980 presidential election, but their defeat in 1984 could only be described as crushing.

The Republican won the presidency again in 1988, but in 1992, Bill Clinton defeated the first George Bush.  Although Clinton won reelection in 1996, the Democrats experienced one of their worst defeats in modern history.  In the congressional elections of 1994, the Republican won control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.  Defections of Democrats to the Republican Party made headlines.  One commentator dryly requested, “Will the last Democrat leaving Washington please turn off the lights?”

Since their founding, the Democrats and Republicans have been declared dead on several occasions, but both resurrect themselves.  There is no doubt that political and social changes, both dramatic and gradual, will one day end both parties; but for the time being, let’s not buy their burial plots just yet.

Ron Bryant is a Kentucky historian.