REPUBLICAN QUOTES
quotations about Republicans
As a rule, large capitalists are Republicans and small capitalists are Democrats, but workingmen must remember that they are all capitalists, and that the many small ones, like the fewer large ones, are all politically supporting their class interests, and this is always and everywhere the capitalist class.
EUGENE V. DEBS
International Socialist Review, 1900
Well, I have been studying the Republican Party for over 12 years at close hand in the Capital of the United States. And by this time, I have discovered where the Republicans stand on most of the major issues. Since they won't tell you themselves, I am going to tell you. They approve of the American farmer--but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home--but not for housing. They are strong for labor--but they are stronger for restricting labor's rights. They favor a minimum wage--the smaller the minimum the better. They endorse educational opportunity for all--but they won't spend money for teachers or for schools. They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine--for people who can afford them... They consider electrical power a great blessing--but only when the private power companies get their rake-off.... They condemn "cruelly high prices"--but fight to the death every effort to bring them down. They think American standard of living is a fine thing--so long as it doesn't spread to all the people. And they admire the Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it.
HARRY TRUMAN
speech, October 13, 1948
Ever since 2004, Democrats have -- rightly! -- been bashing George W. Bush for encouraging the CIA to torture detainees. As a result, Republicans in government and the media felt compelled to defend it. This debate filtered down, reshaping opinions on torture along partisan lines. Today, 73 percent of Republicans support torturing suspected terrorists, according to Pew. Torture now has a constituency among Republicans, which helps explain why some GOP candidates are either embracing or refusing to condemn it. Any Republican who took a strong stance against waterboarding or other torture techniques could be pegged as weak on terrorism -- a damning charge in a Republican primary that's been preoccupied with ISIS.
ZACK BEAUCHAMP
"Why Republicans are debating bringing back torture", Vox, February 10, 2016
The GOP needs to live the planks of its platform, not just offer lip service.
SARAH PALIN
interview, Newsmax, August 29, 2008
If the Republican Party had its own Mt. Rushmore, that mountain would have three faces: Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan. The goal of every Republican candidate should be to become the fourth face on that mountain.
JIM PAPA
"Republicans are dismantling their Mt. Rushmore", The Hill, February 15, 2016
Studies are showing that Republican candidates are buying a lot of their ad time on the Weather Channel. You can tell because last night, the weatherman blamed the cold front on immigration and gay marriage.
CONAN O'BRIEN
Conan, January 31, 2012
Most people in business and most people who are successful are Republican. That's just a fact of life.
WILLIAM M. DALEY
Chicago Tribune, April 27, 2014
Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
attributed, Abraham Lincoln, Constitutionalism, and Equal Rights in the Civil War Era
Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the democrats believe every day is April 15.
RONALD REAGAN
The Common Sense of an Uncommon Man: The Wit, Wisdom, and Eternal Optimism of Ronald Reagan
[Republicans] haven't just grown more ideologically conservative in recent years, they've also grown more procedurally radical. Again and again, they've decided that the system of formal and informal norms that make the government work can be discarded if it becomes inconvenient. Shut down the government? You bet! Filibuster every bill more consequential than the naming of National Earwax Awareness Week? Sure! Bring America to the brink of defaulting on its debt? Why not! And every incentive Republican members of Congress have pushes them to be more uncompromising, more reckless, and more pure in their opposition to anything and everything any Democrat wants.
PAUL WALDMAN
"The stalemate over the Supreme Court could get even worse than you think", Washington Post, February 15, 2016
If you're keeping score at home, they have now applauded executions at the Republican debate, they have cheered letting an uninsured man die, and they booed an active duty U.S. serviceman for being gay. I don't know how you get to the right with this crowd but Ron Paul's new campaign ad is just the Rodney King beating to the sound of children laughing.
BILL MAHER
Real Time with Bill Maher, September 23, 2011
There exists a big circus tent, and the right entrance is named The Republicans, and the left entrance is called The Democrats. People argue over which is the correct path, not realizing everyone inside is a clown.
JAROD KINTZ
The Book is Not For Sale
However strange it seems, the Republican Party really is spinning off into a bizarro-cult who believe Barack Obama is a baby-killer plotting to build death panels for the grannies of America.
JOHANN HARI
attributed, "The Republican Party Is Turning Into a Cult", Huffington Post, August 18, 2009
The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong's moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt's evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk.
GARRISON KEILLOR
"We're Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore", In These Times
Thanks to the Republican Party, slavery was soon abolished in the United States. Things are no different today. Republicans are still fighting against slavery, and Democrats are still doing everything they can to keep people enslaved.
MIKE JENSEN
"Republicans: Still Fighting Slavery", Canada Free Press, July 11, 2013
The Republican Party was right on civil rights for the first one-hundred years of its existence. It was right when the Democratic Party was wrong. Its future strength and survival will depend on rediscovering that legacy of individual freedom amid America's essential diversity. To win in the 21st century, the 'Party of Lincoln' needs to start looking like the 'Party of Lincoln' again.
JOHN P. AVLON
"How the Party of Lincoln was Left Behind on Civil Rights", Real Clear Politics, June 20, 2008
Today, the Republican Party has drifted off the rails. It's become what the respected conservative political analysts Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein call 'a radical insurgency' that has pretty much abandoned parliamentary politics.
NOAM CHOMSKY
"Chomsky: Republican candidates represent serious danger to human survival", The Dawn, February 3, 2016
The Republican Party is the ship and all else is the sea around us.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
attributed, Frederick Douglass: American Hero
I have believed that in the Republican situation in Illinois, if we, the Republicans of this State, had made Judge Douglas our candidate for the Senate of the United States last year, and had elected him, there would today be no Republican party in this Union. I believe that the principles around which we have rallied and organized that party would live; they will live under all circumstances, while we will die. They would reproduce another party in the future. But in the meantime all the labor that has been done to build up the present Republican party would be entirely lost, and perhaps twenty years of time, before we would again have formed around that principle as solid, extensive, and formidable an organization as we have, standing shoulder to shoulder, tonight, in harmony and strength around the Republican banner.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech in Chicago, March 1, 1859
The Republican vision is clear: "I've got mine, the rest of you are on your own."
ELIZABETH WARREN
speech at Democratic National Convention, September 5, 2012