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The Republican Party was dragged and given a quick history lesson after the GOP's official Twitter account published a misleading tweet honoring Abraham Lincoln, the United States' sixteenth President.
The GOP posted a photograph of the Lincoln Memorial and declared Lincoln the country's "first Republican President" in a tweet published December 5.
You can see the tweet below.
\u201cThe first Republican President\u201d— GOP (@GOP) 1670254865
The tweet is misleading because while Lincoln was indeed a member of the Republican Party, the Republicans of his day bear no resemblance to the Republicans of today.
In fact, the claim Lincoln was a "Republican" is about as misleading as a claim Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul made last year about Democrats bearing responsibility for the creation of Jim Crow laws, which were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States.
Lincoln's opposition, the Southern Democrats, defended slavery in the 19th century and proposed the racist laws that were on the books for decades well into the 20th. The United States presidential election of 1860 formalized the split in the Democratic Party and brought about the American Civil War.
The monopoly Southern Democrats held in the southern states after the war fractured as support for desegregation and civil rights reforms took center stage and many White southerners switched to the Republican Party at the national level subsequent to the passage of civil rights legislation.
Many were quick to point out the Republican Party of today is nothing like it was back in the 1860s.
\u201c@GOP A progressive liberal who believed that the federal government should override "state's rights" when it came to human rights.\u201d— GOP (@GOP) 1670254865
\u201c@GOP Abraham Lincoln has nothing in common with today\u2019s Republican party. Nothing.\n\nHe was for strong federal government and, by the end, emancipation and freedom of the slaves.\n\nIt would be more accurate if you put a picture of John Wilkes Booth up there representing you guys. #ncpol\u201d— GOP (@GOP) 1670254865
\u201cWhen a political party is so desperate for a rebrand, they reach back to 1860, hoping everyone will forget that by the 1960s, they had become the anti-Civil Rights, pro-Jim Crow party and never looked back. You really think Lincoln would have had Confederate flags at his rallies?\u201d— Lisa Senecal (@Lisa Senecal) 1670336162
\u201cMartin Van Buren lived long enough to see the party he built become a monster single-minded in its hunger for treason and inhumanity; and he endorsed the Republican candidate in 1860\nThere is no doubt that if Lincoln were alive today he would no longer be a Republican\u201d— Yehuda But For The Oilam (@Yehuda But For The Oilam) 1670375316
\u201cYour voters fly the flag of the traitors who assassinated him.\n\nHe's not yours anymore.\u201d— Patrick S. Tomlinson (@Patrick S. Tomlinson) 1670297168
\u201cLincoln would be embarrassed to call himself a Republican today.\u201d— Joey Palimeno (@Joey Palimeno) 1670315545
\u201cHow truly shameful this is. \n\nGoing from the party that abolished slavery and protected democracy at all costs to racism, hatred, and working against core American Values. \n\nLincoln would never stand with your principles.\u201d— PoliticsVerse \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 (@PoliticsVerse \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8) 1670359359
\u201cY'all would call him a socialist now\u201d— AntifaSlutriarch (@AntifaSlutriarch) 1670365881
\u201cLincoln was a self-described liberal, who believed in the republican duty to serve the people, to re-unite the American nation and to act in the common good.\n\nThe modern Republican Party is a nest of fascistic scandals which couldn\u2019t be further removed from the ideals of Lincoln!\u201d— Paul Hindley \ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6\ud83c\udf3b (@Paul Hindley \ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6\ud83c\udf3b) 1670377568
\u201cLincoln fought a war against the likes of you...\n\nYou are seditionists and traitors to the United States of America and its citizens\n\nLincoln would be embarrassed and ashamed of you\u201d— Rick Taylor (@Rick Taylor) 1670295093
Republicans' use of Lincoln is pretty well known, and former Republican President Donald Trump compared himself to the man more than once.
In 2018, Trump falsely claimed the media "excoriated" Lincoln when he gave the Gettysburg Address in 1863, suggesting Lincoln had also been the target of "fake news." Trump said the speech only came to be revered as one of Lincoln's finest 50 years after he gave it, even though a New York Times review of the speech at the time was quite favorable.
In 2020, Trump claimed at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic he believes he's been "treated worse" than Lincoln was during his presidency, a mighty claim given Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.
Oddly, Trump once said no one knew Lincoln was a Republican "until [Trump] came along," underscoring his lack of historical knowledge.
And in a bizarre turn, Trump claimed he could beat an undead Lincoln and Washington in a presidential race.