The establishment political factions motivate their bases with social issues - appealing to their respective tendencies by speaking for or against social progress. The "Conservative" base is motivated by fear, and the "Liberal" base is motivated by morality.

If you're the "Conservative" base, the Republicans will promise to prevent or halt social progress of one kind or another. (The crazier ones will promise to turn back social progress) They'll blame problems with the economy on reckless liberal policies. They'll say that getting government out of the way of business will allow the jobs to come pouring in.

This is the famous Bixby letter:

Executive Mansion, Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully, A. Lincoln

I cannot even begin to make a comparison between the second Republican nominee for the presidency and the current one.

I live in NC -- a swing state. We used to have Dem Governors and decent Dem state legislatures. We were considered one of the more "progressive" southern states.

In 2010 the GOP swept in and are in the process of ruining our fair state. They have gerrymandered the hell out of our state such that we'd need 3 votes to their 1 to get a Dem into office. GOP seriously hates the electorate fairly voting. It is really hard to unseat them.

"At most he has at least $165 million, which is great by any standard that's a lot of money. But when you're trying to finance a presidential campaign, it's nothing," Cuban said.

Cuban explained any politician can claim whatever net worth he or she wants because there are ways to manipulate the amount of cash on hand when filling out tax returns.

But Cuban explained Federal Election Commission filings are a different story.

DATELINE - Philadelphia, July 7, 2016.

In what has already been the strangest, unpredictable political season, things just got weirder. Much weirder.

How we got to this time and place will be written about for generations to come. One thing is for certain - nothing, absolutely nothing is certain anymore.

Just sit right back
And you'll hear a tale
A tale of a creepy dick,
who fondled kids in his high school days,
his acts will make you sick.
Denny was a ruthless pol, he aimed to impeach Bill,
cuz' of where he'd stick his prick.
Five innocents - their lives were ruined,
While Denny struck it rich,
and Til the Feds used their stick.

Til the Feds used their stick.

Ebola was a horrible emergency, so the GOP response was to ban travel, arrest and hold travelers to this country, and to harass and embarrass medical workers who did their best to stop the pandemic.

With a few exceptions, the Democratic response, led by President Obama, was to work with other countries, apply the best science and medicine, and eventually stop the spread of this killer disease.

When our country was grappling with the scourge that was slavery, we held a party. For reasons unknown, this very uncivil event was misnamed the Civil War, at least by the Yankees. To the loser south, they called it The War Between the States.

One sorry result of our (very un)Civil War was the rapid, widespread growth of a group that named itself after the sound of a firearm being loaded, Ku Klux Klan. Its first appearance was in the late 1860s and slowly petered out to something much smaller by 1890. It was violent, it targeted black leaders, it targeted Republicans. At that time, the GOP was the party of Lincoln. It was liberal, empathic, caring, anti-slavery, pro-worker, and pro humanity, as we might describe it now.