We've been asking if the GOP is dead since at least 1936
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The Republican Party might find good use for that old Mark Twain quote: "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." For while many are currently lamenting the demise of the GOP, it turns out such concerns are nothing new — Gallup has been asking if this is the end of the GOP since 1936:
In December 1936, Dr. George Gallup — founder and then director of the American Institute of Public Opinion, the forerunner of the Gallup poll — asked a national sample of Americans, "Do you think the Republican Party is dead?" Fortunately for the GOP, just 27 percent thought it was; although, in a follow-up question, only 31 percent believed it would win the next presidential election. [Gallup]
Gallup reports that the question arose in the first place following President Franklin Roosevelt's landslide win in 1936. "Roosevelt's re-election, and the diverse geographic, ethnic, and religious coalition it was based on, left a stunned GOP facing some of the same questions about its future that it did after President Barack Obama's less sweeping victory in 2012," Gallup explains.
For what it's worth, prior to 2016 the Republican Party also apparently died in 2013. In other words, if history indeed repeats itself it might be worth drawing a quote from another cultural cornerstone, Monty Python — "I'm not dead yet!"
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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