Republican Party (United States)
미국 공화당
A political party in the United States founded in 1854 by activists opposed to the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the expansion of slavery into the western territories. Together with the Democratic Party it has dominated American politics since the 1850s, and it is also known as the Grand Old Party (GOP). Beginning as the party of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, it has changed course several times and is today classed as right-wing populist and neo-nationalist.
In depth
According to the Russian-language source, former Democrats, Free Soilers and Whigs decided to found the Republican Party in a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin, on 20 March 1854, and the name was proposed by Horace Greeley. The party was formed in the Northern and border states, but not in the South, as an anti-slavery party to stop the expansion of slavery into the western territories under the Kansas–Nebraska Act. Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860 led to the secession of the Southern states and the Civil War, in which Lincoln and a Republican Congress led efforts to preserve the Union, defeat the Confederacy and abolish slavery.
During Reconstruction the Republicans sought to extend civil rights protections to freedmen, but from the late 1870s the party shifted its focus towards business interests and industrial expansion, supporting the national banking system, the gold standard, railroads and high tariffs. It largely dominated national politics until 1932. In 1912 the party split when former president Theodore Roosevelt formed the Progressive Party to oppose the conservatives under William Howard Taft, allowing the Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win. Having lost its congressional majorities in the Great Depression, the party returned to power with the election of Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952, whose moderate conservatism accepted many New Deal-era programmes.
After the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Southern strategy, the Southern states became reliably Republican in presidential elections. Following Roe v. Wade in 1973 the party opposed abortion in its platform and grew its support among evangelicals, and it won five of the six presidential elections from 1968 to 1988. Ronald Reagan, president from 1981 to 1989, called for reduced social spending and regulation, increased military spending, lower taxes and a strong anti-Soviet foreign policy, and his influence persisted into the early 21st century. The Russian-language source summarises the party’s ideological evolution from moderate liberalism and centrism under Lincoln, through the dominance of reformist factions in the 1890s–1900s and Eisenhower’s moderate conservatism, to neoconservatism after Reagan.
Donald Trump’s election in 2016 accelerated the party’s shift towards right-wing populism. Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden but refused to concede, and on 6 January 2021 his supporters attacked the United States Capitol. He won again in 2024 and became the 47th president on 20 January 2025. According to the English-language source, as of 2026 the party holds the presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress, and 19 Republicans have served as president, more than from any other party.