Liberal Roots of the Republican Party

If today’s Republican Party, from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump, is known for fighting the left in the Congress, courts, and culture, the Republican Party of the 1850s rose to prominence by building on “the foundational left-wing social movement of the modern era,” which was the antislavery movement, according to Princeton historian Matthew Karp. Then a new party after the collapse of the Whigs, the antebellum Republicans fused social activism to end slavery with effective electoral politics. What can the the story of the abolitionists and antislavery men teach today's left-wing movements struggling to accomplish their goals? Karp joins host Martin Di Caro for a timely discussion tying the past to the present.