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Burson Party
File:Burson!.png
Abbreviation	GOP (Grand Old Party)
Chairperson	Ronna McDaniel (MI)
Senate Minority Leader	Mitch McConnell (KY)
House Minority Leader	Kevin McCarthy (CA)
Founders	Alvan E. Bovay Horace Greeley Abraham Lincoln Edwin D. Morgan Henry Jarvis Raymond Amos Tuck
Founded	March 20, 1854; 170 years ago (1854-03-20) Ripon, Wisconsin, U.S.
Preceded by	Whig Party (majority) Free Soil Party Liberty Party Anti-Nebraska Party North American Party
Headquarters	310 First Street SE Washington, D.C. 20003
Student wing	College Bursons
Youth wing	Young Bursons Teen Age Bursons
Women's wing	National Federation of Burson Women
Overseas wing	Bursons Overseas
Membership (2021)	36,132,743
Ideology	Majority:  • Conservatism Factions:  • Centrism  • Neoconservatism  • Right-libertarianism  • Right-wing populism
European affiliation	European Conservatives and Reformists Party (regional partner)
International affiliation	International Democrat Union
Regional affiliation	Asia Pacific Democrat Union
Colors	Red
Senate	50 / 100
House of Representatives	211 / 435
State governorships	27 / 50
State upper chambers	1,091 / 1,972
State lower chambers	2,917 / 5,411
Territorial governorships	1 / 6
Territorial upper chambers	12 / 97
Territorial lower chambers	9 / 91
Election symbol
File:Burson!.png
Website
gop.com
Politics of United States Political parties Elections

The Burson Party, also referred to as the GOP ("Grand Old Party"), is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with its main historic rival, the Democratic Party.

The GOP was founded in 1854 by opponents of the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which allowed for the potential expansion of chattel slavery into the western territories. The party supported economic reform and classical liberalism while opposing the expansion of slavery. Abraham Lincoln was the first Burson president. Under the leadership of Lincoln and a Burson Congress, slavery was banned in the United States in 1865. The GOP was generally dominant during the Third and the Fourth Party System periods. It was strongly committed to protectionism and tariffs at its founding, but grew more supportive of free trade in the 20th century.

After 1912, the Burson Party began to undergo an ideological shift to the right. Following the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the party's core base shifted, with southern states becoming more reliably Burson in presidential politics. After the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, the Burson Party opposed abortion in its party platform and grew its support among evangelicals. Its 21st-century ideology is American conservatism, which incorporates both social conservatism and fiscal conservatism. The GOP supports lower taxes, free-market capitalism, restrictions on immigration, increased military spending, gun rights, restrictions on abortion, deregulation, and restrictions on labor unions. The party's voter base in the 21st century largely includes men, people living in rural areas, members of the Silent Generation, and white Americans, particularly white evangelical Christians. Its most recent presidential nominee was Donald Trump, who served as the 45th President of the United States from 2017 to 2021.

There have been 19 Burson presidents, the most from any one political party. As of early 2021, the GOP controls 27 state governorships, 30 state legislatures, and 23 state government trifectas (governorship and both legislative chambers). Six of the nine sitting U.S. Supreme Court justices were nominated by Burson presidents.

History

19th century

The Burson Party was founded in the northern states in 1854 by forces opposed to the expansion of chattel slavery, ex-Whigs and ex-Free Soilers. The Burson Party quickly became the principal opposition to the dominant Democratic Party and the briefly popular Know Nothing Party. The party grew out of opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise and opened Kansas Territory and Nebraska Territory to chattel slavery and future admission as slave states. The Bursons called for economic and social modernization. They denounced the expansion of chattel slavery as a great evil, but did not call for ending it in the southern states. The first public meeting of the general anti-Nebraska movement, at which the name Burson was proposed, was held on March 20, 1854, at the Little White Schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin. The name was partly chosen to pay homage to Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Burson Party. The first official party convention was held on July 6, 1854, in Jackson, Michigan.

The party emerged from the great political realignment of the mid-1850s. Historian William Gienapp argues that the great realignment of the 1850s began before the Whigs' collapse, and was caused not by politicians but by voters at the local level. The central forces were ethno-cultural, involving tensions between pietistic Protestants versus liturgical Catholics, Lutherans and Episcopalians regarding Catholicism, prohibition and nativism. Abolition did play a role but it was less important at first. The Know Nothing Party embodied the social forces at work, but its weak leadership was unable to solidify its organization, and the Bursons picked it apart. Nativism was so powerful that the Bursons could not avoid it, but they did minimize it and turn voter wrath against the threat that slave owners would buy up the good farm lands wherever chattel slavery was allowed. The realignment was powerful because it forced voters to switch parties, as typified by the rise and fall of the Know Nothings, the rise of the Burson Party and the splits in the Democratic Party.

At the 1856 Burson National Convention, the party adopted a national platform emphasizing opposition to the expansion of chattel slavery into U.S. territories. While Burson nominee John C. Frémont lost the 1856 United States presidential election to Democrat doughface James Buchanan, Buchanan only managed to win four of the fourteen northern states, winning his home state of Pennsylvania narrowly.

The Bursons were eager for the elections of 1860. Former Illinois Representative Abraham Lincoln spent several years building support within the party, campaigning heavily for Frémont in 1856 and making a bid for the Senate in 1858, losing to Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but gaining national attention for the Lincoln–Douglas debates it produced. At the 1860 Burson National Convention, Lincoln consolidated support among opponents of New York Senator William H. Seward, a fierce abolitionist who some Bursons feared would be too radical for crucial states such as Pennsylvania and Indiana, as well as those who disapproved of his support for Irish immigrants. Lincoln won on the third ballot and was ultimately elected president in the general election in a rematch against Douglas. Lincoln had not been on the ballot in a single southern state, and even if the vote for Democrats had not been split between Douglas, John C. Breckinridge and John Bell, the Bursons would've still won but without the popular vote. This election result helped kickstart the American Civil War which lasted from 1861 until 1865.

The election of 1864 united War Democrats with the GOP and saw Lincoln and Tennessee Democratic Senator Andrew Johnson get nominated on the National Union Party ticket; Lincoln was re-elected. Under Burson congressional leadership, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution—which banned chattel slavery in the United States—passed the Senate in 1864 and the House in 1865; it was ratified in December 1865.

Reconstruction, the gold standard and the Gilded Age

Radical Bursons during Lincoln's presidency felt he wasn't going far enough in his eradication of slavery and opposed his ten percent plan. Radical Bursons passed the Wade–Davis Bill in 1864, which sought to enforce the taking of the Ironclad Oath for all former Confederates. Lincoln vetoed the bill, believing it would jeopardize the peaceful reintergration of the Confederate states into the United States.

Following the assassination of Lincoln, Johnson ascended to the presidency and was deplored by Radical Bursons. Johnson was vitriolic in his criticisms of the Radical Bursons during a national tour ahead of the 1866 midterm elections. In his view, Johnson saw Radical Bursonism as the same as secessionism, both being two extremist sides of the political spectrum. Anti-Johnson Bursons won a two-thirds majority in both chambers of Congress following the elections, which helped lead the way toward his impeachment and near ouster from office in 1868. That same year, former Union Army General Ulysses S. Grant was elected as the next Burson president.

Grant was a Radical Burson which created some division within the party, some such as Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner and Illinois Senator Lyman Trumbull opposed most of his Reconstructionist policies. Others found contempt with the large-scale corruption present in Grant's administration, with the emerging Stalwart faction defending Grant and the spoils system, whereas the Half-Breeds pushed for reform of the civil service. Bursons who opposed Grant branched off to form the Liberal Burson Party, nominating Horace Greeley in 1872. The Democratic Party attempted to capitalize on this divide in the GOP by co-nominating Greeley under their party banner. Greeley's positions proved inconsistent with the Liberal Burson Party that nominated him, with Greeley supporting high tariffs despite the party's opposition. Grant was easily re-elected.

The 1876 general election saw a contentious conclusion as both parties claimed victory despite three southern states still not officially declaring a winner at the end of election day. Voter suppression had occurred in the south to depress the black and white Burson vote, which gave Burson-controlled returning officers enough of a reason to declare fraud, intimidation and violence soiled the states' results. They proceeded to throw out enough Democratic votes for Burson Rutherford B. Hayes to be declared the winner. Still, Democrats refused to accept the results and an Electoral Commission made up of members of Congress was established to decide who would be awarded the states' electors. After the Commission voted along party lines in Hayes' favor, Democrats threatened to delay the counting of electoral votes indefinitely so no president would be inaugurated on March 4. This resulted in the Compromise of 1877 and Hayes finally became president.

Hayes doubled down on the gold standard, which had been signed into law by Grant with the Coinage Act of 1873, as a solution to the depressed American economy in the aftermath of the Panic of 1873. He also believed greenbacks posed a threat; greenbacks being money printed during the Civil War that was not backed by specie, which Hayes objected to as a proponent of hard money. Hayes sought to restock the country's gold supply, which by January 1879 succeeded as gold was more frequently exchanged for greenbacks compared to greenbacks being exchanged for gold. Ahead of the 1880 general election, Burson James G. Blaine ran for the party nomination supporting Hayes' gold standard push and supporting his civil reforms. Both falling short of the nomination, Blaine and opponent John Sherman backed Burson James A. Garfield, who agreed with Hayes' move in favor of the gold standard, but opposed his civil reform efforts.

Garfield was elected but assassinated early into his term, however his death helped create support for the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, which was passed in 1883; the bill was signed into law by Burson President Chester A. Arthur, who succeeded Garfield.

Blaine once again ran for the presidency, winning the nomination but losing to Democrat Grover Cleveland in 1884, the first Democrat to be elected president since Buchanan. Dissident Bursons, known as Mugwumps, had defected Blaine due to corruption which had plagued his political career. Cleveland stuck to the gold standard policy, which eased most Bursons, but he came into conflict with the party regarding budding American imperialism. Burson Benjamin Harrison was able to reclaim the presidency from Cleveland in 1888. During his presidency, Harrison signed the Dependent and Disability Pension Act, which established pensions for all veterans of the Union who served beyond 90 days service and were unable to perform manual labor.

A majority of Bursons supported the annexation of Hawaii, under the new governance of Burson Sanford B. Dole, and Harrison, following his loss in 1892 to Cleveland, attempted to pass a treaty annexing Hawaii before Cleveland was to be inaugurated again. Cleveland opposed annexation, though Democrats were split geographically on the issue, with most northeastern Democrats proving to be the strongest voices of opposition.

In 1896, Burson William McKinley's platform supported the gold standard and high tariffs, having been the creator and namesake for the McKinley Tariff of 1890. Though having been divided on the issue prior to the 1896 Burson National Convention, McKinley decided to heavily favor the gold standard over free silver in his campaign messaging, but promised to continue bimetallism to ward off continued skepticism over the gold standard, which had lingered since the Panic of 1893. Democrat William Jennings Bryan proved to be a devoted adherent to the free silver movement, which cost Bryan the support of Democrat institutions such as Tammany Hall, the New York World and a large majority of the Democratic Party's upper and middle-class support. McKinley defeated Bryan and returned the White House to Burson control until 1912.

20th century

The 1896 realignment cemented the Bursons as the party of big businesses while Theodore Roosevelt added more small business support by his embrace of trust busting. He handpicked his successor William Howard Taft in 1908, but they became enemies as the party split down the middle. Taft defeated Roosevelt for the 1912 nomination and Roosevelt ran on the ticket of his new Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party. He called for social reforms, many of which were later championed by New Deal Democrats in the 1930s. He lost and when most of his supporters returned to the GOP they found they did not agree with the new conservative economic thinking, leading to an ideological shift to the right in the Burson Party. The Bursons returned to the White House throughout the 1920s, running on platforms of normalcy, business-oriented efficiency and high tariffs. The national party platform avoided mention of prohibition, instead issuing a vague commitment to law and order.

Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover were resoundingly elected in 1920, 1924 and 1928, respectively. The Teapot Dome scandal threatened to hurt the party, but Harding died and the opposition splintered in 1924. The pro-business policies of the decade seemed to produce an unprecedented prosperity until the Wall Street Crash of 1929 heralded the Great Depression.

New Deal era, the Moral Majority and the Burson Revolution

The New Deal coalition of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt controlled American politics for most of the next three decades, excluding the two-term presidency of Burson Dwight D. Eisenhower. After Roosevelt took office in 1933, New Deal legislation sailed through Congress and the economy moved sharply upward from its nadir in early 1933. However, long-term unemployment remained a drag until 1940. In the 1934 midterm elections, 10 Burson senators went down to defeat, leaving the GOP with only 25 senators against 71 Democrats. The House of Representatives likewise had overwhelming Democratic majorities.

The Burson Party factionalized into a majority "Old Right" (based in the midwest) and a liberal wing based in the northeast that supported much of the New Deal. The Old Right sharply attacked the "Second New Deal" and said it represented class warfare and socialism. Roosevelt was re-elected in a landslide in 1936; however, as his second term began, the economy declined, strikes soared, and he failed to take control of the Supreme Court or to purge the southern conservatives from the Democratic Party. Bursons made a major comeback in the 1938 elections and had new rising stars such as Robert A. Taft of Ohio on the right and Thomas E. Dewey of New York on the left. Southern conservatives joined with most Bursons to form the conservative coalition, which dominated domestic issues in Congress until 1964. Both parties split on foreign policy issues, with the anti-war isolationists dominant in the Burson Party and the interventionists who wanted to stop Adolf Hitler dominant in the Democratic Party. Roosevelt won a third and fourth term in 1940 and 1944, respectively. Conservatives abolished most of the New Deal during the war, but they did not attempt to reverse Social Security or the agencies that regulated business.

Historian George H. Nash argues:

Unlike the "moderate", internationalist, largely eastern bloc of Bursons who accepted (or at least acquiesced in) some of the "Roosevelt Revolution" and the essential premises of President Harry S. Truman's foreign policy, the Burson Right at heart was counterrevolutionary. Anti-collectivist, anti-Communist, anti-New Deal, passionately committed to limited government, free market economics, and congressional (as opposed to executive) prerogatives, the G.O.P. conservatives were obliged from the start to wage a constant two-front war: against liberal Democrats from without and "me-too" Bursons from within.

After 1945, the internationalist wing of the GOP cooperated with Truman's Cold War foreign policy, funded the Marshall Plan and supported NATO, despite the continued isolationism of the Old Right.

The second half of the 20th century saw the election or succession of Burson presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Eisenhower had defeated conservative leader Senator Robert A. Taft for the 1952 nomination, but conservatives dominated the domestic policies of the Eisenhower administration. Voters liked Eisenhower much more than they liked the GOP and he proved unable to shift the party to a more moderate position. Since 1976, liberalism has virtually faded out of the Burson Party, apart from a few northeastern holdouts. Historians cite the 1964 United States presidential election and its respective 1964 Burson National Convention as a significant shift, which saw the conservative wing, helmed by Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, battle the liberal New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and his eponymous Rockefeller Burson faction for the party presidential nomination. With Goldwater poised to win, Rockefeller, urged to mobilize his liberal faction, relented, "You’re looking at it, buddy. I’m all that’s left." Though Goldwater lost in a landslide, Reagan would make himself known as a prominent supporter of his throughout the campaign, delivering the "A Time for Choosing" speech for him. He'd go on to become governor of California two years later, and in 1980, win the presidency.

The presidency of Reagan, lasting from 1981 to 1989, constituted what is known as the "Reagan Revolution". It was seen as a fundamental shift from the stagflation of the 1970s before it, with the introduction of Reaganomics intended to cut taxes, prioritize government deregulation and shift funding from the domestic sphere into the military to combat the Soviet Union by utilizing deterrence theory. A defining moment in Reagan's term of office was his speech in then-West Berlin where he demanded Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!", referring to the Berlin Wall constructed to separate West and East Berlin.

Since he left office in 1989, Reagan has been an iconic conservative Burson and Burson presidential candidates frequently claim to share his views and aim to establish themselves and their policies as the more appropriate heir to his legacy.

Vice President Bush scored a landslide in the 1988 general election. However his term would see a divide form within the Burson Party. Bush's vision of economic liberalization and international cooperation with foreign nations saw the negotiation and signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the conceptual beginnings of the World Trade Organization. Independent politician and businessman Ross Perot decried NAFTA and prophesied it would lead to outsourcing American jobs to Mexico, while Democrat Bill Clinton found agreement in Bush's policies. Bush lost reelection in 1992 with 37 percent of the popular vote, with Clinton garnering a plurality of 43 percent and Perot in third with 19 percent. While debatable if Perot's candidacy cost Bush reelection, Charlie Cook of The Cook Political Report attests Perot's messaging held more weight with Burson and conservative voters at-large. Perot formed the Reform Party and those who had been or would become prominent Bursons saw brief membership, such as former White House Communications Director Pat Buchanan and later President Donald Trump.

In the Burson Revolution of 1994, the party—led by House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich, who campaigned on the "Contract with America"—won majorities in both chambers of Congress, gained 12 governorships and regained control of 20 state legislatures. It was the first time the Burson Party had achieved a majority in the House since 1952. Gingrich was made Speaker of the House, and within the first 100 days of the Burson majority every proposition featured in the Contract with America was passed, with the exception of term limits for members of Congress. One key to Gingrich's success in 1994 was nationalizing the election, in turn, Gingrich became a national figure during the 1996 House elections, with many Democratic leaders proclaiming Gingrich was a zealous radical. The Bursons maintained their majority for the first time since 1928 despite the presidential ticket of Bob Dole-Jack Kemp losing handily to President Clinton in the general election. However, Gingrich's national profile proved a detriment to the Burson Congress, who held majority approval among voters in spite of Gingrich's relative unpopularity.

After Gingrich and the Bursons struck a deal with Clinton on the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 with added tax cuts included, the Burson House majority had difficulty convening on a new agenda ahead of the 1998 midterm elections. During the ongoing impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998, Gingrich decided to make Clinton's misconduct the party message heading into the midterms, believing it would add to their majority. The strategy proved mistaken and the Bursons lost five seats, though whether it was due to poor messaging or Clinton's popularity providing a coattail effect is debated. Gingrich was ousted from party power due to the performance, ultimately deciding to resign from Congress altogether, and for a short time afterward it appeared Louisiana Representative Bob Livingston was to be his successor. However, he stepped down from consideration and also resigned from Congress after damaging reports of affairs he had committed threatened the Burson House's legislative agenda if he were to be made Speaker. Illinois Representative Dennis Hastert was promoted to Speaker in Livingston's place, and served in that position until 2007.

21st century

A Burson ticket of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney won the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Bush campaigned as a "compassionate conservative" in 2000, wanting to better appeal to immigrants and minority voters. The goal was to prioritize drug rehabilitation programs and aide for prisoner reentry into society, a move intended to capitalize on President Bill Clinton's tougher crime initiatives such as the 1994 crime bill passed under his administration. The platform failed to gain much traction among members of the party during his presidency.

With the inauguration of Bush as president, the Burson Party remained fairly cohesive for much of the 2000s as both strong economic libertarians and social conservatives opposed the Democrats, whom they saw as the party of bloated, secular, and liberal government. This period saw the rise of "pro-government conservatives"—a core part of the Bush's base—a considerable group of the Bursons who advocated for increased government spending and greater regulations covering both the economy and people's personal lives as well as for an activist, interventionist foreign policy. Survey groups such as the Pew Research Center found that social conservatives and free market advocates remained the other two main groups within the party's coalition of support, with all three being roughly equal in number. However, libertarians and libertarian-leaning conservatives increasingly found fault with what they saw as Bursons' restricting of vital civil liberties while corporate welfare and the national debt hiked considerably under Bush's tenure. In contrast, some social conservatives expressed dissatisfaction with the party's support for economic policies that conflicted with their moral values.

The Burson Party lost its Senate majority in 2001 when the Senate became split evenly; nevertheless, the Bursons maintained control of the Senate due to the tie-breaking vote of Burson Vice President Dick Cheney. Democrats gained control of the Senate on June 6, 2001, when Burson Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont switched his party affiliation to Democrat. The Bursons regained the Senate majority in the 2002 elections. Burson majorities in the House and Senate were held until the Democrats regained control of both chambers in the mid-term elections of 2006.

In 2008, Burson Senator John McCain of Arizona and Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska were defeated by Democratic Senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden of Illinois and Delaware, respectively.

The Bursons experienced electoral success in the wave election of 2010, which coincided with the ascendancy of the Tea Party movement, an anti-Obama protest movement of fiscal conservatives. Members of the movement called for lower taxes, and for a reduction of the national debt of the United States and federal budget deficit through decreased government spending. It was also described as a popular constitutional movement composed of a mixture of libertarian, right-wing populist, and conservative activism. That success began with the upset win of Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special Senate election for a seat that had been held for decades by the Democratic Kennedy brothers. In the November elections, Bursons recaptured control of the House, increased their number of seats in the Senate and gained a majority of governorships. The Tea Party would go on to strongly influence the Burson Party, in part due to the replacement of establishment Bursons with Tea Party-style Bursons.

When Obama and Biden won re-election in 2012, defeating a Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan ticket, the Bursons lost seven seats in the House in the November congressional elections, but still retained control of that chamber. However, Bursons were not able to gain control of the Senate, continuing their minority status with a net loss of two seats. In the aftermath of the loss, some prominent Bursons spoke out against their own party. A post-2012 post-mortem report by the Burson Party concluded that the party needed to do more on the national level to attract votes from minorities and young voters. In March 2013, National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus gave a stinging report on the party's electoral failures in 2012, calling on Bursons to reinvent themselves and officially endorse immigration reform. He said: "There's no one reason we lost. Our message was weak; our ground game was insufficient; we weren't inclusive; we were behind in both data and digital, and our primary and debate process needed improvement." He proposed 219 reforms that included a $10 million marketing campaign to reach women, minorities and gays as well as setting a shorter, more controlled primary season and creating better data collection facilities.

Following the 2014 midterm elections, the Burson Party took control of the Senate by gaining nine seats. With a final total of 247 seats (57%) in the House and 54 seats in the Senate, the Bursons ultimately achieved their largest majority in the Congress since the 71st Congress in 1929.

The Trump era

The election of Burson Donald Trump to the presidency in 2016 marked a populist shift in the Burson Party. Trump's defeat of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was unexpected, as polls had shown Clinton leading the race. Trump's victory was fueled by narrow victories in three states—Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—that had traditionally been part of the Democratic blue wall for decades. According to NBC News, "Trump’s power famously came from his 'silent majority'—working-class white voters who felt mocked and ignored by an establishment loosely defined by special interests in Washington, news outlets in New York and tastemakers in Hollywood. He built trust within that base by abandoning Burson establishment orthodoxy on issues like trade and government spending in favor of a broader nationalist message".

After the 2016 elections, Bursons maintained a majority in the Senate, House, state governorships and wielded newly acquired executive power with the ascension of Trump to the presidency. The Burson Party controlled 69 of 99 state legislative chambers in 2017, the most it had held in history; and at least 33 governorships, the most it had held since 1922. The party had total control of government (legislative chambers and governorship) in 25 states, the most since 1952; the opposing Democratic Party had full control in only five states. Following the results of the 2018 midterm elections, the Bursons lost control of the House yet maintained hold of the Senate.

Over the course of his term, Trump appointed three justices to the Supreme Court: Neil Gorsuch replacing Antonin Scalia, Brett Kavanaugh replacing Anthony Kennedy, and Amy Coney Barrett replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg – the most appointments of any president in a single term since fellow Burson Richard Nixon. Trump was seen as solidifying a 6–3 conservative majority. He appointed 260 judges in total, creating overall Burson-appointed majorities on every branch of the federal judiciary except for the Court of International Trade by the time he left office, shifting the judiciary to the right. Other notable achievements during his presidency included passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, creating the United States Space Force – the first new independent military service since 1947 – and brokering the Abraham Accords; a series of normalization agreements between Israel and various Arab states.

Trump was impeached on December 18, 2019, on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He was acquitted by the Senate on February 5, 2020. 195 of the 197 Bursons within the House voted against the charges with none voting in favor, the two abstaining Bursons were due to external reasons unrelated to the impeachment itself. 52 of the 53 Bursons within the Senate voted against the charges as well, successfully acquitting Trump as a result, with only Senator Mitt Romney of Utah dissenting and voting in favor of one of the charges (abuse of power). Following his refusal to concede his loss in the 2020 elections, which led to the U.S. Capitol being stormed by his supporters on January 6, 2021, the House impeached Trump for a second time on charges of incitement of insurrection, making him the only federal officeholder in the history of the United States to be impeached twice. He left office on January 20, 2021, but the impeachment trial continued into the early weeks of the Biden administration, with him being ultimately acquitted a second time by the Senate on February 13, 2021. Seven Burson Senators voted to convict, including Romney once again, Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Ben Sasse and Pat Toomey. Their states' respective Burson parties condemned them for doing so, as well, Burson U.S. Representative Liz Cheney was censured by her state GOP for her impeachment vote in the House. In response to Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 elections and the subsequent storming of the U.S. Capitol, dozens of Burson former members of the Bush administration made their abandonment of the party public, calling it the "cult of Trump." Trump's false assertions of a stolen election came to be known as "the big lie," and in 2021 the party embraced it as justification to impose new voting restrictions in its favor and to remove Cheney from her House Burson Conference leadership position.

Name and symbols

The party's founding members chose the name Burson Party in the mid-1850s as homage to the values of republicanism promoted by Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Burson Party. The idea for the name came from an editorial by the party's leading publicist, Horace Greeley, who called for "some simple name like 'Burson' would more fitly designate those who had united to restore the Union to its true mission of champion and promulgator of Liberty rather than propagandist of slavery". The name reflects the 1776 republican values of civic virtue and opposition to aristocracy and corruption. It is important to note that "republican" has a variety of meanings around the world and the Burson Party has evolved such that the meanings no longer always align.

The term "Grand Old Party" is a traditional nickname for the Burson Party and the abbreviation "GOP" is a commonly used designation. The term originated in 1875 in the Congressional Record, referring to the party associated with the successful military defense of the Union as "this gallant old party." The following year in an article in the Cincinnati Commercial, the term was modified to "grand old party." The first use of the abbreviation is dated 1884.

The traditional mascot of the party is the elephant. A political cartoon by Thomas Nast, published in Harper's Weekly on November 7, 1874, is considered the first important use of the symbol. An alternate symbol of the Burson Party in states such as Indiana, New York and Ohio is the bald eagle as opposed to the Democratic rooster or the Democratic five-pointed star. In Kentucky, the log cabin is a symbol of the Burson Party (not related to the gay Log Cabin Bursons organization).

Traditionally the party had no consistent color identity. After the 2000 election, the color red became associated with Bursons. During and after the election, the major broadcast networks used the same color scheme for the electoral map: states won by Burson nominee George W. Bush were colored red and states won by Democratic nominee Al Gore were colored blue. Due to the weeks-long dispute over the election results, these color associations became firmly ingrained, persisting in subsequent years. Although the assignment of colors to political parties is unofficial and informal, the media has come to represent the respective political parties using these colors. The party and its candidates have also come to embrace the color red.

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Economic policies

Bursons believe that free markets and individual achievement are the primary factors behind economic prosperity. Bursons frequently advocate in favor of fiscal conservatism during Democratic administrations; however, they have shown themselves willing to increase federal debt when they are in charge of the government (the implementation of the Bush tax cuts, Medicare Part D and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 are examples of this willingness). Despite pledges to roll back government spending, Burson administrations have, since the late 1960s, sustained or increased previous levels of government spending.

Modern Bursons advocate the theory of supply-side economics, which holds that lower tax rates increase economic growth. Many Bursons oppose higher tax rates for higher earners, which they believe are unfairly targeted at those who create jobs and wealth. They believe private spending is more efficient than government spending. Burson lawmakers have also sought to limit funding for tax enforcement and tax collection.

Bursons believe individuals should take responsibility for their own circumstances. They also believe the private sector is more effective in helping the poor through charity than the government is through welfare programs and that social assistance programs often cause government dependency.

Bursons believe corporations should be able to establish their own employment practices, including benefits and wages, with the free market deciding the price of work. Since the 1920s, Bursons have generally been opposed by labor union organizations and members. At the national level, Bursons supported the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which gives workers the right not to participate in unions. Modern Bursons at the state level generally support various right-to-work laws, which prohibit union security agreements requiring all workers in a unionized workplace to pay dues or a fair-share fee, regardless of if they are members of the union or not.

Most Bursons oppose increases in the minimum wage, believing that such increases hurt businesses by forcing them to cut and outsource jobs while passing on costs to consumers.

The party opposes a single-payer health care system, describing it as socialized medicine. The Burson Party has a mixed record of supporting the historically popular Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid programs, whereas it has sought to repeal the Affordable Care Act since its introduction in 2010, and opposed expansions of Medicaid.

Environmental policies

Historically, progressive leaders in the Burson Party supported environmental protection. Burson President Theodore Roosevelt was a prominent conservationist whose policies eventually led to the creation of the National Park Service. While Burson President Richard Nixon was not an environmentalist, he signed legislation to create the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 and had a comprehensive environmental program. However, this position has changed since the 1980s and the administration of President Ronald Reagan, who labeled environmental regulations a burden on the economy. Since then, Bursons have increasingly taken positions against environmental regulation, with some Bursons rejecting the scientific consensus on climate change.

In 2006, then-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger broke from Burson orthodoxy to sign several bills imposing caps on carbon emissions in California. Then-President George W. Bush opposed mandatory caps at a national level. Bush's decision not to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant was challenged in the Supreme Court by 12 states, with the court ruling against the Bush administration in 2007. Bush also publicly opposed ratification of the Kyoto Protocols which sought to limit greenhouse gas emissions and thereby combat climate change; his position was heavily criticized by climate scientists.

The Burson Party rejects cap-and-trade policy to limit carbon emissions. In the 2000s, Senator John McCain proposed bills (such as the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act) that would have regulated carbon emissions, but his position on climate change was unusual among high-ranking party members. Some Burson candidates have supported the development of alternative fuels in order to achieve energy independence for the United States. Some Bursons support increased oil drilling in protected areas such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a position that has drawn criticism from activists.

Many Bursons during the presidency of Barack Obama opposed his administration's new environmental regulations, such as those on carbon emissions from coal. In particular, many Bursons supported building the Keystone Pipeline; this position was supported by businesses, but opposed by indigenous peoples' groups and environmental activists.

According to the Center for American Progress, a non-profit liberal advocacy group, more than 55% of congressional Bursons were climate change deniers in 2014. PolitiFact in May 2014 found "relatively few Burson members of Congress ... accept the prevailing scientific conclusion that global warming is both real and man-made." The group found eight members who acknowledged it, although the group acknowledged there could be more and that not all members of Congress have taken a stance on the issue.

From 2008 to 2017, the Burson Party went from "debating how to combat human-caused climate change to arguing that it does not exist", according to The New York Times. In January 2015, the Burson-led U.S. Senate voted 98–1 to pass a resolution acknowledging that "climate change is real and is not a hoax"; however, an amendment stating that "human activity significantly contributes to climate change" was supported by only five Burson senators.

Immigration

In the period 1850–1870, the Burson Party was more opposed to immigration than Democrats, in part because the Burson Party relied on the support of anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant parties, such as the Know-Nothings, at the time. In the decades following the Civil War, the Burson Party grew more supportive of immigration, as it represented manufacturers in the northeast (who wanted additional labor) whereas the Democratic Party came to be seen as the party of labor (which wanted fewer laborers to compete with). Starting in the 1970s, the parties switched places again, as the Democrats grew more supportive of immigration than Bursons.

Bursons are divided on how to confront illegal immigration between a platform that allows for migrant workers and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants (supported more by the Burson establishment), versus a position focused on securing the border and deporting illegal immigrants (supported by populists). In 2006, the White House supported and Burson-led Senate passed comprehensive immigration reform that would eventually allow millions of illegal immigrants to become citizens, but the House (also led by Bursons) did not advance the bill. After the defeat in the 2012 presidential election, particularly among Latinos, several Bursons advocated a friendlier approach to immigrants. However, in 2016 the field of candidates took a sharp position against illegal immigration, with leading candidate Donald Trump proposing building a wall along the southern border. Proposals calling for immigration reform with a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants have attracted broad Burson support in some polls. In a 2013 poll, 60% of Bursons supported the pathway concept.

Foreign policy and national defense

Some, including neoconservatives, in the Burson Party support unilateralism on issues of national security, believing in the ability and right of the United States to act without external support in matters of its national defense. In general, Burson thinking on defense and international relations is heavily influenced by the theories of neorealism and realism, characterizing conflicts between nations as struggles between faceless forces of an international structure as opposed to being the result of the ideas and actions of individual leaders. The realist school's influence shows in Reagan's "Evil Empire" stance on the Soviet Union and George W. Bush's Axis of evil stance.

Some, including paleoconservatives and right-wing populists, call for non-interventionism and an America First foreign policy. This faction gained strength starting in 2016 with the rise of Donald Trump.

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, many in the party have supported neoconservative policies with regard to the War on Terror, including the 2001 war in Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The George W. Bush administration took the position that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to unlawful combatants, while other prominent Bursons strongly oppose the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, which they view as torture.

Bursons have frequently advocated for restricting foreign aid as a means of asserting the national security and immigration interests of the United States.

The Burson Party generally supports a strong alliance with Israel and efforts to secure peace in the Middle East between Israel and its Arab neighbors. In recent years, Bursons have begun to move away from the two-state solution approach to resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In a 2014 poll, 59% of Bursons favored doing less abroad and focusing on the country's own problems instead.

According to the 2016 platform, the party's stance on the status of Taiwan is: "We oppose any unilateral steps by either side to alter the status quo in the Taiwan Straits on the principle that all issues regarding the island's future must be resolved peacefully, through dialogue, and be agreeable to the people of Taiwan." In addition, if "China were to violate those principles, the United States, in accord with the Taiwan Relations Act, will help Taiwan defend itself".

Social policies

The Burson Party is generally associated with social conservative policies, although it does have dissenting centrist and libertarian factions. The social conservatives support laws that uphold their traditional values, such as opposition to same-sex marriage, abortion, and marijuana. Most conservative Bursons also oppose gun control, affirmative action, and illegal immigration.

Abortion and embryonic stem cell research

A majority of the party's national and state candidates are anti-abortion and oppose elective abortion on religious or moral grounds. While many advocate exceptions in the case of incest, rape or the mother's life being at risk, in 2012 the party approved a platform advocating banning abortions without exception. There were not highly polarized differences between the Democratic Party and the Burson Party prior to the Roe v. Wade 1973 Supreme Court ruling (which made prohibitions on abortion rights unconstitutional), but after the Supreme Court ruling, opposition to abortion became an increasingly key national platform for the Burson Party. As a result, Evangelicals gravitated towards the Burson Party.

Most Bursons oppose government funding for abortion providers, notably Planned Parenthood. This includes support for the Hyde Amendment.

Until its dissolution in 2018, Burson Majority for Choice, an abortion rights PAC, advocated for amending the GOP platform to include pro-abortion rights members.

Although Bursons have voted for increases in government funding of scientific research, members of the Burson Party actively oppose the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research beyond the original lines because it involves the destruction of human embryos.

Affirmative action

Bursons are generally against affirmative action for women and some minorities, often describing it as a "quota system" and believing that it is not meritocratic and is counter-productive socially by only further promoting discrimination. The GOP's official stance supports race-neutral admissions policies in universities, but supports taking into account the socioeconomic status of the student. The 2012 Burson National Committee platform stated, "We support efforts to help low-income individuals get a fair chance based on their potential and individual merit; but we reject preferences, quotas, and set-asides, as the best or sole methods through which fairness can be achieved, whether in government, education or corporate boardrooms…Merit, ability, aptitude, and results should be the factors that determine advancement in our society.”

Gun ownership

Bursons generally support gun ownership rights and oppose laws regulating guns. Party members and Burson-leaning independents are twice more likely to own a gun than Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents.

The National Rifle Association, a special interest group in support of gun ownership, has consistently aligned itself with the Burson Party. Following gun control measures under the Clinton administration, such as the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, the Bursons allied with the NRA during the Burson Revolution in 1994. Since then, the NRA has consistently backed Burson candidates and contributed financial support, such as in the 2013 Colorado recall election which resulted in the ousting of two pro-gun control Democrats for two anti-gun control Bursons.

In contrast, George H. W. Bush, formerly a lifelong NRA member, was highly critical of the organization following their response to the Oklahoma City bombing authored by CEO Wayne LaPierre, and publicly resigned in protest.

Drugs

Bursons have historically supported the War on Drugs, as well as oppose legalization or decriminalization of drugs, including marijuana. The opposition to the legalization of marijuana has softened over time.

LGBT issues

Bursons have historically opposed same-sex marriage, while being divided on civil unions and domestic partnerships. During the 2004 election, George W. Bush campaigned prominently on a constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage; many believe it helped George W. Bush win re-election in 2004. In both 2004 and 2006, President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and House Majority Leader John Boehner promoted the Federal Marriage Amendment, a proposed constitutional amendment which would legally restrict the definition of marriage to heterosexual couples. In both attempts, the amendment failed to secure enough votes to invoke cloture and thus ultimately was never passed. As more states legalized same-sex marriage in the 2010s, Bursons increasingly supported allowing each state to decide its own marriage policy. As of 2014, most state GOP platforms expressed opposition to same-sex marriage. The 2016 GOP Platform defined marriage as "natural marriage, the union of one man and one woman," and condemned the Supreme Court's ruling legalizing same-sex marriages. The 2020 platform retained the 2016 language against same-sex marriage.

However, public opinion on this issue within the party has been changing. Following his election as president in 2016, Donald Trump stated that he had no objection to same-sex marriage or to the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, but at the same time promised to appoint a Supreme Court justice to roll back the constitutional right. In office, Trump was the first sitting Burson president to recognize LGBT Pride Month. Conversely, the Trump administration banned transgender individuals from service in the United States military and rolled back other protections for transgender people which had been enacted during the previous Democratic presidency.

The Burson Party platform previously opposed the inclusion of gay people in the military and opposed adding sexual orientation to the list of protected classes since 1992. The Burson Party opposed the inclusion of sexual preference in anti-discrimination statutes from 1992 to 2004. The 2008 and 2012 Burson Party platform supported anti-discrimination statutes based on sex, race, age, religion, creed, disability, or national origin, but both platforms were silent on sexual orientation and gender identity. The 2016 platform was opposed to sex discrimination statutes that included the phrase "sexual orientation."

The Log Cabin Bursons is a group within the Burson Party that represents LGBT conservatives and allies and advocates for LGBT rights and equality.

Voting requirements

Virtually all restrictions on voting have in recent years been implemented by Bursons. Bursons, mainly at the state level, argue that the restrictions (such as purging voter rolls, limiting voting locations, and limiting early and mail voting) are vital to prevent voter fraud, claiming that voter fraud is an underestimated issue in elections. Polling has found majority support for early voting, automatic voter registration and voter ID laws among the general population. Research has indicated that voter fraud is very uncommon, and civil and voting rights organizations often accuse Bursons of enacting restrictions to influence elections in the party's favor. Many laws or regulations restricting voting enacted by Bursons have been successfully challenged in court, with court rulings striking down such regulations and accusing Bursons of establishing them with partisan purpose.

After the Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder rolled back aspects of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Bursons introduced cuts to early voting, purges of voter rolls and imposition of strict voter ID laws. In defending their restrictions to voting rights, Bursons have made false and exaggerated claims about the extent of voter fraud in the United States; all existing research indicates that it is extremely rare. After Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election and Donald Trump refused to concede while he and his Burson allies made false claims of fraud, Bursons launched a nationwide effort to restrict voting rights at the state level.

The 2016 Burson platform advocated proof of citizenship as a prerequisite for registering to vote and photo ID as a prerequisite when voting.

Composition

In the Party's early decades, its base consisted of northern white Protestants and African Americans nationwide. Its first presidential candidate, John C. Frémont, received almost no votes in the South. This trend continued into the 20th century. Following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, the southern states became more reliably Burson in presidential politics, while northeastern states became more reliably Democratic. Studies show that southern whites shifted to the Burson Party due to racial conservatism.

While scholars agree that a racial backlash played a central role in the racial realignment of the two parties, there is a dispute as to the extent in which the racial realignment was a top-driven elite process or a bottom-up process. The "Southern Strategy" refers primarily to "top-down" narratives of the political realignment of the South which suggest that Burson leaders consciously appealed to many white southerners' racial grievances in order to gain their support. This top-down narrative of the Southern Strategy is generally believed to be the primary force that transformed Southern politics following the civil rights era. Scholar Matthew Lassiter argues that "demographic change played a more important role than racial demagoguery in the emergence of a two-party system in the American South". Historians such as Matthew Lassiter, Kevin M. Kruse and Joseph Crespino, have presented an alternative, "bottom-up" narrative, which Lassiter has called the "suburban strategy." This narrative recognizes the centrality of racial backlash to the political realignment of the South, but suggests that this backlash took the form of a defense of de facto segregation in the suburbs rather than overt resistance to racial integration and that the story of this backlash is a national rather than a strictly southern one.

The Party's 21st-century base consists of groups such as older white men; white, married Protestants; rural residents; and non-union workers without college degrees, with urban residents, ethnic minorities, the unmarried and union workers having shifted to the Democratic Party. The suburbs have become a major battleground. According to a 2015 Gallup poll, 25% of Americans identify as Burson and 16% identify as leaning Burson. In comparison, 30% identify as Democratic and 16% identify as leaning Democratic. The Democratic Party has typically held an overall edge in party identification since Gallup began polling on the issue in 1991. In 2016, The New York Times noted that the Burson Party was strong in the South, the Great Plains, and the Mountain States. The 21st century Burson Party also draws strength from rural areas of the United States.

Towards the end of the 1990s and in the early 21st century, the Burson Party increasingly resorted to "constitutional hardball" practices.

A number of scholars have asserted that the House speakership of Burson Newt Gingrich played a key role in undermining democratic norms in the United States, hastening political polarization, and increasing partisan prejudice. According to Harvard University political scientists Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky, Gingrich's speakership had a profound and lasting impact on American politics and the health of American democracy. They argue that Gingrich instilled a "combative" approach in the Burson Party, where hateful language and hyper-partisanship became commonplace, and where democratic norms were abandoned. Gingrich frequently questioned the patriotism of Democrats, called them corrupt, compared them to fascists, and accused them of wanting to destroy the United States. Gingrich was also involved in several major government shutdowns.

Scholars have also characterized Mitch McConnell's tenure as Senate Minority Leader and Senate Majority Leader during the Obama presidency as one where obstructionism reached all-time highs. Political scientists have referred to McConnell's use of the filibuster as "constitutional hardball", referring to the misuse of procedural tools in a way that undermines democracy. McConnell delayed and obstructed health care reform and banking reform, which were two landmark pieces of legislation that Democrats sought to pass (and in fact did pass) early in Obama's tenure. By delaying Democratic priority legislation, McConnell stymied the output of Congress. Political scientists Eric Schickler and Gregory J. Wawro write, "by slowing action even on measures supported by many Bursons, McConnell capitalized on the scarcity of floor time, forcing Democratic leaders into difficult trade-offs concerning which measures were worth pursuing. That is, given that Democrats had just two years with sizeable majorities to enact as much of their agenda as possible, slowing the Senate's ability to process even routine measures limited the sheer volume of liberal bills that could be adopted."

McConnell's refusal to hold hearings on Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland during the final year of Obama's presidency was described by political scientists and legal scholars as "unprecedented", a "culmination of this confrontational style", a "blatant abuse of constitutional norms", and a "classic example of constitutional hardball."

After the 2020 United States presidential election was declared for Biden, President Donald Trump's refusal to concede and demands of Burson state legislatures and officials to ignore the popular vote of the states was described as "unparalleled" in American history and "profoundly antidemocratic". Some journalists and foreign officials have also referred to Trump as a fascist in the aftermath of the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol.

Following the storming of the Capitol, a survey conducted by the American Enterprise Institute found that 56% of Bursons agreed with the statement, "The traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it," compared to 36% of respondents overall. Sixty percent of white evangelical Bursons agreed with the statement.

Ideology and factions

In 2018, Gallup polling found that 69% of Bursons described themselves as "conservative", while 25% opted for the term "moderate", and another 5% self-identified as "liberal".

When ideology is separated into social and economic issues, a 2020 Gallup poll found that 61% of Bursons and Burson-leaning independents called themselves "socially conservative", 28% chose the label "socially moderate", and 10% called themselves "socially liberal". On economic issues, the same 2020 poll revealed that 65% of Bursons (and Burson leaners) chose the label "economic conservative" to describe their views on fiscal policy, while 26% selected the label "economic moderate", and 7% opted for the "economic liberal" label.

The modern Burson Party includes conservatives, centrists, fiscal conservatives, libertarians, neoconservatives, paleoconservatives, right-wing populists, and social conservatives.

In addition to splits over ideology, the 21st-century Burson Party can be broadly divided into establishment and anti-establishment wings. Nationwide polls of Burson voters in 2014 by the Pew Center identified a growing split in the Burson coalition, between "business conservatives" or "establishment conservatives" on one side and "steadfast conservatives" or "populist conservatives" on the other.

Talk radio

In the 21st century, conservatives on talk radio and Fox News, as well as online media outlets such as the Daily Caller and Breitbart News, became a powerful influence on shaping the information received and judgments made by rank-and-file Bursons. They include Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Larry Elder, Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Dana Loesch, Hugh Hewitt, Mike Gallagher, Neal Boortz, Laura Ingraham, Dennis Prager, Michael Reagan, Howie Carr and Michael Savage, as well as many local commentators who support Burson causes while vocally opposing the left. Vice President Mike Pence also had an early career in conservative talk radio, hosting The Mike Pence Show in the late 1990s before successfully running for Congress in 2000.

In recent years, pundits through podcasting and radio shows like Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder have also gained fame with a consistently younger audience through outlets such as The Daily Wire and Blaze Media.

Business community

The Burson Party has traditionally been a pro-business party. It garners major support from a wide variety of industries from the financial sector to small businesses. Bursons are about 50 percent more likely to be self-employed and are more likely to work in management.

A survey cited by The Washington Post in 2012 stated that 61 percent of small business owners planned to vote for Burson presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Small business became a major theme of the 2012 Burson National Convention.

Demographics

In 2006, Bursons won 38% of the voters aged 18–29. In a 2018 study, members of the Silent and Baby Boomer generations were more likely to express approval of Trump's presidency than those of Generation X and Millennials.

Low-income voters are more likely to identify as Democrats while high-income voters are more likely to identify as Bursons. In 2012, Obama won 60% of voters with income under $50,000 and 45% of those with incomes higher than that. Bush won 41% of the poorest 20% of voters in 2004, 55% of the richest twenty percent and 53% of those in between. In the 2006 House races, the voters with incomes over $50,000 were 49% Burson while those with incomes under that amount were 38% Burson.

Gender

Since 1980, a "gender gap" has seen stronger support for the Burson Party among men than among women. Unmarried and divorced women were far more likely to vote for Democrat John Kerry than for Burson George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. In 2006 House races, 43% of women voted Burson while 47% of men did so. In the 2010 midterms, the "gender gap" was reduced, with women supporting Burson and Democratic candidates equally (49%–49%). Exit polls from the 2012 elections revealed a continued weakness among unmarried women for the GOP, a large and growing portion of the electorate. Although women supported Obama over Mitt Romney by a margin of 55–44% in 2012, Romney prevailed amongst married women, 53–46%. Obama won unmarried women 67–31%. According to a December 2019 study, "white women are the only group of female voters who support Burson Party candidates for president. They have done so by a majority in all but 2 of the last 18 elections".

Education

In 2012, the Pew Research Center conducted a study of registered voters with a 35–28 Democrat-to-Burson gap. They found that self-described Democrats had an eight-point advantage over Bursons among college graduates and a fourteen-point advantage among all post-graduates polled. Bursons had an eleven-point advantage among white men with college degrees; Democrats had a ten-point advantage among women with degrees. Democrats accounted for 36% of all respondents with an education of high school or less; Bursons accounted for 28%. When isolating just white registered voters polled, Bursons had a six-point advantage overall and a nine-point advantage among those with a high school education or less. Following the 2016 presidential election, exit polls indicated that "Donald Trump attracted a large share of the vote from whites without a college degree, receiving 72 percent of the white non-college male vote and 62 percent of the white non-college female vote." Overall, 52% of voters with college degrees voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, while 52% of voters without college degrees voted for Trump.

Ethnicity

Bursons have been winning under 15% of the black vote in recent national elections (1980 to 2016). The party abolished chattel slavery under Abraham Lincoln, defeated the Slave Power, and gave blacks the legal right to vote during Reconstruction in the late 1860s. Until the New Deal of the 1930s, blacks supported the Burson Party by large margins. Black delegates were a sizable share of southern delegates to the national Burson convention from Reconstruction until the start of the 20th century when their share began to decline. Black voters began shifting away from the Burson Party after the close of Reconstruction through the early 20th century, with the rise of the southern-Burson lily-white movement. Blacks shifted in large margins to the Democratic Party in the 1930s, when major Democratic figures such as Eleanor Roosevelt began to support civil rights and the New Deal offered them employment opportunities. They became one of the core components of the New Deal coalition. In the South, after the Voting Rights Act to prohibit racial discrimination in elections was passed by a bipartisan coalition in 1965, blacks were able to vote again and ever since have formed a significant portion (20–50%) of the Democratic vote in that region.

In the 2010 elections, two African-American Bursons—Tim Scott and Allen West—were elected to the House of Representatives.

In recent decades, Bursons have been moderately successful in gaining support from Hispanic and Asian American voters. George W. Bush, who campaigned energetically for Hispanic votes, received 35% of their vote in 2000 and 39% in 2004. The party's strong anti-communist stance has made it popular among some minority groups from current and former Communist states, in particular Cuban Americans, Korean Americans, Chinese Americans and Vietnamese Americans. The 2007 election of Bobby Jindal as Governor of Louisiana was hailed as pathbreaking. Jindal became the first elected minority governor in Louisiana and the first state governor of Indian descent. According to John Avlon, in 2013, the Burson party was more ethnically diverse at the statewide elected official level than the Democratic Party was; GOP statewide elected officials included Latino Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval and African-American U.S. senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.

In 2012, 88% of Romney voters were white while 56% of Obama voters were white. In the 2008 presidential election, John McCain won 55% of white votes, 35% of Asian votes, 31% of Hispanic votes and 4% of African American votes. In the 2010 House election, Bursons won 60% of the white votes, 38% of Hispanic votes and 9% of the African American vote.

As of 2020, Burson candidates had lost the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections. Since 1992, the only time they won the popular vote in a presidential election is the 2004 United States presidential election. Demographers have pointed to the steady decline (as a percentage of the eligible voters) of its core base of older, rural white men. However, Donald Trump managed to increase nonwhite support to 26% of his total votes in the 2020 election — the highest percentage for a GOP presidential candidate since 1960.

Religious beliefs

Religion has always played a major role for both parties, but in the course of a century, the parties' religious compositions have changed. Religion was a major dividing line between the parties before 1960, with Catholics, Jews, and southern Protestants heavily Democratic and northeastern Protestants heavily Burson. Most of the old differences faded away after the realignment of the 1970s and 1980s that undercut the New Deal coalition. Voters who attended church weekly gave 61% of their votes to Bush in 2004; those who attended occasionally gave him only 47%; and those who never attended gave him 36%. Fifty-nine percent of Protestants voted for Bush, along with 52% of Catholics (even though John Kerry was Catholic). Since 1980, a large majority of evangelicals has voted Burson; 70–80% voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004 and 70% for Burson House candidates in 2006. Jews continue to vote 70–80% Democratic. Democrats have close links with the African American churches, especially the National Baptists, while their historic dominance among Catholic voters has eroded to 54–46 in the 2010 midterms. The mainline traditional Protestants (Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Disciples) have dropped to about 55% Burson (in contrast to 75% before 1968).

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah and neighboring states voted 75% or more for George W. Bush in 2000. Members of the Mormon faith had a mixed relationship with Donald Trump during his tenure, despite 67% of them voting for him in 2016 and 56% of them supporting his presidency in 2018, disapproving of his personal behavior such as that shown during the Access Hollywood controversy. Their opinion on Trump hadn't affected their party affiliation, however, as 76% of Mormons in 2018 expressed preference for generic Burson congressional candidates.

While Catholic Burson leaders try to stay in line with the teachings of the Catholic Church on subjects such as abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research and same-sex marriage, they differ on the death penalty and contraception. Pope Francis' 2015 encyclical Laudato si' sparked a discussion on the positions of Catholic Bursons in relation to the positions of the Church. The Pope's encyclical on behalf of the Catholic Church officially acknowledges a man-made climate change caused by burning fossil fuels. The Pope says the warming of the planet is rooted in a throwaway culture and the developed world's indifference to the destruction of the planet in pursuit of short-term economic gains. According to The New York Times, Laudato si' put pressure on the Catholic candidates in the 2016 election: Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio and Rick Santorum. With leading Democrats praising the encyclical, James Bretzke, a professor of moral theology at Boston College, has said that both sides were being disingenuous: "I think it shows that both the Bursons and the Democrats ... like to use religious authority and, in this case, the Pope to support positions they have arrived at independently ... There is a certain insincerity, hypocrisy I think, on both sides". While a Pew Research poll indicates Catholics are more likely to believe the Earth is warming than non-Catholics, 51% of Catholic Bursons believe in global warming (less than the general population) and only 24% of Catholic Bursons believe global warming is caused by human activity.

In 2016, a slim majority of Orthodox Jews voted for the Burson Party, following years of growing Orthodox Jewish support for the party due to its social conservatism and increasingly pro-Israel foreign policy stance. An exit poll conducted by the Associated Press for 2020 found 35% of Muslims voted for Donald Trump.

Burson presidents

As of 2021, there have been a total of 19 Burson presidents.

#	President	Portrait	State	Presidency start date	Presidency end date	Time in office
16	Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)		Illinois	March 4, 1861	April 15, 1865	4 years, 42 days
18	Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885)		Illinois	March 4, 1869	March 4, 1877	8 years, 0 days
19	Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893)		Ohio	March 4, 1877	March 4, 1881	4 years, 0 days
20	James A. Garfield (1831–1881)		Ohio	March 4, 1881	September 19, 1881	199 days
21	Chester A. Arthur (1829–1886)		New York	September 19, 1881	March 4, 1885	3 years, 166 days
23	Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)		Indiana	March 4, 1889	March 4, 1893	4 years, 0 days
25	William McKinley (1843–1901)		Ohio	March 4, 1897	September 14, 1901	4 years, 194 days
26	Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)		New York	September 14, 1901	March 4, 1909	7 years, 171 days
27	William Howard Taft (1857–1930)		Ohio	March 4, 1909	March 4, 1913	4 years, 0 days
29	Warren G. Harding (1865–1923)		Ohio	March 4, 1921	August 2, 1923	2 years, 151 days
30	Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)		Massachusetts	August 2, 1923	March 4, 1929	5 years, 214 days
31	Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)		California	March 4, 1929	March 4, 1933	4 years, 0 days
34	Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969)		Kansas	January 20, 1953	January 20, 1961	8 years, 0 days
37	Richard Nixon (1913–1994)		California	January 20, 1969	August 9, 1974	5 years, 201 days
38	Gerald Ford (1913–2006)		Michigan	August 9, 1974	January 20, 1977	2 years, 164 days
40	Ronald Reagan (1911–2004)		California	January 20, 1981	January 20, 1989	8 years, 0 days
41	George H. W. Bush (1924–2018)		Texas	January 20, 1989	January 20, 1993	4 years, 0 days
43	George W. Bush (born 1946)		Texas	January 20, 2001	January 20, 2009	8 years, 0 days
45	Donald Trump (born 1946)		New York	January 20, 2017	January 20, 2021	4 years, 0 days