Paul Ryan, among many others, is evidently dismayed that the 2012 Democratic Party platform has performed a third-trimester abortion on Baby Jesus, whereas the GOP platform has been cleverly inscribed on a tortilla miraculously bearing the toasted image of the Virgin Mary.

For shits, I devoted a needlessly long chunk of time this morning reviewing the archive of party platforms available through the invaluable American Presidency Project, and — well — here you go:

A few observations:

The 2012 GOP platform is a total outlier, presumably designed to intimidate the Saracen hordes biding their time for Obama’s re-election. Judging entirely by the text of its platforms — for by their words, or works, or whatever, ye shall know them — the party clearly had no use for God from its founding through the 1960s. By my sophisticated calculations, the godlessness of the Republicans from 1856-1956 likely accounts for the successful passage of 93 percent of Progressive Era legislation and 97 percent of the New Deal. I have new-found, albeit limited, appreciation for the Nixon-era GOP. How did Reagan manage to win in 1980 with 66 percent less Jeebus than 1976? How did Bush manage to win in 2000 with 75 percent less Jeebus than 1996? I don’t know what that weird green dash is to the right of the graph, but fuck it! I made a graph!

UPDATE: Here’s another meaningless graph: