Brett McGinness

USA TODAY

The GOP is dead! This isn't anything new, though. It's been dead since Abraham Lincoln, the original bearded hipster, was taking illegal voting-booth selfies in the 1850s. It's just taking a while for the word to get around, that's all. In other news, the average Affordable Care Act premium will be up 22 to 25% next year, and a USA TODAY investigation finds that Trump's companies are fighting as many contractors as humanly possible. Let's get to the details ...

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This party was dead before Lincoln got here

Pity the poor Republican Party, which has been on its deathbed since the age of 2. Never mind that Republicans currently control both houses of Congress, 30 state legislatures and 31 governors' mansions — this split between Establishment Republicans and Trump Republicans is a sure sign the party will be flatlining any day now. Aaaaaany day now ...

Some of the highlights of the party's 160 years of death throes:

"(Pro-slavery Kansans) are making the best of a bad case by vociferating that the freedom of Kansas is the death of the Republican party."

– New York Tribune, Oct. 30, 1856



Kansas managed to get a five-year jump-start on the Civil War, with rival free-state and pro-slavery governments and constitutions. Horace Greeley's New York Tribune mocked the pro-slavery forces by suggesting that the Republican Party would be "dead" once slavery had ended, "as when a bridge contractor has built a bridge, that particular job is done." As we all learned in history class, the party went out of business once Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered.



– New York Tribune, Oct. 30, 1856 Kansas managed to get a five-year jump-start on the Civil War, with rival free-state and pro-slavery governments and constitutions. Horace Greeley's New York Tribune mocked the pro-slavery forces by suggesting that the Republican Party would be "dead" once slavery had ended, "as when a bridge contractor has built a bridge, that particular job is done." As we all learned in history class, the party went out of business once Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered. "That vote means the death of the Republican Party."

– Sen. George Frisbie Hoar (R-Massachusetts), Jan. 7, 1891, per the Decatur, Illinois Morning Review



The Lodge Bill of 1890-91 would have given the federal government the power to ensure elections were fair — in other words, it would have sent federal agents to monitor polling locations in the South to ensure that blacks (then overwhelmingly Republican) would have been able to vote. The bill's failure killed the Republican Party instantly.



– Sen. George Frisbie Hoar (R-Massachusetts), Jan. 7, 1891, per the Decatur, Illinois Morning Review The Lodge Bill of 1890-91 would have given the federal government the power to ensure elections were fair — in other words, it would have sent federal agents to monitor polling locations in the South to ensure that blacks (then overwhelmingly Republican) would have been able to vote. The bill's failure killed the Republican Party instantly. "Our one best hope for a united people would be the election of Gen. Eisenhower. His defeat would mean the death of the Republican party."

– L.N. Barnes, writing to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Oct. 17, 1952



The GOP narrowly avoided a repeat death when Eisenhower defeated Adlai Stevenson in November 1952 ... but this whole "if we don't unite behind our candidate, the party is finished" thing sounds somewhat familiar ...



– L.N. Barnes, writing to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Oct. 17, 1952 The GOP narrowly avoided a repeat death when Eisenhower defeated Adlai Stevenson in November 1952 ... but this whole "if we don't unite behind our candidate, the party is finished" thing sounds somewhat familiar ... "The trauma inflicted on the Grand Old Party by what is generally known as 'Watergate' has left few signs of life."

– Burlington Free Press, Oct. 16, 1975



Reporter Don Campbell noted that only 17 and 23 percent of the population identified as Republicans just over a year after President Nixon resigned following the Watergate scandal. The party started selling off its office equipment later that month.



– Burlington Free Press, Oct. 16, 1975 Reporter Don Campbell noted that only 17 and 23 percent of the population identified as Republicans just over a year after President Nixon resigned following the Watergate scandal. The party started selling off its office equipment later that month. "What we're seeing is the end of the Republican Party as we know it."

– Fordham professor Paul Levinson in the Arizona Republic, Nov. 4, 2008



Seven states flipped red to blue and Democrats added to their leads in both the House and Senate as Barack Obama won the 2008 election, which sealed the fate of the GOP once and for all.

And who's going to lead this shambling corpse forward for the next several decades? A survey by NBC News and SurveyMonkey says Republicans favor Trump over Paul Ryan by a 63-34% margin.

Affordable Care Act revives ailing candidacy

Credit the Affordable Care Act for making the Trump campaign a bit healthier. As the exchanges opened on Healthcare.gov Monday, average rates are up 25%, with rates in Arizona rising more than 50%. On average, consumers will have 30 plans to choose from (with the average insurer offering 10 plans), but the Department of Health and Human Services said more than one in five consumers will have only one insurer from which to choose coverage.

Trump, long a foe of the program, seized on news of the increases, declaring that "Obamacare is just blowing up" and calling for its repeal once again during a rally at Trump National Doral Miami. The Twitterverse got into the act, launching the hashtag #ObamacareInThreeWords. (Trump's entry? "REPEAL AND REPLACE!!!")

What would "repeal and replace" look like? According to the campaign website, next steps include removing barriers for the sale of health insurance across state lines, allowing taxpayers to fully deduct health insurance premiums, the use of health savings accounts and requiring pricing transparency from health care providers.

Trump later added, "I can say all of my employees are having a tremendous problem with Obamacare" — implying that Trump businesses didn't provide employer-based health insurance — and moments later said the program wasn't an issue for his employees, because his companies "take great care of people.” Doral general manager David Feder later told reporters that he believed the Trump Organization provided health care for 95% of its employees.

"The company typically picks up 75% of the premiums and the employee only picks up about 30%, so it's really a good deal for our staff," Feder said.

Trump keeps hiring the worst people

“Let’s say that they do a job that’s not good, or a job that they didn’t finish, or a job that was way late. I’ll deduct from their contract, absolutely. That’s what the country should be doing.”

– Donald Trump to USA TODAY

For decades, Donald Trump has been working behind the scenes to find and expose the country's worst cabinetmakers, painters, plumbers and dishwashers, but rarely gets credit for doing so. We're here to help! According to a USA TODAY investigation:

The Trump Taj Majal managed to find at least 253 companies in Atlantic City to do unacceptable work on the casino.

Trump Miami Resort Management LLC rooted out 48 servers who slacked off for up to 20 hours a day during a 10-day Passover special event.

A dishwasher at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort apparently had a habit of not finishing the dishes or doing them way way late, and was denied overtime for 3 years.

Trump National Doral Miami hired a painter who used the worst colors — just a total disaster, these colors would not have been Trump's first choice, believe me — and a judge (can you believe this guy?) ruled just last month that Doral should pay the painter more than $30,000 or else he'd foreclose on the property.

If it wasn't for Trump, some of these employees and companies would still be running around doing substandard work for the American people; instead, they're safely tied up in endless legal battles or going out of business. Let's give credit where credit is due.

More from the campaign trail

And don't even get us started on duckface ballot selfies

Taking a selfie while voting? It's illegal in at least 17 states, with penalties ranging from a sharply worded request to quit it, all the way up to three years in prison (good lord, Illinois). Michigan's ban was struck down Monday. Justin Timberlake posted a selfie while voting in Kentucky; lucky for him he didn't vote a few hundred miles to the west.