How did the Republican party transform from the part of freedom, Abe Lincoln, and Barry Goldwater?

[rich k]

Actually Barry Goldwater, and later Richard Nixon, with their Southern Strategy in opposition to Lyndon Johnson's Civil Rights legislation was what started the change. It was a cynical but highly successful attempt to translate racism and bigotry into votes. Until quite recently it worked which is why they are still trying it, if they ever decide that it's not got going to start working again they will just as cynically turn to something else and claim, with totally straight faces, that the new position is what they've always believed and that Lincoln believed what they do then just as they claim he believed what they do now.