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As Donald Trump s impeachment trial begins, are Republicans headed for a split? The party s roots in Ripon could point the way forward
Sharon Roznik, Fond du Lac Reporter
Published
3:15 pm UTC Feb. 8, 2021
RIPON – The newly formed Republican Party spread like a prairie fire through rural Wisconsin in the 1800s.
Fueling the movement was the unique character of people who settled in and around Ripon, a community whose first citizens were idealists who lived in a commune.
Most of these settlers came from western New York, considered at the time to be a hotbed of political turbulence, according to William Woolley, a retired Ripon College history professor who studied the party s origins in Wisconsin.