[exnavy]

TJ was the founder of what became the republican party. DJT is a republican. This must be Trumps fault.

[Right_Wing_Madman]

TJ was the founder of what became the republican party.

Crazy. Ready a history book or consult Grok.

Jefferson was a Democrat and the first Democrat president. He and James Madison created the Democratic-Republican party in 1792 (the birth of the Democratic Party) to oppose the Federalist policies of George Washington, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton. The Democratic-Republican party officially became the Democratic Party when Andrew Jackson became president in 1829.

The Republican party didn't form until 1854, 25 years after Jefferson's death in 1829.

Move along, dumb troll.

[equaviator]

Here’s a tagline for you:

“I think...Therefore, I stink.”

[Slingwing]

Never mind the Muslim slave trade, skip over the warring tribes where the victors sold the defeated into the slave trade. It was the times where the Massy Ferguson of the day was what ever person that could be nabbed was sold into some form of servitude. Lets tell the real story, not the cherry picking.

[DiogenesLamp]

TJ was the founder of what became the republican party.

I have never heard that. I have always heard he was the founder of the Democrat party.

He founded the Democratic-Republican party, which is a very different beast from either the Democrat party or the Republican party.

But Jefferson's essential philosophy is much more closely mirrored by the Democrat party of the 1800s than the Republican party.

The Early Republican party is more closely related to Alexander Hamilton than Jefferson. Today, it more closely aligns with Jefferson.

[BroJoeK]

"Jefferson the Jacobin will bring guillotines to America!":

exnavy: "TJ was the founder of what became the republican party."

No, just the opposite.

What's true is that Jefferson referred to himself as a small-r "republican".
But Jefferson was also a huge fan of revolution and the "democratic" French Revolution (1789 to 1799) especially.

"What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?
Let them take arms.
The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them.
What signify a few lives lost in a century or two?...
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It is its natural manure."
Jefferson from Paris to William Stephens Smith, November 13, 1787, regarding Shay's Rebellion

Commenting on the French Revolution itself, Jefferson said:

"...rather than it should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated; were there but an Adam and an Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than as it now is."
Jefferson to William Short, January 3, 1793

Jefferson was so enamored of the "democratic" French Revolution that his Federalist opponents began calling Jefferson's political party the "Democratic-Republicans", and Jeffersonians embraced the name, kept it and shortened it to the "Democratic Party", even referring to themselves as "The Democracy".

The threat of revolution was so real, Jefferson's Federalist opponents in 1800 claimed: "Jefferson the Jacobin will bring guillotines to America!"

That's what "Democratic" and "Democracy" meant in 1800.

1807 Jefferson's Gallatin Plan for massive road, canals & other infrastructure spending:

So Jefferson was elected in 1801 (barely) and none of it proved true.
What was true is that Democratic Pres. Jefferson did everything in office he had accused the Federalists of doing, or wanting to do, plus a lot more, notably:

1. Lousiana Purchase (unconstitutional according to strict constructionists)

2. Barbary War (not a declared war)

3. Embargo Act against US exports (the source of Federal revenues, bankrupted New England shippers)

4. Arrest of his former VP Aaron Burr for treason in Burr's plot to secede Louisiana.

5. Jefferson's Gallatin Plan for massive Federal infrastructure spending -- more than the cost of the Louisiana Purchase!

By 1816, Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party was so successful it destroyed the old Federalist party in an "Era of Good Feelings" reelecting presidents Madison and Monroe with little opposition.
That lasted until 1824 when splits within the ruling Uni-party led to Jeffersonians becoming officially Democrats and ex-Federalist followers of Pres. John Quincy Adams becoming the new National Republicans cum Whig Party.

Bottom line: Jefferson -- while calling himself a small-r republican -- was the founder of the Democratic-Republicans, shortened to Democratics and "The Democracy".
His opposition Federalists eventually became Whigs, then after 1854, today's Republicans.

Jefferson in many ways was typical of Democrats to this day.