Comments on: Neither Goldwater nor Reagan Would Recognize The Modern GOP

By: Eclectic Radical

Eclectic Radical — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:00:58 +0000

I’ll say this: given Goldwater’s personality and character, it would be very difficult for him to sit out an election. He was not the ‘non-participatory’ type. He had very strong beliefs about the need to actively defend one’s own principles in the public sphere.

By: Fritz

Fritz — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:26:08 +0000

Hell, Ron, I couldn’t even stomach making a choice of the lesser of three evils last year.

By: Ron Chusid

Ron Chusid — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:43:54 +0000

True, especially as if they were active in politics today they might have accepted more of the views of their party out of necessity. The real issue here is how the party has changed. The case for Goldwater not going along with the Republicans is stronger. Besides the lack of support for limited government in the GOP, in his later years he was already protesting the increased influence of the religious right on the party. While it is pointless to argue about what he would have done, with no way to prove it, my guess is that, like some of his grandchildren along with many other conservatives outside of the religious right, he would have backed Obama. Of course neither of us can prove whether he would have sat out or supported Obama.

By: Fritz

Fritz — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:33:06 +0000

Of course, arguing about what dead people would do if they were around today is sort of pointless, but I think Barry Goldwater would have chosen to sit out last year’s election — both major-party candidates were so far from any notion of limited Federal government that support would have been improbable.

By: Ron Chusid

Ron Chusid — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:05:17 +0000

A discussion of right wing racism doesn’t work well with the elevator test. It is not like an issue where one side clearly states their viewpoint and then the rebuttal can be summarized quickly. For obvious reasons, right wing racism is done by more subtle means, making any discussion more involved.

By: Eclectic Radical

Eclectic Radical — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:11:45 +0000

While I’m sure this comes as no surprise, Ron, I am entirely unable to pass the elevator test. So I’ve mostly stopped trying and I attempt to do my best to make being a pedantic geek a virtue instead of an impediment whenever possible.

By: Ron Chusid

Ron Chusid — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:07:07 +0000

Or a shorter (if incomplete) answer might have been “The Southern Strategy.” While this would have been the traditional short answer, Eclectic is right in stressing immigration policy. This has become the new way to bring conservative racism and xenophobia into polite society.

By: Eclectic Radical

Eclectic Radical — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:59:31 +0000

First of all, it’s not just about positions on same sex marriage and gays in the military, no matter what conservative politicians and pundits like to say. Republicans, en masse, opposed a law banning workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. While a few rare Republicans do not, most oppose civil union legislation that would allow same-sex couples the legal privileges of a married couple absent the religious distinction of marriage… despite the fact that conservatives frequently claim they are just trying to defend ministers from being forced to marry gay couples.

In the specific context of the argument at hand, Ronald Reagan completely ignored the AIDS epidemic for the majority of his presidency because he and his advisors considered it a ‘gay problem’ with no relevance for the majority of Americans. It was only acknowledged on a serious level after the American Red Cross scandal.

So I think I am on very firm ground when I say that there is far more to the right-wing’s policy than simply opposition to same-sex marriage or gay service in the military. When their motivation is, without fail, one of religious zeal than ‘crusade’ is a very accurate word.

That correction out of the way, I’ll go ahead and answer your question. The Republican Party is determined to force the American public to accept the idea that racism no longer exists and that only the explicitly racist policies of Jim Crow laws have negatively affected minorities and, now that Jim Crow is long dead, that’s the end of it. The insist on ignoring the deep and destructive damage that institutional racism did to minority communities and argue the lack of need to take steps to address the lasting effects that legal racism (and the shock of integration on an institutionally racist society) have had on minority communities.

Conservative racists in both parties rail against ‘illegal immigration’ with religious fervor based in staunchly bigoted thought systems that go back to the ‘Know Nothings.’ They ignore or dismiss the legal fictions that created the problem of ‘illegal immigration’ in the first place, make false claims immigrants, and baldly pander to nativists on the issue. Amnesty advocate John McCain was forced to back-pedal many aspects of his immigration reform proposals in order to win the Republican nomination. The primary opponents of Bush’s immigration reform package (a bad law, but better than nothing) were conservatives of both parties from the South and Midwest.

Senator Bob Corker (of Tennessee) won election on the back of a painfully racist campaign ad in which he enflamed racist sensibilities by showing his black opponent and his white girlfriend together on tv.

Drug laws (which were primarily driven by Nixon and Reagan administration policies) target black and Latino Americans widly out of proportion with white drug users and drug dealers and treat ‘ethnic’ drugs far more severely than equivalent drugs primarily abused by wealthy whites.

Conservatives, in all these cases, defend the status quo at best and argue for more reactionary/racist policies at worst.

By: Mike Hatcher b.t.r.m.

Mike Hatcher b.t.r.m. — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:08:37 +0000

Electic, I follow what you are saying for the most part in your post. I can even see you charaturizing the Anti-same sex marriage and positions on gays in the military as a “right wing crusade against gays..” . What do you consider the crusade against minorities?

By: Eclectic Radical

Eclectic Radical — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:09:22 +0000

I do have to agree with JohJay60 that I’m not totally certain Reagan would really have all that much problem with today’s GOP. The W. Bush Administration was essentially the flaws of the Reagan administration trumpeted as its strengths and repeated ad nauseam for eight years. Irresponsible military intervention (Nicaragua, Lebanon, El Salvador), borrow-and-spend financial policy, corporate welfare state economic policies (the Chrysler bailout is why Paulson was so certain the Wall Street bailout was a good idea), and right-wing crusading against gays and minorities.

W. Bush was Reagan, take two, without a Cold War to putatively justify it all. I don’t think invoking Reagan’s name to chastise the modern Republican Party holds up. Reagan invented the irresponsibility and demaguoguery of the modern Republican Party and abandoned the baseline of good governance that quasi-justified all the offensive rhetoric when it was coming from Nixon.

By: JohJay60

JohJay60 — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:12:47 +0000

Reagan’s legacy is not ‘irresponsible spending’ but ‘irresponsible revenue’, that is, tax cuts that mask the pain of reduced services.
In contrast, while I am not a particularly big fan of Gov. Schwarzenegger, he and the California Legislature are (with the exception of some timing and debt fuzziness) going to be forced to let voters see the impact of reduced spending. Whether taxes should have gone up, or spending down, at least Californians will be able to compare income and expenses and decide what they like. The Reagan cowardice removed this kind of tradeoff from rational political discussion and set the wrong tone that will haunt us for a century.

By: » Right Wing Craziness: Something Old or Something New? Liberal Values

» Right Wing Craziness: Something Old or Something New? Liberal Values — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:29:03 +0000

[...] As the religious right increased their influence of the conservative movement, more rational voices were often driven away. Even Barry Goldwater considered himself a liberal in his later years in opposition to the growing influence of the religious right. With the Republican Party increasingly dominated by the wing nuts by the Clinton years, the election of George Bush in 2000 was the final straw in turning the GOP into a reactionary, theological party. Neither Barry Goldwater or even Ronald Reagan would recognize the modern Republican Party. [...]

By: The Two Goldwater Myths - Liberal Values - Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 08:16:18 +0000

[...] I noted just over a month ago, Barry Goldwater would barely recognize the current Republican Party. It came as no surprise that [...]

By: DB

DB — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:19:37 +0000

This is a great read. I have always found it odd that the right attacks the left for their admiration/worship of Obama when their views on Reagan are no different.

By: Ron Chusid

Ron Chusid — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:00:28 +0000

JohnJay,

Irresponsible spending is only one characteristic of the Republican Party. While the current Republicans do share this characteristic with the Reagan administration, they also differ in other ways.