12883

It’s unbelievable to me how cowed the GOP is of their radical fringe that they can’t even condemn Nazis marching in the streets.

12884

It’s something that does differentiate the current GOP from the GOP a few years back.

While there were GOP policies which were intentionally and unintentionally racist, there was some line. Reagan and Bush directly, and unequivocally condemned people like David Duke. Buckley very directly worked to excise groups like the John Birch society from mainstream conservatism.

Today, the modern GOP seems incapable of drawing even that line. Until they feel massive electoral backlash, I don’t think they are going to do so, because Trump showed that you don’t need to do so to hold onto a frighteningly large portion of the GOP base.

I think on some level, part of this is simply due to this realization, perhaps more than some ideological shift… Until Trump, I think everyone just ASSUMED that if you didn’t condemn Nazis, there was no way to get elected. But that’s obviously not true.

12885

I’m hesitant to put Buckley on the ‘good’ side of that line, considering that he explicitly avowed white supremacy and said that whites had the right to maintain power by undemocratic means because “for the time being, they are the more advanced race.”

Granted this was the 1950s and I imagine (hope) his views evolved, but at that time he was saying exactly the same thing as the George Wallace types, just in a more genteel and erudite fashion.

12886

I think he did evolve, but even when he was definitely racist, even HE was able to look to groups like the John Birch society and say, “no man, we do not want you. Get out.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/15/john-birch-society-qanon-reagan-republicans-goldwater/

Although Welch had been an early donor to Buckley’s National Review in the 1950s, Buckley had come to believe that Welch’s feverish rants threatened the conservative movement’s credibility and its future.

“Buckley was beginning to worry that with the John Birch Society growing so rapidly, the right-wing upsurge in the country would take an ugly, even Fascist turn,” John B. Judis wrote in his 1988 biography, “William F. Buckley, Jr.: Patron Saint of the Conservatives.” Buckley told Goldwater, according to Judis, that the John Birch Society was a “menace” to the conservative movement.

“Kirk, unimpeded by his little professorial stutter, greeted the subject with fervor,” Buckley recalled in a 2008 article for Commentary. “The John Birch Society should be renounced by Goldwater and by everyone else — Kirk turned his eyes on me — with any influence on the conservative movement.”

This is an interesting little historical piece, that highlights a similar situation in the past, but where the leaders of the conservative movement then were able to make the right call, and today we are watching the modern GOP very much fail to make that right call.

12887

Having just read Reaganland, it is full of instances where Reagan spoke in front of racist groups or at locations with a racist history without ever acknowledging what he had done when it was later pointed out to him.

Reagan claimed he was not racist, but he was either ignorant or in denial. Neither is really a good look for a man who was to be president.

12888

I mean, Buckley was terrible. And racist, of course.

The man who campaigned against ‘welfare queens’ and ‘strapping young bucks’ buying T-bone steaks with food stamps was surely racist. I think the best you can say about him is that he was a product of his times.

12889

And likely very homophobic. And I think Timex is forgetting HW’s Willie Horton campaign ad.

I was a hardcore Republican/college conservative in the 80s, and racist as f(ck. I’m not sure if I’ve ever detailed my home environment as a child, but let’s just say a few years ago at a July 4th cookout my comment that I wouldn’t care if my only daughter dated a boy of color was greeted so poorly my mother said she’s rather die than live to see that. I mean, they are afterall different species and even animals know better than to mix separate races.

I honestly don’t think the Trump era is new in terms of actual attitudes toward minorities. The only thing new is how open they’re now willing to manifest it in public.

12890

Again, while I know you guys are afraid of anything that could possibly be construed as a compliment of people like Reagan or Buckley, in this case you can say, “even they stood up against the crackpot right wing fringe”.

12891

Yes, totally agree. I always get a kick out of lists of the good old conservatives or Republicans. It takes about 30 seconds to begin finding all the problematic stuff that has been washed down the memory hole.

Ugh, that must have been awful for you. My parents come of very racist upbringing — poor white West Virginians — but for some reason overt racism was almost completely absent from my own upbringing. I think my father still harbors a lot of racist views, but somehow he managed to keep them to himself when I was growing up. I think it helped that they fled WV as fast as they could, and that I grew up mostly overseas.

12892

Who was calling them good?

12893

Um, Regan didn’t stand up to the crazies so much as he invited them in. He embraced the “moral majority” evangelical types. The crazy takeover of the GOP traces right back to him. He simply favored one crackpot wing over another.

12894

Yes, and the other thing he did was really drive home the idea that Republicans shouldn’t criticize one another, so voting as a bloc started to be a big thing. That and removing earmarks really led to the quagmire we have now.

12895

But then again, Trump constantly attacked every other Republican.

12896

Well, like many rules, Trump has bent the Reagan rule to his own ends. Republican’s shouldn’t criticize Trump, or other Republicans except those designated as RINOs by Trump.

Speaking of, paging Lindsey Graham to the bus stop…

12897

His campaign invited them in and then they took over the house. Reagan and his advisors are all considered RINO’s now and not true republicans.

12898

That is unspeakably awful :(
I’m so sorry your parents are like that, but so glad you’ve become such an amazing and wonderful person despite it.

12899

The whole (over)use of “RINO” just annoys me. Trump HIMSELF is a RINO: he only ran as a Republican because he hated Obama and the Democratic party didn’t have an entire lying media apparatus established.

12900

Only when it suits them because Reagan did or said something that’s not in line with the Trump party. When their views align they still trot out Reagan as one of their patron saints.

12901

I don’t think you will find Trump or those carrying his water quoting Reagan or holding him up as special as used to be done within the GOP. I believe Trump referred to Reagan as a RINO.

12902

Yeah I feel like in the post Trump era Reagan has been de-sanctified within the GOP.