General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMidnight Writer
(21,803 posts)I don't expect to ever vote for a Republican again.
It is the Party of cranks, cons, and corporations. Oh, and fascists and oligarchs.
ColinC
(8,335 posts)It didn't get better after Goldwater.
Irish_Dem
(47,451 posts)Elessar Zappa
(14,077 posts)Irish_Dem
(47,451 posts)He must have perceived some difference between the parties, even back then.
I guess being first generation American with Irish immigrant parents, perhaps he was deeply suspicious of those representing corporate and corrupt power interests. The Irish were horribly treated by the British for 1000 years. I guess that makes an impression.
Lonestarblue
(10,085 posts)It could describe what were seeing today with Republicans. For example,
Our friends abroad now doubt our sincerity. They have seen the solid assurance of collective security under a Democratic Administration give place to the uncertainties of personal diplomacy. They have seen the ties of our international alliances and friendship weakened by inept Republican maneuvering.
They have seen traditional action and boldness in foreign affairs evaporate into Republican complacency, retrenchment and empty posturing.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/1956-democratic-party-platform
Irish_Dem
(47,451 posts)Yes showcases the differences, same thing we are seeing today.
pazzyanne
(6,558 posts)"The US has fallen to a new low in a global ranking of political rights and civil liberties, a drop fueled by unequal treatment of minority groups, damaging influence of money in politics, and increased polarization, according to a new report by Freedom House, a democracy watchdog group."
"The US earned 83 out of 100 possible points this year in Freedom Houses annual rankings of freedoms around the world, an 11-point drop from its ranking of 94 a decade ago. The USs new ranking places it on par with countries like Panama, Romania and Croatia and behind countries such as Argentina and Mongolia. It lagged far behind countries like the United Kingdom (93), Chile (93), Costa Rica (91) and Slovakia (90)."
Dropping 11 points is unusual, especially for an established democracy, because they tend to be more stable in our scores, Sarah Repucci, Freedom Houses vice-president for research and analysis, told the Guardian. Its significant for Americans and its significant for the world, because the United States is such a prominent, visible democracy, one that is looked to for so many reasons.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/24/us-world-democracy-rankings-freedom-house-new-low
Sad, and only supports how our democracy is in jeopardy.
Lonestarblue
(10,085 posts)Not even being in the top 50 is amazing but not surprising when Republicans are actively trying to turn us into a dictatorship like Russia with a thin veneer or democracy with elections they control.
CrispyQ
(36,527 posts)They kind of go hand-in-hand, don't they? Money often buys power. Power attracts money.
Irish_Dem
(47,451 posts)Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
CrispyQ
(36,527 posts)People of color & uppity women demanded equality & equity in the system & in the 60s they actually made some strides. The fragile white man's club couldn't deal. That was the spark.
on edit: Reading through this thread, it was probably a combo of things.
Irish_Dem
(47,451 posts)Period. They could care less about the red meat bait they throw out to their racist base.
XanaDUer2
(10,754 posts)anti stupid
(83 posts)Mr.Bill
(24,330 posts)of a man who said government was the problem and yet wanted to be in charge of that.
anti stupid
(83 posts)A bureaucrat is a Democrat who has a job that a Republican wants.
Mr.Bill
(24,330 posts)I never heard that before.
ShazamIam
(2,575 posts)convention in San Francisco fired up the Berkeley, Free Speech Movement and Mario Savio's famous Speech.
The most famous excerpt from the Dec. 1964 speech.
There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you cant take part; you cant even passively take part, and youve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and youve got to make it stop. And youve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless youre free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/PDFFiles/Mario%20Savio%20-%20Sproul%20Hall%20Address.pdf
jalan48
(13,888 posts)people, it's about how much money can special interests make off of the taxpayer.
SCantiGOP
(13,874 posts)In 1956 there was not a single Republican statewide official in the 11 states that had comprised the Confederacy. That was the 'Solid South' that was in an uncomfortable alliance with labor, urban areas and Catholics.
Nixon's Southern Strategy convinced those white Southerners (who were that only Southerners who could vote at that time) that the Democrats were the party of desegregation, and during the 60's and 70's (especially after the 1964 Civil Rights Act) they migrated quickly to the GOP. By the time of Reagan the parties had re-aligned: The Democrats were the party of Civil Rights; the Republicans were the party of white racism.
Trailrider1951
(3,415 posts)federally mandated racially integrated public schools. That became the "white flight" to the suburbs and the rise of private "Christian" schools. And the republicans have been on a rampage to destroy public education ever since.
JHB
(37,162 posts)...Ike promptly ignored it. It had been written by the people he'd beaten to get the nomination.
The one in the OP from 4 years later followed Ike's tune, not the proto-Buckleyites.
lapfog_1
(29,226 posts)but devolution happened.
zuul
(14,628 posts)When it became apparent that black people, brown people, gay people, and women would and should be included, the repubes in power said "Nyet, hold on a second there. Let's rethink this. Can't appease those non-white, non-male types."
Javaman
(62,534 posts)erronis
(15,355 posts)for a while. Look like they were actually in favor of "the people".
Nixon was a horrible VP and a failure as an initial candidate against JFK. But still, they persevered. He/they won and then we got Watergate.
They'll continue to put up real scum over and over until they succeed. And then fail. And leave a mess for another FDR, Obama, Biden to clean up.
KS Toronado
(17,344 posts)They have gone way downhill, today they're against everything they were for in 1956.
cstanleytech
(26,319 posts)The Democrats back then had a lot more racists in the party especially in the south and the Republicans back then had been losing seats.
To change that they began courting more people in the south to join them.
They then saw an opportunity to gain a lot more power by inviting the Southern Democrats into their party as the Southern Democrats were pissed over things like the voting rights act and desegregation.
They thought though that they could control them but that of course turned out to be a mistake as we have all seen.
Mr. Evil
(2,856 posts)Probably in this order:
JFK election
Evangelicals
Civil Rights legislation
Nixon
Roe v. Wade (more evangelicals)
Reagan (even more evangelicals)
AM hate radio
Focksnooze (I refuse to use their official identity)
Bush/Cheney
Those pesky evangelicals again (human bedbugs)
TFG
Codifer
(548 posts)In 1952 and 1956 the presidential contest was twixt Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson. I could have been ok with either but I did like Adlai better, he was very intelligent. Ike was not a bad president in most respects (the massive interstate highway construction) but was savaged by cold warriors and the military/industrial complex (he warned about this in his farewell).
Had we then been subjected to the horrific computer/internet algorithms, that divide us so savagely at present, it would have been a similar shit show. In looking at that sentence I realize that it is actually a matter of knowing how bad the shit show is. It is the same shit show. It is the divide and conquer shit show that Khrushchev boasted would defeat the western democracies without firing a shot.
And Khrushchev was not that smart.
Edit to ad:
In 1952 I was eight and therefor adopted my fathers politics. He was a devout FDR Democrat then. He did not grow conservative until the divisions of Viet Nam. Even when I returned from that war the only thing we could safely discuss was Dodger baseball.