The Republicans wish they had Barry Goldwater right now
SUNDAY, MAY 14, 2017 05:00 PM EDT
The Republicans wish they had Barry Goldwater right now
Someone in the GOP needs to stand up to the president before things spiral out of control
MATTHEW ROZSA
Last July, when pundits were drawing countless parallels between Donald Trump and Barry Goldwater, the Republican presidential nominee in 1964 who transformed the party by pushing it rightward, it was worth noting that Trump was no Goldwater, in part because he lacked Goldwater’s philosophical heft and in part because Trump could actually win the damn election (which, of course, he wound up doing).
In light of the Republican Party’s wishy-washy response to Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, however, it’s clear that it isn’t just Trump who is no Goldwater. The entire Republican Party has abandoned the spirit of their conservative predecessor.
This doesn’t mean we should suddenly elevate Goldwater to heroic status. The racism, trigger-happy jingoism and heartless laissez-faire ideology so detestable in the modern GOP can all be directly traced back to his insidious 1964 presidential campaign. Our nation would have been far better off if the movement that Goldwater spawned had died with his landslide defeat at the hands of Lyndon Johnson.
Nevertheless, there is one aspect of Goldwater’s career that modern Republicans should emulate. When he saw that President Richard Nixon had committed crimes that demanded he be removed from office, Goldwater had the courage to tell the president — to his face, no less — that he needed to resign.
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http://www.salon.com/2017/05/14/the-republicans-wish-they-had-barry-goldwater-right-now/
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