What's with the Conservative love for JFK all of the sudden?

[deutsey]

13. The right loves to co-opt heroes of the left

The left traditionally has a much broader popular appeal than the right, which, by its very nature, is elitist.

So the right takes the rhetoric of the left and uses it to wrap their elitist politics with them (e.g., a reactionary like Reagan using the language of a radical like Thomas Paine).

They also do the same with icons of the left: JFK was a conservative, MLK was a Republican...they've even tried to say that John Lennon turned conservative before he was killed. Ironically, as you point out, each of these men was also smeared by the right as subversive sex maniacs and/or drug addicts.

Because we don't have a strong left perspective represented in this country anymore and, consequently, because people have no actual context for where the left's popular rhetoric and heroes comes from, the right can frame them anyway they want and a lot of people will swallow it hook, line, and sinker.