Thanks to Matthew Ung, we need to remind ourselves how desperately the Republican establishment wanted Ronald Reagan to just go away in the 1970s. keep this in mind as the Republican establishment works to marginalize the Tea party and conservatives like Ted Cruz today.
Former Republican Senator Chuck Percy of Illinois in 1975 to the New York Times: “A Reagan nomination and the crushing defeat likely to follow could signal the beginning of the end of our party as an effective force in American life.”Translation: (Like Cruz) Reagan is stopping us from addressing the topics we say we totally want to address, but never did before he came on the scene. Because he interrupted us. Now I’ve gone and lost my train of thought.Representative John Rhodes, Republican of Arizona, who became leader of the Republicans in the House, in 1975 said, “As soon as Reagan gets away from his clichés and his campaign slogans, he’s in trouble.”Translation: He’s an amateur. He’s not a scholar even though he’s read more books than us, and he’s uneducated even though he’s studied more than us. He’s not qualified to bring up any case to the American people, because we haven’t been able to do it already. Reminds me of all the people accusing Ted Cruz of utter ignorance about the Supreme Court’s Heller decision on gun control. Frothy-mouthed opponents demand he read the Heller decision, totally ignorant of the fact that HE WAS THE ATTORNEY WHO ARGUED HELLER AND WON. Sorry for raising my voice, I just hate it when we don’t do our homework before attacking each other. That would have made an awesome political commercial on the idiocy of his opponents, but I’m sure the GOP decided to make a commercial about how well they will run liberal programs when they win.Republican Vice President Nelson Rockefeller warned Republicans governors in 1975: “No major American party can long endure by directing its appeal to a narrow minority. It will not serve the nation to have our major parties polarized at ideological extremes.”Translation: Reagan can’t win, because he’s going to run in a primary. Running against an incumbent is unpatriotic, and if there are differences with the incumbent, it is the challenger who is to blame for the differences. Our party can’t handle differences, so our country clearly cannot either.Republican Representative Pete McCloskey of California in 1976: “A Reagan win would be a disaster for the GOP.”Republican Representative James Cleveland of New Hampshire predicted another Goldwater debacle if Reagan is the GOP nominee.Translation: Reagan is not a good Republican, and yet he runs under the Republican Party. I’m jealous of such audacity, so I declare him a future disaster. Because change is hard.In 1976, Reagan was publicly told by two Republican governors to get out of the race against Ford: Virginia Governor Mills Godwin and North Carolina Governor James Holshouser. On the eve of the North Carolina primary, the Ford White House prepared a telegram signed by a DOZEN Republican governors, telling Reagan to get out of the race. The dastardly Reagan ended up winning North Carolina, the little rascal. Later, Ford lost to Carter, and then the establishment Republicans blamed Reagan.Translation: Reagan, you are weak, so you should get out. Also Reagan, you are strong, so you should get out. Just get out. If you stay in, we will blame you for our loses.Remind anyone of the Tea Party? The Tea Party is both trodden underfoot and utterly defeated, but also the taskmaster and cutthroat ruler of the Republican Party, holding hostage the other Republicans. PICK ONE! Cruz, Reagan, the Tea Party… are they pathetic losers, or are they masterfully strong winners?
1 comment:
I only see one republican being attacked by most republicans. You've done a decent job bring up examples of how the republican establishment hated Reagan back in the day. You've done an absolutely lousy job at sharing the thousands upon thousands of examples that illustrate just how libertarian Reagan was... well it doesn't take a rocket scientist, Reagan supported Goldwater for crying out loud. Look at Reagans writings before he got shot, before he became president. He said "the heart of republicanism is libertarianism", and he meant it, and that's why the republican establishment of yesteryear vigorously attacked him. You see, the neocons were just starting to get their head of steam up, the base of that faction being former democrats who had their eyes on globalism. Goldwater and Reagan were the antithesis of the neocon founding fathers. Fast forward a few years, and it became apparent that Reagan was allowed to become the nominee only because neocon faction power brokers within the republican party set forth a number of their conditions including a vice-president of their choice, that choice being their favorite neocon ally Herbert Walker. They saw Herbert Walker as a wonderful balance to the Reagan's "stupid" libertarian bend, and figured they could further shift him from his principles once he was in office. Decades pass, and a looking back, we can see that not only did they contain Reagan's true principles, keeping them in check, they have completely re-written the history of the man, and stealing his name and image for their own purposes, as if the party never had a great identity crisis and schism. Now decades later, we see that the neocons are still fighting as hard as they ever did, after enjoying years of party control. And it's still the same old game, with the help of republican media, fox news, and talking head radio, the republican establishment hates the libertarian candidate that polls the best against the democrats in a general election. The neocons are offering a plurality of substitute candidates all with the same general neocon message. The list of these cookie cutter neocons is quite long, and includes Rubio, Cruz, Bush, Carson, Walker, etc etc etc. It'll be interesting to see how far the republican establishment will go to destroy Rand. We've enjoyed a resurgence in state and local republicanism, that is truer to the meaning of "republican" as of late, largely due to the fact that national level democrats bring out that behavior. It's almost like republicans remember what the hell their party was about decades ago, when Goldwater and Reagan were looked upon with respect, long before the days of the neocon ascendance. Instead of jingoistic, one size fits all, nazi-ish, nationalism... we have a small but vocal number of republicans remembering states' rights, the constitution, local rule, fiscal conservatism, sound money... no thanks to the Tea Party, who stand as a proxy arm of the neocon central, and basically keep embracing idiots.
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