(April 12, 2015 at 7:15 am)abaris Wrote:(April 12, 2015 at 6:33 am)Crossless1 Wrote: I offer as counter-evidence George (Jesus is my favorite political philosopher because he changed my heart) Bush and Tricky Dick Nixon.
As far as Nixon is concerned, he wouldn't even get a nomination as dog catcher from the GOP these days. Not because running a criminal racket out of the White house would be frowned upon but because he would be considered a commie liberal by todays standards.
No doubt. Nixon is, historically, an ideological anomaly (in the sense that his style of Old Guard establishment Republicanism lost the intraparty struggle) and is anathema to today's GOP. But even in his day, the seeds of the GOP's rightward drift were already there in Goldwater. Goldwater was crushed, of course, but the Goldwater people (the Tea Party of their day) persevered and finally found their boy in Reagan. Yeah, they all but disown Nixon and would erase him from our collective memory if they could. But they owe him a great debt. When it came to understanding the need to pander to Southern religious and 'cultural' conservatives, Nixon was there first. He gave us the poisonous Southern Strategy, which Dutch and his people consulted like it was holy writ.
