The 1956 Republican platform was as liberal as the democratic party's platform today and that is NOT a compliment.
"Under the Republican Administration, as our country has prospered, so have its people. This is as it should be, for as President Eisenhower said: "Labor is the United States. The men and women, who with their minds, their hearts and hands, create the wealth that is shared in this country—they are America."
Eisenhower and the GOP respected labor in 1956. Today, you never hear the GOP or it's talkers speak well of labor.
In addition, the Eisenhower Administration has enforced more vigorously and effectively than ever before, the laws which protect the working standards of our people. Workers have benefited by the progress which has been made in carrying out the programs and principles set forth in the 1952 Republican platform. All workers have gained and unions have grown in strength and responsibility, and have increased their membership by 2 millions.
In regards to Social Security, they said
We shall continue to seek extension and perfection of a sound social security system
Today the GOP wants to give it to Wall Street to gamble with. As the present GOP and the 1980s GOP moved further to the RIGHT WING, the democratic party has moved to the "center"
In reality we have moved to where the GOP was in 1956.
It is time to call out the GOP from what they are and it is NOT your Grandfather GOP.
The 1956 GOP was America first types.
Today, it is Coporations first.
sabutai says
On economics, at least.
<
p>So if today’s Democrats are yesterday’s Republicans, what then are today’s Republicans?
ray-m says
howland-lew-natick says
Ike didn’t tolerate school desegregation in Arkansas. He didn’t buy into the invasion of Egypt by the British, French and Israelis. He supported education and pushed the highway system using DoD monies.
<
p>(Both parties wooed him before he chose to be a Republican.)
christopher says
He eventually sent in the National Guard to integrate Central High, though the action came across as enforcing law rather than moral outrage.
millburyman says
I think Lew meant SEGREGATION.
christopher says
howland-lew-natick says
I did, twice. Doh!
<
p>He federalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent in the 101st Airborne Division. Gov. Orval Faubus had called up Guard for his own purpose. Oh, for a president that abides by law…
mark-bail says
guide by a well-defined lack of coherence?
roarkarchitect says
But he was a smart man and is unappreciated – he prevented the US from going to nuclear war over Taiwan and got rid of price controls.
<
p>Oh and then there is that “D” day thing. Done without computers, pretty amazing (while maybe one computer in Bletchley Park)
jconway says
One of our greatest and most underrated Presidents, both in terms of foreign policy and on the domestic front. He built a federalized education system that was the envy of the world, a highway system, created the space program and demilitarized it under the civilian NACA (later to be named NASA), followed a policy of desegregation, appointed liberals to the court including Earl Warren, pursued a policy of containment instead of rollback, the first and only President to date to successfully run on a true anti-war platform of withdrawal. He eventually purged McCarthy and his ilk from the party and decreased the militant anti-communism purges. He was an internationalist and supported multilateral institutions. He was also wary of the military industrial complex. Lastly he was smart enough to recognize that social welfare could be defended as ‘national security’ and thus we had the “National Security Education Act” and “National Security Health and Welfare Act” that created the HEW Department. He used the Sputnik crisis to galvanize investment in science and technology. And I would agree he was probably the last pro-labor Republican.
<
p>That said I would disagree that Ike was an example of an ‘old guard’ Republican. Robert A Taft was closer to the true GOP, a paleoconservative ideology that some Tea Partiers would ascribe to. Ike came from the progressive wing and was closer to T. Roosevelt, Wendell Wilkie, and Dewey who was his political patron alongside our own Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr who likely lost his seat to a young JFK due to his rigorous campaigning for IKE (who ran a Scott Brown style campaign for the ‘peoples seat’ and derided Lodge for being aloof and away from the interests of ordinary Massachusetts citizens, he also ran to his right on communism and social issues). So Ike really represented the culmination of a liberal Republican moment that breathed its last by the time Goldwater was nominated, and one could argue that Reagan returned the party to the principles it had abandoned when FDR won. Though to his credit Nixon was truly a liberal Republican on a lot of issues in spite of his reputation. No Republican since Nixon has truly addressed the issues of health care, the environment, or alleviating poverty (Nixon favored a guaranteed minimum income and a health care plan similar to the public option, both of which were rejected as too conservative by the Democratic majorities he had to deal with in Congress).
jconway says
I would argue that just as the Republican party moved to the center and the Democratic party moved to the left between the period of 1932-1980, in a similar way the Republican party since 1980 has moved to the right (and since 2008 to the far right) while the Democratic party has become the party of the center. If anything Clinton and Obama are great examples of Rockefeller Republicans, socially liberal, while being fiscally and economically centrist.
jefferson-nix says
I almost blew the water I was drinking out of my nose when you claimed Obama was fiscally and economically centrist.
<
p>You really need to warn someone ahead of time if you’re going to make a comment like that.
<
p>Clinton moved to the right (or at least the center) after ’94. I believe he sensed that the nation believed that is where they wanted government to be.
<
p>I have not, nor expect the same out of the current Administration.
jconway says
Seeing as most of the lefties on this blog think he is to the right of Clinton and some even think he is to the right of Reagan. The fact that he is not satisfying their extremism, or your right winged version of it, means he is in the sweet spot where most Americans are. Part of me hopes he does get a left challenger just to bolster his centrist credentials going into the general. Bring on 2012!
jefferson-nix says
Just because Obama is to the right of what the extreme left wishes him to be does not make him a centrist. Similarly, Scott Brown is being bashed every day by the ultra conservatives as a RINO. Does that make him a centrist or merely someone to the left of the extreme right? I would say that I believe the President is much closer to the extreme elements of his party in ideology than Brown is. That does not mean that either one does not adopt moderate rhetoric at one point or another.
<
p>Both are being talked about as needing primary challengers by the extreme ends of the spectrum. Calling either one a centrist is laughable though.
jconway says
jefferson-nix says
Clinton ran a state and had to balance the budget while he was there. His administration, with help from a Republican Congress, also ran a surplus for a few years. The President has never balanced a budget and, until recently, surrounded himself with academic rather than business types. I’ll give him credit though if we have the same economic growth that Clinton had. Clinton as a Rockefeller Republican? Hardly. As a moderate Democrat on fiscal issues, yes. (BTW, Bush II was not a fiscal conservative either.) But saying our current President is fiscally centrist? Please.
hoyapaul says
<
p>Well, let’s see…Obama inherited the worst recession since the Great Depression from George W. Bush, and his not balancing a budget in two years makes him a leftist? I guess by that measure, Bush was a couple steps to the left of Mao Tse-tung, given that he (with help of Republican Congresses) built up a massive debt. And his “surrounding himself with academic rather than business types” is both factually incorrect and completely irrelevant.
<
p>This may be the most laughable and incoherent argument for calling Obama close to an “extreme leftist” that I’ve heard yet. Congratulations.
christopher says
I remember talking to a Republican right after the midterm who was saying Obama should move to the center and thinking, is he going to approach from the right! A true liberal would have fought for single-payer health insurance, cap & trade, larger stimulus, and against extending the Bush tax cuts. In all seriousness the PResident is on balance just to the left of the center.
mannygoldstein says
Anything the bankers want, they get, and fast. We’re at $12+ trillion of pledged taxpayer dollars (loans and guarantees) for that crowd, while the rest of us get something like 5% of that, administered under trickle-down rules. No return to Glass-Steagall, and a White House filled with Wall Streeters.
<
p>Continuing tax cuts for the wealthiest while the working poor get their taxes raised.
<
p>Add continuations of warrentless wiretaps, tolerance of torture, “extraordinary rendition”, secret prisons, and I’d say that Obama is pretty well to the right of centrist.
centralmassdad says
I would agree that the Democratic party moved hard to the left during that time, and during the 60s and 70s in particular. I would also agree that the GOP has moved to the right since 1964, especially during the last decade or so.
<
p>I don’t think there is a party “of” the center, but there is a party in the center now and again, which is why self-identified “independents” have increased.
<
p>Each party thinks that the disapproval of the other is equivalent to approval of themselves. GOP behaved this way early in the last decade, and lost the government because of it, and then Democrats did the same.
hoyapaul says
I’d argue that much of the political change has to do with the changing power of interest groups aligned with both parties. Since the 1960s and early 70s, there has been a huge growth in left-of-center interest groups interested in “post-materialist” issues (civil rights, environmental, consumer protection), while unions have declined precipitously.
<
p>Perhaps it should be no surprise that the Democrats’ priorities have increasingly reflected those of the most well-organized and powerful interests (the same, of course, is true of the Republicans). That’s why Democrats have moved to the Right on economic issues, but also certainly to the Left on “social” issues as well.
joeltpatterson says
what was politically “centrist” has grown closer and closer to the idea of maximum concentration of wealth in the hands of a few.
jconway says
I would take the AFL-CIO over Planned Parenthood any day. But the party seems to be thinking that hedge fund managers will be more loyal on economics and soccer moms on social issues. Pat Moynihan said “you women are wrecking the party with your insistence on abortion (on demand)” and I would argue that the Reagan Democrats would not have left if the party hadn’t veered tone deaf to their concerns and only to the interests of corporate America and cultural leftists. A bread and butter platform is essential. I have defended Obama from a variety of left wing criticism, but he ought to be a populist on tax cuts, on banking regulation, and on health care. That is not only true to the core traditions of our party, it would also restore his popularity and legitimacy amongst working class whites. His call on colleges to end the ban on ROTC is a good first step in isolating the cultural issues, if he continues to move to the middle on abortion, to a law and order stance in favor of gun control and against crime a la Clinton, and to the economic left, I think he can win back a lot of populist independents and Reagan Democrats. Perhaps we should be glad he is reading Lou Cannon.
hoyapaul says
Though I see the Democrats’ ideological shifts as more of a logical process than a specific choice that was made.
<
p>After all, both parties are in a pretty decent place right now — they both represent roughly 50% of the nation. The Democrats and Republicans now both have legitimate chances to win the Presidency or either house of Congress in any given election season. Neither party will change much unless one goes on a sustained losing streak in which they consistently represent less than 50% of the public.
<
p>I think you and I are probably both on the same side on a lot of issues, but I do think moving to the right (or center) on “social” issues at this point would cost the Democrats more votes than it would gain. With increased polarization in the electorate, I think the “Reagan Democrats” are gone for good in the foreseeable future. Instead, the Democrats are probably content (and reasonably so) with a coalition of well-educated whites, women, younger people, African-Americans, and recent immigrants or children of immigrants. Moving to the right on social issues would alienate members of the first three groups, while gaining little in the latter two (because even though both of the latter two groups are more culturally conservative, both are strongly Democratic as it is).
jconway says
I think we can and should move to the center on abortion, I have canvassed in conservative districts in the Heartland, for Duckworth in Il-6, for Obama in IN, and you do not know how many Catholic working class voters would switch from the Republicans if the Democrats would only stop its support of abortion on demand. Polling information has shown the party would benefit from it. My generation is more pro-gay rights and more pro-life than the previous one, and many of these Hispanic immigrants come from strongly religious households, and as soon as the GOP moderates its stance on immigration it could be attractive to that group, especially if a pro-life Hispanic is their nominee at some point. The radical pro-choice lobby doesn’t care about the party, they backed Chaffee over Whitehouse, Snowe and Collins over their Democratic opponents, Lieberman over Lamont, Ridge over his Democratic opponents, George Ryan in Illinois, Mark Kirk in his congressional races, etc.