# Why have Republicans shifted so far to the right? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 27, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040 "2010-03-27T19:12:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040/1 "2010-03-27T19:12:01Z")
This seems to have gone down the memory hole, but the new health care law’s individual mandate used to be a [Republican idea](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_overhaul_requiring_insurance), the free market alternative to the Democratic “single payer” proposals. > [@](#): > > In the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon favored a mandate that employers provide insurance. In the 1990s, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, embraced an individual requirement. Not anymore. > > “The idea of an individual mandate as an alternative to single-payer was a Republican idea,” said health economist Mark Pauly of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. In 1991, he published a paper that explained how a mandate could be combined with tax credits — two ideas that are now part of Obama’s law. Pauly’s paper was well-received — by the George H.W. Bush administration. If Richard Nixon, the anti-communist crusader, showed up at a modern day Republican gathering proposing the same thing today that he did in the 1970s, he would be booed off the stage and called a socialist! What’s happened to the Republican party in recent years that has caused it to shift so notably to the right? ---
**Author:** ![Stuffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@Stuffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stuffy)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040/2 "2010-03-27T19:23:04Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > If Richard Nixon, the anti-communist crusader, showed up at a modern day Republican gathering proposing the same thing today that he did in the 1970s, he would be booed off the stage and called a socialist! You’re assuming honest discourse. The fact of the matter is that the claims of Socialism is complete bull. The individual mandate like the end of life counseling (The so called Death Panels) were long standing Republican ideals. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040/3 "2010-03-27T19:42:34Z")
> [@Stuffy](#): > > You’re assuming honest discourse. > > The fact of the matter is that the claims of Socialism is complete bull. Exactly. If you honestly believe that any of the Republican lawmakers who voted against HCR are worried about a socialist takeover of America, you’re dreaming. For that matter do you think Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh and their ilk are losing any sleep over this? Please. The only reason they may be losing sleep is because they’re too busy counting their money. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040/4 "2010-03-27T20:32:00Z")
> [@Stuffy](#): > > You’re assuming honest discourse. > > The fact of the matter is that the claims of Socialism is complete bull. The individual mandate like the end of life counseling (The so called Death Panels) were long standing Republican ideals. I will also submit, that had the Republicans drafted and submitted the exact same bill that was just passed into law under a Republican led Congress or Presidency there would have been unanimous approval across the party for it. There is no ideological difference on the merits of the components of the new healthcare law between the Democrats and the Republicans in Congress. All the hue and cry against the new law, even from some posters on this very board, would be absent were it not for the fact that it was passed under an Obama administration, which wasn’t supposed to happen. The single purpose of the Republican party today is to win back the White House, by hook or by crook. The Republicans have chosen obstructionism and blanket misinformation as the vehicles that will propel them to victories in 2010 and 2012, so any bill drafted by the Democrats will be ridiculed, spun as the worst legislation that could possibly befall the American citizenry, even if most of its components were culled from Republican ideas, and summarily rejected as a means to that end. Whether or not the new healthcare law is good or bad for the country is immaterial in this context. What has caused the Republicans to shift so far to the right you ask? If you’re talking about the last 30 years or so, I’d say their embrace of the Religious Right. If you’re talking about the precipitous shift in the last 24 months, I’d have to point to the elephant in the room that very few will admit aloud in an uncontrolled environment, which is the election of a black President. I canvassed for Obama prior to the election and went door to door in Bucks County and Wilkes Barre Pennsylvania, in both Democratic and Republican neighborhoods, and you would not believe the amount of racist vitriol and threats my fellow canvassers and I received from both Republicans and Democrats. “We’re not voting for a nigger”, a common refrain, was almost comical because of its frequency were it not such a disgustingly vile sentiment, and that people were so willing and, seemingly, eager to express it. It was certainly an eye opener for me. I’m not intimating that were the President not black there’d be no opposition/obstruction from the Republicans, as I believe there certainly would be. I am, however, saying that a Barack Obama presidency has galvanized the Republicans in the House and the Senate, partly as a response from the more vociferous elements in the base electorate, more than would have been possible otherwise. A black man in the White House is an abomination and, to many, something that not only shouldn’t happen in America, couldn’t happen, and actually didn’t happen, hence the Birthers, and other irrational elements embodied in contemporary conservatism and, at the very best, not rejected by Republican leaders. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040/5 "2010-03-27T20:37:31Z")
I’ve heard it was due to Roe v Wade getting the evangelical christians involved in politics. However that doesn’t explain the move to the right just over the last 17 years. What seems to have happened is the conservatives became more and more powerful in the south and the sparsely populated areas like the southwest and northwest while the democrats took over the northeast, west coast and northern midwest Senate seats in 1994 by party [![](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:103rd_Congress-Senate.PNG) ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:103rd_Congress-Senate.PNG) House seats in 1994 by party [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/103_us_house_membership.png) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/103_us_house_membership.png) Senate seats in 2010 by party [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/111th_US_Congress_Senate.PNG) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/111th_US_Congress_Senate.PNG) House seats in 2010 by party [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/111th\_US\_Congress\_House\_of\_Reps.svg](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/111th_US_Congress_House_of_Reps.svg) My point is, I really don’t know why. But the geographies changed from 1993-2010 with there being far fewer states with senators from each party (most states are either all GOP or all dem now while many had 1 of each 17 years ago) and the dems lost house/senate seats in the south but gained them in other areas. Maybe the GOP takeover of the south pushed them to the right, scaring the rest of the country out of supporting the GOP which may have pushed the GOP even further to the right somehow. But I really don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040/6 "2010-03-27T21:03:58Z")
Being in the minority their only recourse to stay relevant is by being an extremely loud minority. This means they have to paint absolutely everything the Democrats do as “The worst thing EVAH” in order for their followers to make lots of noise. Being that the Democrats are fairly middle of the road at this point in time that makes the Republicans have to lean way to the right in order to oppose the Dems centrist policies. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040/7 "2010-03-27T21:31:14Z")
Don’t overlook the role of the great increase in media outlets since basic cable became nearly universal, along with the consolidation of ownership permitted by Bush’s FCC (cf. Clear Channel), and the corporatization of broadcast ownership that forces network news departments to be profitable on their own. Idiots that used to be so far out on the fringe that nobody listened or cared now get their own shows that people listen to just to find out how crazy they are, and crazy is communicable. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040/8 "2010-03-27T21:35:51Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > Being in the minority their only recourse to stay relevant is by being an extremely loud minority. That wasn’t their only recourse; it was the recourse they chose. There were other tacks they could have taken if they were in the least interested in actually accomplishing anything. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040/9 "2010-03-27T21:53:41Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > What’s happened to the Republican party in recent years that has caused it to shift so notably to the right? IMHO, the increasing power of the extremists to shape Republican positions. Here’s how I see it. Back in the 60s, large numbers of white racists broke away from the Democrats over segregation, and the Republicans picked them up. They pandered to the Christian fanatics over secularization and abortion, misogynists over womens rights, the fanatic anti-Communist/anti-socialists over leftism, and pretty much any other branch of the right fringe. No doubt much of that was originally just the cynical manipulation of the fringe to get votes; but as time went on, they became more and more dependent on the crazies and bigots. They built a right wing media machine to pander to them, and over time as those fanatics became Republicans, they gained more and more control of the machinery of the party. And in recent years, a critical mass has been reached. The crazies are strong enough to largely determine the agenda of the party. They’ve also woken up to the fact that they actually haven’t gotten much of what they wanted, so just pandering to them with words isn’t working as well anymore. And they’ve become so important to the party that cutting them out would do huge short term damage to the party, even if the more rational leadership can do so at all. Basically, they made a deal with the Devil, and the Devil has decided it’s time to pay up. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040/10 "2010-03-27T21:54:50Z")
The notion that the Republicans have shifted to the far right is just ridiculous. It’s a good thing you guys have Richard Nixon for a data point, because otherwise your thesis would fall apart. Barry Goldwater was a libertarian. He wanted to dismantle large parts of a government that was only a small fraction of the size of the current one in the first place. Ronald Reagan said that government wasn’t the solution - it was the problem. He wanted to dismantle the Department of Education. He cut the top marginal tax rate to 28% from 70%. He wanted to get rid of the NEA and PBS. He wanted the Dept of Agriculture downsized. When George Bush became president, he moved in a more liberal direction, with tax increases and increased funding of government. The result was that the Republicans in Congress turned to the right. The Gingrich revolution started in the next election, although Clinton was elected. But in 1994 Gingrich gained control of the house, and again the Republicans championed smaller government. They dragged Clinton kicking and screaming into welfare reform, and they also advocated dismantling the Dept of Education and other government departments. I would argue that the ‘core’ grassroots Republican party has always favored limited government and low taxes. When big-government Republicans like Bush and Bush and Nixon get elected, the small government base becomes dispirited and loses energy, and the social conservatives fill the gap. Then when Democrats get elected, the small government base gets energized again. That’s what’s happening now. It’s a cyclical process - not a trend to the right. One thing that is a true change - the cold war ended. The cold war caused a grand coalition of Republicans and defense hawk Democrats, which moderated both parties when dealing with each other. When the cold war ended, the parties separated. The result has been increasing polarization of government along ideological grounds. The Democrats moved left just as much as the Republicans moved right. But both were merely gravitating back to their natural constituencies. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040/11 "2010-03-27T22:07:21Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The notion that the Republicans have shifted to the far right is just ridiculous. It’s a good thing you guys have Richard Nixon for a data point, because otherwise your thesis would fall apart. You do need to learn that the health care package they are now denouncing, even violently, as “socialism” is their own proposal from the early Nineties. > [@](#): > > Barry Goldwater was a libertarian. Who called himself a conservative nonetheless. Imagine that. > [@](#): > > Ronald Reagan said that government wasn’t the solution - it was the problem. Which is why he grew it at about the same rate as everyone else before him. And he tripled the debt, too, as you’ll recall. We’re still paying it off. The stuff you say he “wanted” to do? _He didn’t even try to do any of it_. So what did he \*really \*believe, himm? > [@](#): > > When George Bush became president, he moved in a more liberal direction, with tax increases and increased funding of government. Surprising to see you say that fiscal responsibility is a \*liberal \*value, but thanks for the acknowledgment anyway. > [@](#): > > But in 1994 Gingrich gained control of the house, and again the Republicans championed smaller government. They dragged Clinton kicking and screaming into welfare reform, and they also advocated dismantling the Dept of Education and other government departments. And what do you think remains of this so-caled Revolution, even a year after Gingrich’s departure in the impeachment clusterfuck? > [@](#): > > I would argue that the ‘core’ grassroots Republican party has always favored limited government and low taxes. Then you would have trouble even identifying any of its adherents in the party’s leadership anymore, much less supporting that claim that they constitute a “core” of any kind. The guns/God/gaybashing folks, the Obama=Antichrist faction _are_ the GOP base now. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040/12 "2010-03-27T22:18:23Z")
As the OP reports, the basic heath care plan we got recently was the Republican plan of the 90’s. It was not just Richard Nixon for a data point **Sam** , I do remember reading that in private Bob Dole was sorry that his efforts sunk the early push back then to do health care reform. Most of the Republicans of today just told him to shut up when he made noises that he was leaning in favor of \*\*negotiating \*\*with the Democrats current health care reform. [http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/21/bachmann-nonprofreedomagenda-dole-frist/](http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/21/bachmann-nonprofreedomagenda-dole-frist/) ---
**Author:** ![Cyberhwk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7993a0/32.png) [@Cyberhwk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyberhwk)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040/13 "2010-03-27T23:18:32Z")
David Frum is a conservative columnist who just got forced out due to his theory that [conservative media is at least partly to blame](http://www.frumforum.com/waterloo)… [QUOTE=David Frum] Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994. … We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat. There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother? [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040/14 "2010-03-27T23:19:55Z")
> [@Cyberhwk](#): > > David Frum is a conservative columnist who just got forced out due to his theory that [conservative media is at least partly to blame](http://www.frumforum.com/waterloo)… What was he forced out of? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040/15 "2010-03-27T23:23:56Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > Being in the minority their only recourse to stay relevant is by being an extremely loud minority. This means they have to paint absolutely everything the Democrats do as “The worst thing EVAH” in order for their followers to make lots of noise. Being that the Democrats are fairly middle of the road at this point in time that makes the Republicans have to lean way to the right in order to oppose the Dems centrist policies. They’ve only been in the minority since January 2007. They were getting extreme when they were in the majority too. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040/16 "2010-03-27T23:24:37Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > What was he forced out of? His position at the American Enterprise Institute. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040/17 "2010-03-27T23:27:03Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > What was he forced out of? The American Enterprise Institute. [His personal comments on the matter](http://www.frumforum.com/so-what-happened). ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040/18 "2010-03-27T23:30:06Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The notion that the Republicans have shifted to the far right is just ridiculous. It’s a good thing you guys have Richard Nixon for a data point, because otherwise your thesis would fall apart. > > Barry Goldwater was a libertarian. He wanted to dismantle large parts of a government that was only a small fraction of the size of the current one in the first place. > > Ronald Reagan said that government wasn’t the solution - it was the problem. He wanted to dismantle the Department of Education. He cut the top marginal tax rate to 28% from 70%. He wanted to get rid of the NEA and PBS. He wanted the Dept of Agriculture downsized. > > When George Bush became president, he moved in a more liberal direction, with tax increases and increased funding of government. The result was that the Republicans in Congress turned to the right. The Gingrich revolution started in the next election, although Clinton was elected. But in 1994 Gingrich gained control of the house, and again the Republicans championed smaller government. They dragged Clinton kicking and screaming into welfare reform, and they also advocated dismantling the Dept of Education and other government departments. > > I would argue that the ‘core’ grassroots Republican party has always favored limited government and low taxes. When big-government Republicans like Bush and Bush and Nixon get elected, the small government base becomes dispirited and loses energy, and the social conservatives fill the gap. Then when Democrats get elected, the small government base gets energized again. That’s what’s happening now. It’s a cyclical process - not a trend to the right. > > One thing that is a true change - the cold war ended. The cold war caused a grand coalition of Republicans and defense hawk Democrats, which moderated both parties when dealing with each other. When the cold war ended, the parties separated. The result has been increasing polarization of government along ideological grounds. The Democrats moved left just as much as the Republicans moved right. But both were merely gravitating back to their natural constituencies. It isn’t as simple as just big government vs small government. The GOP has moved from a libertarian party and having members all over the country to an authoritarian, irrational party of know nothings and religious fundamentalists mostly confined to the south and sparsely populated plains/midwest regions. Goldwater spoke out against the contemporary GOP. > **[Barry Goldwater | Later life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldwater#Later_life)** > > By the 1980s, with Ronald Reagan as president and the growing involvement of the religious right in conservative politics, Goldwater's libertarian views on personal issues were revealed; he believed that they were an integral part of true conservatism. Goldwater viewed abortion as a matter of personal choice and as such supported abortion rights. As a passionate defender of personal liberty, he saw the religious right's views as an encroachment on personal privacy and individual liberties.\[1 In 1... > [@](#): > > In 1996, he told Bob Dole, whose own presidential campaign received lukewarm support from conservative Republicans: “We’re the new liberals of the Republican party. Can you imagine that?” The fact that the GOP is becoming more dogmatic, irrational, uncompromising, authoritarian. culture war obsessed and fanatical is likely what most people mean by being pushed to the right. Also consider the GOP that Goldwater spoke out against by saying they had moved so far to the right that he and Dole were the new liberals is now likely even further to the right. ---
**Author:** ![Cyberhwk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7993a0/32.png) [@Cyberhwk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyberhwk)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2010, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040/19 "2010-03-27T23:49:03Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > His position at the American Enterprise Institute. Yes, this. Sorry I wasn’t more clear. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040/20 "2010-03-28T02:58:38Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Barry Goldwater was a libertarian. He wanted to dismantle large parts of a government that was only a small fraction of the size of the current one in the first place. Goldwater was on the party’s fringe in his day. His nomination was a fluke, and much of his grassroots support came from the John Birchers, whom even Goldwater regarded as kooks. See [_Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Conensus,_](http://www.amazon.com/Before-Storm-Goldwater-Unmaking-Consensus/dp/080902859X) by Rick Perlstein. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Ronald Reagan said that government wasn’t the solution - it was the problem. He wanted to dismantle the Department of Education. He cut the top marginal tax rate to 28% from 70%. He wanted to get rid of the NEA and PBS. He wanted the Dept of Agriculture downsized. In today’s GOP, [Reagan would fail the “Purity Test.”](http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/500305/reagan_would_fail_purity_test_proposed_for_gop) > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > One thing that is a true change - the cold war ended. The cold war caused a grand coalition of Republicans and defense hawk Democrats, which moderated both parties when dealing with each other. When the cold war ended, the parties separated. The result has been increasing polarization of government along ideological grounds. The Democrats moved left just as much as the Republicans moved right. But both were merely gravitating back to their natural constituencies. :dubious: What world do you live in, where the Dems have moved **left** since the Cold War?! Clinton was the most conservative Dem Potus since Grover Cleveland, and Obama isn’t far to his left. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-republicans-shifted-so-far-to-the-right/534040.md?page=2)