Goldwater made some very substantive changes after he didn’t have to pander for votes: he admitted that he was wrong to oppose government intervention to enforce racial equality before the law. And he voiced his support for gay rights.
Conservatives have made similar about-faces on now-popular liberals, like Harry Truman. And, claiming that Republicans were always behind the battle for civil rights (conveniently overlooking the fact that it was the “conservative” wing of both parties that fought their “liberal” counterparts tooth and nail).
Things change. And when the world doesn’t come to an end, people realize they were wrong. But no one likes to admit it.
I wonder how long it will be before “conservatives” claim that they were always the “twue” champions of gay rights. They could use Barry Goldwater’s later stance as “pwoof”.
The GOP keeps moving to the right, the old extremists become moderates.
Sadly in 20 years liberals may be doing the same with Palin and Gingrich (pining for the good old days when the GOP was more sane and moderate) if a McVeigh militia type (at least in speech, not in action) becomes the new face of the GOP.
I am referring to the puppetmasters and not their tools. The xenophobic working class whites who supply so many Republican votes aren’t into plutocracy.
Suppose you got your chance and the Democrats ran a leftist like George McGovern. He’d lose badly in a landslide. If you liberals want “progress” you better support moderate liberals not an European social democrat/hippie/pacifist who will win only Massachusetts and DC.
I am not a Birther nor believe in a lot of the rubbish that’s been passed around about UHC. I supported a limited stimulus and the bailout of the banks and auto corporations. I also don’t think the UHC bill is the Abomination of Abominations either.
He also had some “words” for the hard religious right. Back then the biggest noise maker was Falwell, but we may as well include all of their ilk (I like the word ilk, it sounds ominous).
Barry Goldwater said “every good Christian should kick Falwell’s ass”.
Obama isn’t a moderate liberal either. He’s not a liberal at all, just a moderate right winger; a corporatist. He’s better than the Republicans mostly because they are so irrational, nasty and incompetent; not because he’s a liberal.
And your argument about who I should support is irrelevant; I’ve never voted for someone for any other reason than to oppose the right. There ARE no people with any chance to win running for office from the left to support. The allowed spectrum of political positions for an elected official in America is very narrow, very far to the Right, and getting more that way all the time. Forget progress; I don’t expect progress in America. All I expect my vote to do is slow the slide into theocratic fascism a little.
Actually, I think Obama is actually a liberal in person, but he certainly doesn’t govern as a liberal, and certainly was not a particularly liberal senator.
Actually by your yardstick “progress” is happening. A UHC bill has just passed, several states have legalized gay marriage and many more have granted marriage rights, the rising generation is the least religious in American history, the Religious Right has been crippled, almost everything heading your way.
I’m talking about the type of people Der Trihs and others want to run for politicians.
He opposed a bill banning Partial Birth Abortion which had a wide bipartisan support.
Absolutely. McGovern, helped by his own combat experience (that Johnson and Nixon didn’t share) was a *realist *about the Vietnam folly, in an era when so many were still insisting that it could somehow be “won”.