Banestar66 t1_jefph4m wrote on March 31, 2023 at 5:56 PM

Reply to comment by Unmissed in Barry Goldwater, 1967 by FNTM_309

I think you’re thinking of Bill Buckley. Goldwater was the last conservative you could respect.

Unmissed t1_jegcgo5 wrote on March 31, 2023 at 8:29 PM

Not really. He spent most of his career fighting against the New Deal, and was the first Republican to run the "Southern Strategy" that Nixon later perfected.

While he was fairly egalitarian in regard to civil rights, he was overwhelmingly Libertarian. He wasn't for black people having equal rights as much as he was against the federal government making a law. The KKK endorsed him (though he, of course, denounced them)

He was very critical of Eisenhower (the actual last conservative you could respect) for being too liberal. He was also a massive war hawk, who pushed to have tactical nukes (the "small" ones) be used against the USSR (The classic "Daisy" ad was Johnson's attack on him).

In short, he was proto-Reagan. He was proto-Dubya. He is the turning point, where Republicans pivoted from being conservative to fascist.

Banestar66 t1_jegswc8 wrote on March 31, 2023 at 10:23 PM

I know and disagree with all those things. I’m glad he didn’t become president. But he’s on a different planet than Reagan and Buckley. He actually believed in his philosophy however misguided I think it is. Reagan and Buckley were just out to enrich themselves.

I wouldn’t even count Eisenhower as a conservative. He was basically a centrist.