History Chat - August 13, 2020

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Summary: How the Movement Conservatives gain some traction with everyday people through the association of Civil rights and Communism, particularly after Barry Goldwater lost the election of 1964 through the years of 1984.

Timestamp 6:45: Ronald Regan is a spokesperson in television for corporate interests. He is part of a television program that focuses on “A time for choosing” that is for Barry Goldwater. This launches Reagan onto the political scene by ignoring statistics, telling stories, and discounting opinions of educated people. He pushes back against the Liberal consensus by claiming that the Democrats are pushing towards Totalitarianism.

Timestamp 9:02: After Goldwater fails, the Republicans take some things away from his campaign. They moved to direct mail campaign funding, which gave the power to those who aren’t “influential” and everyday people. This is particularly successful in The south. Additionally, even though Goldwater failed, he gained the backing of 5 deep south states with his argument of desegregation being unconstitutional. This presented a crack in the traditionally Democratic deep South, which Republicans could later capitalize on.

Timestamp 12:48: After the voting rights act was passed in the 1960’s, cities started rioting, which causes many to believe that maybe there is something to Movement Conservatism. The riots actually occur because of the assasination of MLK, the Vietnam war, and the deterioration of inner cities after white taxpayers take their money to the suburbs and their businesses, which removes the tax base the city previously had, which causes economic depression.

Timestamp 16:00: Richard ``tricky Dicky” Nixon has become the logical option for the Republican party in 1968, as he was Eisenhower's Vice President. Movement conservatives don’t trust him, which causes them to counter by getting Ronald Regan on the ticket as a Movement Conservative. Nixon actively tried to undercut Regan to gain the Republican nomination by telling Strong Thurman if elected, he would not use the Federal Government to push Desegregation. This becomes known as the Southern Strategy. Nixon also figured out that the Republican Coalition could dominate politics if they increased their appeal to people such as Catholics, Anti De-segregation, and traditional republicans to Movement conservatives.

Timestamp 20:07: Nixon courts the DixieCrats by saying that he will back off of the Liberal Consensus and Civil rights, if the old Southern democrats can support the Republican party. He capitalized on rioting by promising law and order, and revisited the Reconstruction rhetoric of civil rights is a redistribution of wealth.

Timestamp 26:52: The Nixon campaign utilizes the Media and arranges for Nixon to attend Town halls’ which are televised. These are packed with people asking questions, with constructed answers, which are essentially staged by the future creator of Fox News, called Roger Ayles. This helps forget his image of a boring politician with images that appeal to emotion.

Timestamp 32:15: Richard Nixon became elected on the grounds of Finding Peace in Vietnam. In 1971, bombings occur in Cambodia and Laos, which horrifies Americans as they were lied to. Nixon’s popularity is also adversely affected when 4 students at Kent State are killed by troops in a complex dynamic. People are horrified that the people killed were middle class and white, and this follows him throughout his career.

Timestamp 41:37: Nixon is under the impression that the 1972 election is a cakewalk. He fails to realize that his actions in the Vietnam peace talks could not only cost him the election, but possibly result in him going to jail. At this time, the Pentagon Papers are published in the New York Times, which outlines government involvement in Vietnam, which contradicts what Americans were told. Nixon is upset about the leaking of information, so he creates a unit to assist in discrediting government leaks. He also works on discrediting the person who initiated the leak.

Timestamp 45:10: The Committee to re elect the president is formed, and its purpose is to destroy Nixon’s opponents. They do this by planting fake letters in newspapers, plant spies in democratic camps, amongst other things.

Timestamp 49:13: On June 17th, 1972, there was an effort to wiretap the Democratic National Committee. There are five men who are arrested, and the white house denied involvement. The Washington Post picked up on a money trail that led back to the mint, with the initials of WH. This is believed to stand for White House. Nixon deflects this by blaming the Liberal Consensus. Once people catch wind that they were duped, they turn on Nixon. This turns into the scandal that is known as Watergate, and reveals many different side scandals, including tax evasion of people in office.

Timestamp 55:48: Audio tapes are discovered that disclose the conversations that took place in the oval office during this time. This leads to subpoena, and Nixon letting go of multiple people he employed who would not bend to his will to keep him “innocent”. Nixon is forced to release transcripts of the tapes, which ruins his image as a family man. The missing 18 minutes also create room for speculation. Although the articles of impeachment have not yet been passed, it is agreed that they will vote to impeach Nixon. This led to Nixon resigning from office on August 9th, 1974, earning himself the title of the first American President to resign, although he never admitted or took responsibility for what he was accused with.

[From wikipedia] Richardson’s first book, The Greatest Nation of the Earth (1997), stemmed from her dissertation at Harvard University. Inspired by Eric Foner’s work on pre-Civil War Republican ideology, Richardson analyzed Republican economic policies during the war. She contended that their efforts to create an activist Federal Government during the Civil War marked a continuation of Republican free labor ideology. These policies, such as war bonds and greenbacks or the Land Grant College Act and the Homestead Act, revolutionized the role of the Federal Government in the U.S. economy. At the same time, these actions laid the groundwork for the Republican Party’s shift to Big Business after the Civil War.

In this 2001 book, Richardson "focused on the “Northern abandonment of Reconstruction.” Building on the earlier work of C. Vann Woodward, she argued that a more complete understanding of the period required appreciation of class, not only race. As Reconstruction continued into the 1870s and especially the 1880s, Republicans began to view African Americans in the South more from a class perspective and less from the perspective of race that had driven their earlier humanitarianism. In the midst of the labor struggles of the Gilded Age, Republicans came to compare “the demands of the ex-slaves for land, social services, and civil rights” to the demands of white laborers in the North. This ideological shift was the key to Republican abandonment of Reconstruction, as they chose the protection of their economic and business interests over their desire for racial equality." [From wikipedia]

In this 2007 book, "Richardson presented Reconstruction as a national event that impacted all Americans, not just those in the South. She incorporated the West into the discussion of Reconstruction as no predecessor had. Between 1865 and 1900, Americans re-imagined the role of the federal government, calling upon it to promote the well-being of its citizens. However, racism, sexism, and greed divided Americans, and the same people who increasingly benefited from government intervention—white, middle-class Americans—actively excluded African-Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, and organized laborers from the newfound bounties of their reconstructed nation." [from wikipedia]

In this book, published in 2010, Richardson "focused on the U.S. Army’s slaughter of Native Americans in South Dakota in 1890. She argued that party politics and opportunism led to Wounded Knee. After a bruising midterm election, President Benjamin Harrison needed to shore up his support. To do so, he turned to The Dakotas, where he replaced seasoned Indian agents with unqualified political allies, who incorrectly assumed that the Ghost Dance Movement presaged war. The Army responded by sending one third of its force in order to avoid spending cuts from Congress. After the event, Republicans tried to paint the massacre as a heroic battle to stifle the resurgent Democrats." [wikipedia]

In this 2014 book, Richardson "extended her study of the Republican Party into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book studied the entire life of the GOP, from its inception in the 1850s through the presidency of George W. Bush. The party’s founders united against the “slave power,” a small group of wealthy white men who controlled all three branches of government. These Republicans articulated a new vision of an America in which all hardworking men could rise. But after the Civil War, Republicans began to emulate what they originally opposed. They tied themselves to powerful bankers and industrialists, sacrificing the well-being of ordinary Americans. A similar process took place after World War II, when Republicans sought to dismantle successful New Deal policies and prop up the wealthy. However, in both cases, reformers within the party were able to return the GOP to its founding vision of equality of opportunity, first Theodore Roosevelt during the Progressive Era, and then Dwight D. Eisenhower, who enforced integration and maintained the New Deal. The Nixon and Reagan administrations have represented yet another fall from the GOP’s founding purpose. It's ironic, Richardson points out, that Republicans treated Barack Obama with an unprecedented level of disrespect, as Obama's rise from humble beginnings to the highest office in the nation embodied the vision of the original Republicans." [wikipedia]

In her most recent publication, Richardson argues "that America was founded with contradicting ideals, with the ideas of liberty, equality, and opportunity on one hand, and slavery and hierarchy on the other. United States victory in the American Civil War should have settled that tension forever, but at the same time that the Civil War was fought, Americans also started moving into the West. In the West, Americans found and expanded upon deep racial hierarchies, meaning that hierarchical values survived in American politics and culture despite the crushing defeat of the pro-slavery Confederacy. Those traditions--a rejection of democracy, an embrace of entrenched wealth, the marginalization of women and people of color--have found a home in modern conservative politics, leaving the tremendous promise of America unfulfilled." [wikipedia]