Summary: History of Republican Party from the Eisenhower years to the Reagan Era.
Timestamp 2:19: Eisenhower and the democrats come up with the Liberal consensus was created saying the government had a role to play in regards to regulating business, providing basic social safety net, and overseeing infrastructure. The two parties agree that these fundamentals are necessary, but end up disagreeing with their priorities and budgeting.
Timestamp 6:29: A group of republicans called the Taft Republicans believe that the Liberal Consensus is the starting point to Communism. The Taft Republicans biggest gripe is the business regulation component, as they feel businesses should be unregulated.
Timestamp 10:29: in 1954 John Brinker introduced a constitutional amendment stating that any treaty making has to go through congress instead of the executive branch. This makes people see that The United States are going into Isolationalism, which was the intention of the Taft Party. Eisenhower is not a fan of this, which leads the Taft party to tell the public that Eisenhower is trying to drag the united states into a communist state and undo segregation which will mirror the beginning of a New World Order.
Timestamp 15:00: Joe McCarthy sees an opportunity to reignite his popularity by going after the Eisenhower administration. He does so by investigating the State Department, claiming that the State Department under Eisenhower was exporting Communists. He made these cases based on zero facts, which put it in the media before the facts could be checked. This was repeated and perfected later on by Donald Trump. This later solidified the use of the Media in Politics to gain favor. This gives a new blueprint to Republicans on how to Fear Monger to dismantle what doesn’t work in their favor. The Taft Republicans also push “normalcies” such as heterosexuality and Christianity.
Timestamp 24:53: William F Buckley Junior is a Yale graduate from 1951. He is frustrated with politics and promotes going back to the 1920’s de regulation. He detests the Liberal Consensus, and tries to get people to turn against it through his book. This
Timestamp 32:09: In 1954, Both Republicans and Democrats approved of Liberal Consensus in the effort of protecting equality, stability and families. They are labelled as “Liberals” and painted as having interest in driving the United States into Communism, when they weren't even an organized party. The “conservatives” are basing their work off of ideology vs practicality during this time. In a magazine called National review, they highlight the “Communism” of the liberal Consensus and how it violates businessmen.
Timestamp 35:58: In 1954, Buckley and his counterparts label themselves as Conservatives, but they are focused more so on market de-regulation. This is where the term “movement conservatism” is born. During this time, Brown vs the Board of Education won to find desegregation of schools unconstitutional. This re-ignites the Movement Conservatives argument of how taxes are a confiscation of wealth to help the underprivileged, which is a redistribution of wealth. This led to the Southern Manifesto to be written, stating that They feel as if desegregation is unconstitutional as White people have a right to Peace, Law and order.
Timestamp 44:39: Barry Goldwater becomes influential in Arizona. He is the wealthy son of a department store owner in Arizona. In his books, he writes how his family struck it rich on his own, but in reality, it was supported by government money. He stated the government is causing Americans to lose their independence, regardless of the fact his family’s empire was built on Federal assistance. He turns against workers by supporting destroying unions and standard acceptable treatment of employees. He believed accepting these things were more dangerous than Russia and Socialism.
Timestamp 48:02: Conscience of a Conservative is written where they try to solidify the principles of America Pre 1860. He believes that taxes are an attack on Personal freedoms, and that we need to build our military to fight against Communism concerns. This is increasingly popular in the Southern States. This leads to the creation of the John Birch Society in the West and South to secretly fight creeping Communism.
Timestamp 58:05: Ronald Reagan rises in California on the stance of redistribution of wealth. This gains traction as inflation increases during this time. Reagan’s star rises in conjunction with Barry Goldwater. In 1964, to get the Nomination, Democrat Strong Thurman joined with Barry Goldwater to fight the Liberal consensus. They publicly are against levelling the playing field with Social programs for African Americans. Goldwater carries Arizona and 4 key southern states in the election of 1964, which is the start of a wedge in the Republican party.
[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]
