I suddenly want to have a holiday in Cambodia in a police truck. Don't forget your rice.
Citing songs from the “Dead Kennedys” punk rock group from days of yore for you yorer people. No one knew Lawrence Welk had a tongue stud which explained his weird diction. “An uh now some vunderful champaign muh-usic from the Plasmatics.”
First, because they didn't have the numbers in Congress to stop LBJ. Run a search on the partisan makeup on Congress in that era. Only by teaming with southern Democrats could the Republicans have an impact.
Second, Goldwater's defeat was the repudiation of everything he stood for. Only when the country hit rock bottom, crashed through that bottom, and found a whole new bottom in 1980 did the political calculus change. Johnson's victory gave him the opportunity to turn the country left. His goal was to be remembered as the second FDR. The country, thanks to the Mainstream Media, bought everything he was pushing.
“So who DID write “A Nation of Immigrants”?
JFK or one of his confidants. Either way it reflected his own opinions. This was when he was Senator.
“Why did the GOP of the mid 1960’s roll over and play dead?”
Because unlike the clueless claims of talk radio the 1960s GOP was far from conservative. It was dominated by Dirksen moderates and Rockefeller liberals. That’s the group who helped Lyndon Johnson pass his nation-altering Immigration Act and Civil Rights bill.
They despised Goldwater conservatives and some openly supported Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 election. California’s Thomas Kuchel being a prime example.