That's a major reason why he lost, and since then people haven't come around to thinking as he did.
That doesn't mean government should be unlimited.
But it does mean that people didn't think government was to be as limited as severely Goldwater assumed it should be.
It would have been a cheap shot if Goldwater accused his fellow Republicans (and by implication the public who voted for them) of having a totalitarian philosophy and it's a cheap shot to do so now.
But Goldwater himself didn't necessarily agree with what was written in his book, and given his later record he might not agree with your interpretation of what he wrote.
And while everybody in the State Department was suspect after the Hiss case, there were no serious charges of Soviet ties against Acheson.
Well, that’s one of the most left-wing posts you’ve ever made on FR. Care to try for an opus?
Of course the commies would cover for each other; they had taken over both parties by that point.
He lost in 1964 because a) he was demonized by the democrats and the press; b) he was opposed by the GOP establishment perhaps even more so than Trump was; and c) he ran in the traumatic shadow of grief over Kennedy’s assassination, and people irrationally viewed a vote for LBJ as a means of expressing continuity with Kennedy.
“But it does mean that people didn’t think government was to be as limited as severely Goldwater assumed it should be.”
What “people” think is irrelevant. The plain text of the Constitution is what is relevant. If “people” want to change it there’s more than one way to do so. But to simply ignore it is wrong.
“It would have been a cheap shot if Goldwater accused his fellow Republicans (and by implication the public who voted for them) of having a totalitarian philosophy and it’s a cheap shot to do so now.”
It wasn’t a cheap shot then and it’s not a cheap shot now. Damn near half the electorate does indeed have a totalitarian philosophy. Just listen to what they’re saying.
L