True, Smith later became very vehemently anti-New Deal, though you're right that its hard to say whether he sincerely came to see the harm of big government socialism or whether he was bitter at FDR for stealing his thunder in the Democrat Party and wanted to "strike back" and damage him politically.
Knowing what we know now, if I could get in a time machine and go back to 1928, I would have backed Smith over Hoover. But, going by the cards we were dealt and not knowing what would happen, any conservative would have naturally be drawn more to Hoover than Smith in 1928. Hoover ran as the "more conservative" pro-buisness, pro-free markets candidate and criticized Smith for favoring European-style social policy ideas for the country. Too bad Hoover folded like a cheap suit while in office.
>> The only decent appointee of JFK’s to the Cabinet or SCOTUS was Byron White. I’ll bet had he known White would be center-right, he’d have put another person on the court. <<
Good point, the "JFK was more conservative than today's Republicans" kool-aid drinkers (most of whom have left this thread because they can't defend their arguments) would have us believe that there were "tons" of "conservative policies" advocated by JFK, but the ONLY two they can continually argue is that he cut taxes once and gave lip-service about how communism is bad all the time. I'm surprised they haven't tried to add the "JFK appointed conservative SCOTUS judge Byron White" to their propaganda list, and just ignore the fact that JFK fully INTENDED to appoint a "progressive", liberal judge who would be a puppet for labor unions and uphold lots of new government regulations. Had JFK lived to the 1970s, he would have reacted to White's vote on the Roe v. Wade decision the same way Eisenhower reacted to Earl Warren in the 60s: "appointing him was the biggest damn-fool mistake I ever made".
In any case, if we gave JFK "credit" for appointing a "conservative" (or at least right-of-center) judge, it would be cancelled out by appointing an awful left-wing judge, though Goldberg only lasted five years and isn't remembered much today, his decisions certainly helped move the playing field to the left significantly.
>> William F. Buckley led the charge against the Birchers, supposedly because their founder REALLY hated Ike and Buckley just didn’t like their style. << <<
Interesting. Weird that Buckley hated the Birchers, I would say that the Buckley era National Review and the 1960s-1970s Birchers probably agreed on 90% of the issues.
I heard the John Birch Society called fringe and extremist because they were "anti-semetic" and called ANYONE who disagreed with them a communist. Since most "far right" groups today are very pro-Israel and constantly fawn over Jews, I suppose that would make the Birchers more like the Pat Buchanan/Ron Paul type wing of the GOP. But that idealogy is traditionally very anti-war and screams "neo-con" at everyone else and accuses them of being puppets for the war machine, whereas I believe the John Birch society was very PRO "strong military policy" and was accused by their detractors as wanting to start World War III.
>> They use the term "conservative" because they were the party of the racist Dixie-Crats. <<
Ah, but its also a myth that most of the Dixiecrats were "conservative". A handful of them were (mainly because the deep south was one a one-party system at the time, so if you were conservative and wanted to get elected, you HAD to become a Democrat), but tons of Dixiecrats were very left-wing economically and loved the federal gravy train and New Deal programs. Both the mainstream media and modern day neo-confederates want to erase that unpleasent fact from history.
Disagree entirely. You make it sound like Reagan went from being a FDR-loving New Dealer to a rock-ribbed Goldwater conservative overnight, and woke up in shock one day after JFK was dead and LBJ's "Great Society" was in place, had a "come to Jesus" moment, and decided to speak out against it.
In reality, Reagan's views shifted gradually. Reagan began to move rightward in the 1950s when he was a spokesman for General Electric. As Reagan's views became increasingly conservative, he found "his" party's nominees held positions he could not stomach, so Reagan crossed over to support the other party's nominee and was a "Democrat for Eisenhower" twice, and then a "Democrat for Nixon" in 1960, before he finally gave up on the RATs for good and switched parties in 1962 -- while JFK was STILL president, HAD'T been assassinated yet, and while the Dems were supposedly STILL "patriotic and conservative", according to the history revisionists on this board. (in reality, the RATs were heavily left-wing and socialist in 1962, and had been since around 1900 or so)
Reagan and Kennedy were both Democrats in the early 60s, but going in completely different directions. The old guard Massachusetts Democrat political machine was becoming increasingly liberal and morphing into the godless marxist entity it is today, while Reagan was becoming uniformly conservative and disagreed with Kennedy on virtually every issue back then.
Socialized medicine WAS a big issue on the table in 1960, it WAS controversial back then, and the Bernie-Sanders like talking points Kennedy used at the time WERE considered very polarizing. To shield himself from criticism, Kennedy used the standard "if you don't agree with me, you just want old people to get sick and suffer and die", which has been a standard RAT talking point for decades, both before AND after the Kennedy era (Truman used it way back in the 40s as well)
Reagan was just at the start of his political career while Kennedy was at his peak, but Reagan was one of the most outspoken conservatives on the OPPOSING side of socialized medicine, and recorded his famous "Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine" rebuttal way back in 1961, the very time Kennedy was in his first year in office and trying to get his socialist plans off the ground. Reagan nailed it perfectly -- the RATs couldn't get away with calling it socialism at the time, but COULD sell it to the public as liberalism. It was a direct response to what the Dems were pushing AT THE TIME Kennedy was in power, not AFTER Kennedy was killed and they supposed "changed" and "became" liberal.
Unfortunately, the Reagan/Kennedy overlap in politics only lasted about 3 years. What I would give to see Reagan debate Kennedy face to face in 1962. He would have torn Kennedy a new one and exposed his socialist agenda for America, and all the Kennedy fanboys on this board would stand there with mouths agasp as "conservative, patriotic" Kennedy spewed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez type talking points, and Reagan shot it all down.
John F. Kennedy Speaks Out FOR Socialized Medicine, 1961
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ILqHSH4X_w&t=42s
Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine, 1961
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDnxxsjVr20