Posted on 08/20/2019 2:51:50 PM PDT by TBP
On the eve of World War II, the Republican Party was a shell of the one that had dominated presidential politics from the Civil War through the onset of the Great Depression.
Two individuals saved the GOP and made it relevant again.
Dwight Eisenhower ran on an internationalist platform in 1952, favoring foreign aid to Europe, the new military alliance called NATO and an aggressive stance against Soviet Communism, thereby asserting U.S. world leadership. He vanquished his isolationist foe, Sen. Robert Taft, for the GOP nomination in 1952 and then won the first Republican presidential victory in 20 years.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan sought to move the GOP beyond its narrow confines in the Northeast and Midwest. He built on Eisenhowers internationalism, preaching limited government, free markets and supply-side economics policies designed to bring prosperity to ALL Americans, not just the well-connected.
Two signature issues restricting immigration and trade have pushed back on 60 years of Republican orthodoxy and dramatically changed the partys image and focus.
Trade policy is the first example. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), designed to marginalize China, has been shelved. Speaking of China, we are on the verge of a full-blown trade war with no end in sight and no clear end game. Presidential adviser Peter Navarro is an unabashed admirer of tariffs and believes they have contributed to our strong economy.
Most economists and virtually all CEOs would disagree.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Fox News: written by Progs, for Progs.
Dang, he looks like one of those (possibly) crooked bankers in the old “Twilight Zone” episodes.
Dole? Yikes!
We had these kinds of ‘Republicans’ in 1980, telling us why Reagan so terrible.
Easy solution - just ignore them. This clown’s dad was probably one of them.
Never Trumper Alert!!!
I’m not seeing Donatelli as a true NeverTrumper, but this article is erroneous and not good ideas and strategy.
People forget that Nixon over McGovern was *the* standard for landslides until Reagan brought back the GOP from its post-Watergate coma with a 49-state defeat of Mondull.
He went easy on him too, so Mondull could have the consolation prize of winning his home state.
It had to do with who, or *what* (”a Commie”), WASN’T President.
“For one thing, Bob Taft was much preferable to Eisenhower.”
Yeah, because allowing the Soviet Union to pick off Western Europe in our absence would have been the height of wisdom. /sarc
Another Bush League McCain stooge.
They are like cockroaches.
“Frank J. Donatelli is a Republican Party political consultant and lawyer.”
Frank Donatelli is a GOP establishment shill. A Hugh Hewitt clone.
And for a much longer time; they were relentless towards Mr. Nixon, from the time he beat Helen Gahagan Douglas, for the Senate seat from California, because of the “PINK” flyer!
“I will admit what I dont know - and frankly I know nothing really about Ike.”
Pick up a copy of Fred Greenstein’s “The Hidden-Hand Presidency”.
Not only will you learn a good deal about Eisenhower as President, you will end up suspecting that Trump has read this book and uses tactics that were first done by Ike.
And of course to really understand Eisenhower you need to read of his time as a 5 star and Supreme Allied Commander Europe during WWII. There has never been a president better prepared to deal with difficult foreign policy than Eisenhower.
Nixon not only didn’t roll back Lyndon Johnson’s massive government expansion, he added to it. The EPA, revenue sharing, wage and price controls, stagflation, a badly flawed treaty with North Vietnam... yeah he was a real prize. A precursor to the Bushes.
Possibly. But Ike didn't make the kind of serious mistakes that could have ended that peace and prosperity. Later presidents did.
It's somewhat impressive how historians who looked down on Ike when he was president, came to see him as an excellent administrator.
Though Eisenhower made some serious mistakes, general competence counts for a lot.
The prosperity of the fifties didn't end with a crash, and Ike didn't get us into any major wars, so I don't begrudge him credit for that.
“LOL...the old “fiat money” bit.”
I suspect that Gamgee is thinking of Nixon’s abrogating the Bretton Woods Agreement and breaking the dollar’s last link with gold.
I think it was a very unwise decision on Nixon’s part but the pressure on the dollar had begun in the last years of Eisenhower’s presidency and it was due to using the dollar as the world’s reserve currency while running an activist foreign policy. It created something known as the Triffin Dilemma. The only way to have kept the dollar linked to gold would have been to cease using it as the reserve currency.
"Strong" in what context?
We didn't have high tariffs in recent years, so they aren't a contributing factor to the current economy.
Historically, though, tariffs did a lot to promote industry in 19th century America.
Whether or not we still need them is something people will disagree about.
I wouldn't take the CEO's word for it, though.
And economists don't have to worry about their jobs going overseas (yet).
That IS a good book.
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