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 Eisenhower’s 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 party’s 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 ...
Not to mention the fact of how regulated the price of gold was back then, when it was $30.00 an ounce.
I will go along with he was a competent, perhaps even exceptional administrator and he did nothing majorly wrong to screw up the existing prosperity.
Other than that, he was pretty much a “non factor” which is essentially what the country was geared for during those years.
Nailed it. The GOP would be shattered in a million pieces had Trump lost. He rescued it and pumped life back into it again. He’s pushed the conservative agenda far more aggressively than even Reagan did, and unlike any other Republican president before him, Trump has not been timid to go on the attack against the left. He has them completely unhinged and on the verge of a total implosion. There has never been a president quite like him, and we won’t see his kind again. He’s the right man at the right time in our nation’s history!
Let’s pray he has another four years to turn this country around. I couldn’t agree more with your assessment.
Amen. The thought of Sleepy Joe, Pocahontas, or Comrade Bernie being president scares the hell out of me!
Bob Taft was the leader of Congressional conservatives who fought the New Deal and tried to roll it back. Unfortunately, we’re still stuck with a good bit of it.
Eisenhower was the Eastern Establishment’s candidate. Dewey and Warren supported him, and he’s the one who put Warren on the Supreme Court (Brennan too.)
Taft was not an isolationist, but had a foreign policy vision somewhat similar (in its time) to President Trump’s, and conservatives are at best reluctant internationalists.
I know Donatelli; we were in Young Americans for Freedom at the same time. (He was our Executive Director for a while.) He’s no progressive. He’s jsut not on board with Trumpian populism.
Tariffs are taxes. That is true. They are a cost imposed on goods by government that goes to the government.
According to many of my family (I come from a family that actively supported Bob Taft), Senator Taft died of a broken heart. He might not have died quite so prematurely had he not been denied the nomination again.
Especially since the Dewey folks stole Louisiana and Texas from him and then accused him of trying to steal it from them.
Trump is a businessman who thinks anything can be negotiated. That has stood him in good stead in a number of situations, but it’s causing him to look weaker than he needs to on China.
“Time for GOP to ditch Trump policies and ‘go back’ to the future”
ROTFLOL!
This came from “The Onion” or “The Babylon Bee”, right?
The neoconservatives will simply not accept the fact they are TOAST. Guys like this and Bill Kristol just can’t seem to get it through their heads that they no longer run the party. A Bush Republican would never win a Presidential election today.
Most of the Republican party REALLY misses the days when they got away with being a bunch of do-nothing, corrupt, greedy pussies.
Hence my term for the G.O.P. as the Gutless Oleaginous Pussies.
And, of course, they are still 100 times better than the Democrats.
Yes, Taft.
Sadly, he would have died in office.
Should have been McArthur instead of Ike, or Patton if he lived.
I second that...”You are right and RINOS protest too much.” comment
Eisenhower destroyed the Republican Party and handed the country on a silver platter to the JFK/LBJ horror show.
Agreed.
“Tariffs are taxes. That is true. They are a cost imposed on goods by government that goes to the government.”
The things I mentioned are also costs. Heavy costs. They must be addressed.
Not my point at all. To claim that one candidate was preferable to another is just unsupportable. There is no basis from which to prove the claim. Thus it is nothing more than his opinion. Eisenhower did some marvelous things, as well as, some less than marvelous things. But we can quantify his presidency. We cannot quantify how a Taft presidency would have unfolded. Of course if Taft could have won. In reality it’s most likely that Adlai Stevenson II would have defeated Robert Taft. After all, it had been 24 years of drought for the Republicans when it came to holding the Executive Branch.
Exactly, which is why I didn’t comment on the “potential” Presidency of Taft but, rather, only on the “ok” Presidency of DDE.
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