Didn’t we go over all this umpteen months ago ? JFK and RFK largely attached themselves to Joe McCarthy because McCarthy was REVERED amongst Irish Catholic Americans. McCarthy himself had been a Democrat early on when the party was quite weak in Wisconsin. With the collapse of the Progressive Party, who was led by a weak Sen. Robert La Follette, Jr., he took his machine and party and largely merged it back into the GOP. McCarthy had switched parties to the GOP a few years earlier (having run in the Senate race of 1944 and losing to Alexander Wiley), and in probably the biggest upset of the 1946 primary season, defeated La Follette, Jr. for the Senate race.
Had McCarthy come out more strongly for the liberal Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. in 1952, he might’ve held on to his seat over JFK. The Kennedys openly solicited McCarthy to endorse JFK, despite being a Democrat. At the time, they portrayed themselves as being more center-right than the left-wing Lodge. Of course, with the Democrats being more left-wing by the 1950s (as they generally had been since 1896 with the purge of the Bourbonites under Cleveland), JFK moved leftward once he became a Senator.
As the vicious leftist media, “Derp State” and pop culture attacks on McCarthy snowballed, JFK had to walk a fine line between preserving his ever-increasing left-wing credentials and not offending his Conservative Irish Catholic constituents. It was certainly no “profile in courage” with his sick-out. Fortunately for him, when McCarthy died at just 48 in 1957, he no longer had to worry about having to appease both groups and was able to continue moving leftward to what was then the “mainstream” of the Democrat Party (and away from the center-right he had come to the Senate on the platform of).
I disagree that JFK was a strident anti-Communist, at least by 1960. He might’ve liked to SAY he was, but his actions were clear. He was terrified of the Soviets, gave Nikita Khrushchev everything he wanted (which Nixon would not have, as he was neither scared of nor intimidated by this loud-mouth) and let the Cuban Freedom Fighters twist in the wind. No help for Bay of Pigs. Nothing.
He was woefully not up to the job of President, certainly not that of Senator, which he was using as a stepping-stone to power (and lying to his constituents - who were rejecting the liberalism of Lodge in 1952).
It’s unfortunate the calcified leadership of the MA GOP, on the brink of complete collapse in the 1950s, despite being the majority party, didn’t cast aside its Brahmin deathgrip and cultivate Irish Catholic working class Conservatives to find new candidates for the future (whom they had disdained since the Whigs briefly utilized the Know-Nothings before becoming members of the new GOP in the 1850s). Such a merger would’ve forestalled the rise of the Kennedys and prevented them from leading so many of the voters of the state on the primrose path to Marxism via the Democrat Party, where it now finds itself today.
I agree, but for the record, my former socialist MA colleague thinks JFK was a standard “hard core Cold Warrior.”
“Didn’t we go over all this umpteen months ago ? JFK and RFK largely attached themselves to Joe McCarthy because McCarthy was REVERED amongst Irish Catholic Americans. McCarthy himself had been a Democrat early on when the party was quite weak in Wisconsin. With the collapse of the Progressive Party, who was led by a weak Sen. Robert La Follette, Jr., he took his machine and party and largely merged it back into the GOP. McCarthy had switched parties to the GOP a few years earlier (having run in the Senate race of 1944 and losing to Alexander Wiley), and in probably the biggest upset of the 1946 primary season, defeated La Follette, Jr. for the Senate race.
Had McCarthy come out more strongly for the liberal Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. in 1952, he might’ve held on to his seat over JFK. The Kennedys openly solicited McCarthy to endorse JFK, despite being a Democrat. At the time, they portrayed themselves as being more center-right than the left-wing Lodge. Of course, with the Democrats being more left-wing by the 1950s (as they generally had been since 1896 with the purge of the Bourbonites under Cleveland), JFK moved leftward once he became a Senator.
As the vicious leftist media, “Derp State” and pop culture attacks on McCarthy snowballed, JFK had to walk a fine line between preserving his ever-increasing left-wing credentials and not offending his Conservative Irish Catholic constituents. It was certainly no “profile in courage” with his sick-out. Fortunately for him, when McCarthy died at just 48 in 1957, he no longer had to worry about having to appease both groups and was able to continue moving leftward to what was then the “mainstream” of the Democrat Party (and away from the center-right he had come to the Senate on the platform of).”
Like I said earlier, JFK didn’t even need to go to the hospital just to backstab McCarthy during the McCarthy hearings if that’s what he set out to do. He could have made it there, and then made sure to turn against McCarthy, all while faking being broken down by the Democrat opposition. I’ve actually seen that occur in a Maureen episode (and in case you need a primer on that show, it’s basically a court room show, and I think the rival was played by Christine Baranski, or at least a look alike. I think it ended up cancelled around the same time as GCB, if I recall correctly. And for the record, that show I definitely didn’t mention the last time I talked about this subject with you). Basically, a woman who was practically hated by everybody (and I do mean everybody, well, save for maybe one, a lesbian lover she had while married to her husband. Apparently one of the Hispanic maids got fired for putting a rat in her sheets, which she indicated was deliberate when admitting this during the investigation just to spite her boss, to list an example out of a list of enemies she had.) ended up murdered, with her husband being the prime suspect. His daughter offered to help clear his name, however, she eventually was starting to collapse in her defense, even admitting that her mom had been carrying an affair (a detail she had not let known to anyone). Maureen’s rival then tried to capitalize on this by trying to get one of the maids, the same one from earlier, to give a different story on why she was fired by leaving out the rat bit, and blackmailed her with deportation. However, the main lawyers caught on, and the case was thrown out with the rival lawyer being held in contempt of court for the attempted forcing of perjury. Anyways, it was later revealed in the end that it was in fact the daughter who killed her mom and framed her dad, and if anything, she volunteered to serve in her father’s defense team specifically to ensure he got the guilty charge, and she literally walked away with no consequences other than everyone being shocked and horrified. And besides, I’ve seen that happen recently as well, with all those corporations kow-towing to BLM even as they’re literally torching their stores, like with Wendy’s Twice for two separate shootings, not to mention the Mayor of Atlanta openly pledging to BLM and basically forcing the Police Commissioner to Resign, and THEN basically trying to worm her way into Biden’s camp. And don’t get me started on how Obama repeatedly backstabbed his Black constituents and yet they STILL came out in droves to get him back in office again. JFK didn’t do that with McCarthy despite having plenty of chances to do so.
“I disagree that JFK was a strident anti-Communist, at least by 1960. He might’ve liked to SAY he was, but his actions were clear. He was terrified of the Soviets, gave Nikita Khrushchev everything he wanted (which Nixon would not have, as he was neither scared of nor intimidated by this loud-mouth) and let the Cuban Freedom Fighters twist in the wind. No help for Bay of Pigs. Nothing.”
Probably the only bit he actually gave Khrushchev during the CMC was Cuba remaining Communist (and that bit I’ll definitely acknowledge was a huge shame and something JFK definitely deserved blame for), but at least the missiles were no longer present, especially when Khrushchev could have just as easily not removed the missiles after getting everything (and besides, based on what Pacepa stated, Khrushchev definitely lost out big from the CMC anyhow, actually screaming to kill the Viper in reference to JFK). I’m not even sure if we even lost Turkey anyhow, since even Jonathan Leaf indicated that the missile silos in Turkey were already planned to be removed even before the Turkey Deal made it official due to nuclear powered subs making them obsolete (and bear in mind, Leaf is NO JFK fan at all, made no secret about it in his 1960s PIG book, so he didn’t say that because he liked JFK in any way). And he’s certainly closer to being a strident anti-Communist than Carter, Clinton, and Obama were, or for that matter his brother Ted Kennedy (who infamously tried to get the KGB involved in overturning the election and getting Reagan thrown out). And he did attempt to do the Vietnam War and prevent the North from invading the South rather than, say, rooting for the North. I’ve seen plenty of Democrat guys who were a LOT worse there, like Lodge as you mentioned, and also McGovern who outright supported Ho Chi Minh in his heyday, even parroting the lie that he was “popularly elected”, while even JFK made it very clear he didn’t support Minh, and wisely realized having so-called “popular elections” would only result in the Communists taking over Vietnam.
“He was woefully not up to the job of President, certainly not that of Senator, which he was using as a stepping-stone to power (and lying to his constituents - who were rejecting the liberalism of Lodge in 1952).”
I don’t know about that, even Conservapedia made it pretty clear he was still conservative compared to most of the other Democrats at that time, let alone today. Besides, I’ve had to personally experience Democrats constantly lying to constituents here in Georgia like with our Atlanta Mayor for example, heck, even corporations lying to their customers by continuing to support BLM even as they’re torching their storefronts. And don’t even get me started on Obama and HIS repeated backstabbing of his constituents, yet his constituents never, EVER trying to vote him out back in 2012. He was a weak president, I’ll admit that much (but at least he was still more anti-Communist than FDR, Truman, Carter, Clinton and Obama were. Heck, in the case of the latter two, they were very OPENLY communist at that).
“It’s unfortunate the calcified leadership of the MA GOP, on the brink of complete collapse in the 1950s, despite being the majority party, didn’t cast aside its Brahmin deathgrip and cultivate Irish Catholic working class Conservatives to find new candidates for the future (whom they had disdained since the Whigs briefly utilized the Know-Nothings before becoming members of the new GOP in the 1850s). Such a merger would’ve forestalled the rise of the Kennedys and prevented them from leading so many of the voters of the state on the primrose path to Marxism via the Democrat Party, where it now finds itself today.”
Well, all I can say is, if I ever end up in Massachusetts, I’ll run as GOP there, and then should I get elected, go overtime to reintegrate Irish-Catholics there with the GOP and destroy Marxism’s hold in the area (I’m deciding whether to do Massachusetts, California, or New York for which ones I’ll run in to end Marxist control over those states. At least Georgia has Brian Kemp as governor, even if he is falling to the whole mask propaganda right now.). However, I won’t blame JFK or Robert for the hold on Marxism in MA (especially considering JFK’s repeated insistence that we not allow popular votes in Vietnam due to realizing that’s an easy way for it to become Communist makes it very clear he definitely didn’t support Marxism). If I were to blame anyone, it would have been John Kerry, since unlike JFK, who actually DID attempt to genuinely aid McCarthy in his so-called “witch hunts” (I’d personally call them crusading to give a more positive spin to a negative depiction), AND attempted to prevent Vietnam from becoming Communist, Kerry openly supported the Vietcong and Ho Chi Minh, despite being Catholic himself. Either him or Ted Kennedy, who unlike JFK or even Robert definitely was very open in his support for Communism and the Soviet Union. And for the record, his being against Communism (and certainly making far more of an actual effort to stop Communism than Ted or any of his successors in the Democrat Party) is the only reason why I have ANY respect for JFK at all (had it not been for that, make no mistake, I’d view him as trash like Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and George Lucas).
I once saw a “classic” ‘Human Events’ article from 1952 for the Senate races and they were rooting for “nationalist” JFK against “internationalist” Lodge. I wish it was online still. What a boner. Total boneheads. F Lodge but come on. Goes to show how easily it is to manipulate even people that should know better. As an aside I didn’t realize Lodge was a top candidate in 1964, seems he ran a really crappy race.
I wish Kennedy had lived, his last act probably would have endorsing Dukakis from his wheelchair (after first praising Jesse Jackson), before dying from a heart attack underneath some skank.
As for Bobby, reminder that in his early 20s when he realized he was gonna be late for lunch (which would have pissed Joe) he he bailed out of his sailboat (the wind had died) to swim to shore, leaving his buddy who couldn’t swim or sail to get rescued by the coast guard hours later. He never even apologized. Pure scumbag.
The great anti-communists behind the Bay of Pigs, LOL. Seems like his main priority was sending people to buy all the cigars they could before he did the embargo. Needed one for every intern.