re: #116 Joe Bacon 🌹

The rot of the GOP started after Ike left office. Picked up steam when Goldwater voted NO on the Civil Rights Act and further metastasized when LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act. Went into Stage 2 with Nixon’s Southern Strategy, Stage 3 with Reagan kicking off his campaign where 3 patriots were slaughtered because they believed in Civil Rights and then it went to stage 4 with Old Fart Bush packing the court with Thomas. Now it is terminal under Tweety Amin.

All these “Never Trumpers” need to get their shit together and form a new moderate conservative party and let the Republican Party die.

Lemme point out the devolution was in fits and starts. Nixon did indeed utilize the Southern Strategy, but his legislative agenda included EPA, OSHA, Title IX, Title X, Affirmative Action. Reagan had his racism, but he was anti-Soviet, anti-nuke, he supported gun control, he gave amnesty to 3 million undocumented, he loved free trade and he loved NATO. Ford wasn’t any kind of racist — in fact, he went begging to Congress for an interagency task force to resettle more than 100,000 Vietnamese refugees. Ford was also the single most progressive politician of his generation on women’s issues. Even Goldwater was pro-choice, and he despised the religious right.