Reddit reviews Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus
We found 10 Reddit comments about Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
the life and times of Barry Goldwater and the rise of the radical right in America
The blame for this falls primarily on Phyllis Schlafly and the conservative funding behind her and her allies.
It was one of the first successful attempts by the budding coalition between the religious right and fiscal conservatives to affect substantive change (or lack thereof) at the federal level.
For a really deep dive, check out Rick Perlstein's Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus
This "win" went on to influence a variety of other "social movements", including the infamous PMRC in the late 1980s, and the development/refinement of some rather sophisticated rhetorical/persuasive techniques ... particularly astroturfing.
Voter Fraud Literally Less Likely Than Being Hit By Lightning
31 credible allegations of voter fraud out of 1 billion votes cast.
But you knew this already, didn't you. ;)
Anyway, I applaud your team's diligence in suppressing the vote. Halfway through Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus right now. Say this about the modern right-wing: they were, and are, indefatigable, ingenious guerrilla warriors.
>By the 1960's these tropes have died down but have not gone away.
This article explains why that's not entirely true.
The societal linkage isn't quite made in the 1960s but just as second wave feminism, syphillis antibiotics, and easier means of birth control made it easier for women to be sexual, sociology based on faulty science was being utilized to continue the trope of chaste women and men that needed to fuck errythang.
>It releases men from the obligation of being nothing more than horndogs.
I think you need to be careful with what you mean here. Second wave feminism enacted social changes that prevented shit like the earlier seasons where Playboy clubs and Burlesque shows were respectable places for businessmen to conduct business at. Moral majority became equally as important. Visiting businessmen from the Mid West no longer felt comfortable in these places or if they did, their wives wouldn't.
Businessmen stepping out on their wives never went away. Escorts, massage parlors with 'extras' services, and high class call girls still exist. Businessmen still go to them, and airport hotels are a common place to find prostitutes.
Remember also that divorce rates sky-rocket during this time. Helen Bishop is meant to be an oddity in 1960, but by 1968 3 (and now possibly 4) of the agencies central figures have gone through divorces. Men are continuing to be promiscuous, just now women like Trudy don't put up with it because they have their own sources of income.
We no longer confine prostitution to safe zones in part because of the legal crackdown of vice organizations lead to a decentralization of the practice. This was not the result of second wave feminism but rather the fear of the moral majority who saw all vice as responsible for the crime tearing apart America's cities.
Mad Men has done fans a disservice IMO, especially considering Henry Francis and Bert Cooper's politics not to talk about the shift in American politics. This book goes into great deal about this. Peggy's second wave feminism and liberalism is important, but it's equally the shifts of the Republican Party that have defined our country since the mid 1960s and have prevented the actualization of the goals of Second Wave Feminism (ERA, glass ceiling, etc.).
There were indeed doubts about Reagan's electability in 1980. I don't feel that I can comment in detail about how widespread they were, but they pop up in news media from the time and in history books.
For example here is an NBC piece on the question of if Reagan can win: https://static.nbclearn.com/files/higheredsa/site/pdf/3252.pdf
Here is an AP piece quoting Former President Ford saying that Reagan couldn't win: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1696&dat=19800303&id=xHQ1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=_kYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6656,269794&hl=en
The concerns about Reagan's electability were centered in the question of if Reagan was too conservative for the country. To understand why that would be a concern, we need to take a step back and look at the world of 1980.
From 1948 to 1980 there had been six elected presidents (Ford was never elected and only served out Nixon's second term). Four of the six were Democrats (Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter) and two were Republicans (Eisenhower and Nixon). All of them governed in what one might call the New Deal consensus.
That is to say they all supported efforts to build up the nation at home through federal government policies. Even Nixon, who often dreamed of undoing much of the progress of LBJ's Great Society, was basically content to operate within the New Deal consensus framework.
Ronald Reagan, who famously said things like ["The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help,"] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhYJS80MgYA)
was a clean break from that tradition. Instead Reagan looked a lot like Barry Goldwater, whose 1964 nomination led to the worst defeat the Republican Party suffered in the post-World War 2 era. This was enough to concern some and hearten others that Reagan would similarly be defeated.
To be specific beyond just questions about the size and role of government, Reagan was saying things that had historically been associated with extremist groups. For example his support of 'states rights' was an echo of segregationists opposition to federal action on civil rights issues.
Sources:
http://www.amazon.com/White-Protestant-Nation-American-Conservative/dp/0802144209
http://www.amazon.com/Before-Storm-Goldwater-Unmaking-Consensus/dp/1568584121
http://www.amazon.com/Presidential-Campaigns-George-Washington-Bush/dp/0195167163
http://www.amazon.com/One-Man-Against-World-Tragedy/dp/1627790837
But what's the structural change that takes in the 1980s that changes the dynamics? The Krugman/liberal story is about post-segregation realignment of the political system, leading to the (abortive) Goldwater and (successful) Reagan transformations of the Republican party (See Perlstein)
I'm not necessarily sold on it, but I'm not aware of the counter-narrative.
This comment is dead on. Anyone who is interested in this topic should check out this book or just read up on Barry Goldwater.
The GOP is a very insidious and power-hungry party by design. Really the only thing that has changed is that now they're incredibly inept and blatant, and also working with Russia. But they've been doing this shit for a long time. Even before Roger Ailes and Richard Nixon.
They realized that conservatives were losing the ability to win honestly and by appealing to what people wanted. So they switched to shady tactics and bringing people together based on common enemies, which has proven very effective for decades.
Given:
There are two long-term strategies for whom to place your vote:
Evaluating your two options
Option A, starting a new political party, is really, really difficult. The two parties have erected barriers to entry: "major" parties get state subsidies, easier times getting their candidates on the ballot, etc. Furthermore, the very dynamic we are discussing makes it very hard for a 3rd party to break through. We have only 1 example of it working in American history, and that required the extraordinary environment of the impending Civil War.
Option B, taking over a party, is also hard! It also isn't very glamorous: your enemies control an organization, and you want to dislodge them. That means joining up their organization, and playing by their rules. It looks a lot like selling out.
(There's also Option C: Create a third party that gains some electoral strength, and then get absorbed by one of the big parties. (See the Populist Party. )
Since we're confining our discussion for where to place your vote, however, we can sidestep Option C, and other tactics like non-electoral street action. Option C, from the perspective of a voter, looks a lot like option A. Non-electoral actions are a great compliment to voting, which is what we're discussing here.
Of these two options, I fall on the side of taking over a party. It can have immediate results, it's easier, it has a better track record, and it doesn't carry the risk of the "Nader effect"..
What does taking over a party look like? There are two tracks: internal party machinery and candidates. Both are important.
Internal Party Machinery
Parties have elections for internal party officer status. They start with positions like "7th Ward, 2nd Precinct Democratic Committeemember of the town of X". Those positions have little power and you can waltz into them. Show up to enough meetings, bring enough friends to vote for you, and you can keep climbing up the ranks. Since very few people vote in these internal elections, (and those that do are usually hardcore activists that likely share your views) it's relatively easy to seize power.
Once you've risen in the party:
Get high enough and you gain control of internal machinery of the state party. That means access to a high-tech "voter file", with updated information of which people tend to vote, where they live, when they've voted, and tons of items of statistical significance that, together with models, give you results like "these 10,000 people would be 9% more likely to vote for candidate X if they heard message Y long enough."
That voter file is crucial. At that level (usually state party chair or similar), you get access to the state party treasury, internal polls, etc. You have the benefit of years of experience with election law, which means you have a much easier time fielding candidates you like. You have access to reporters which give you a respectful hearing. You and your allies will likely be delegates to the party's national conventions, which means you have a hand in crafting the party platform and picking candidates in primaries. Often, your support will tip the balance in primary races. You're in a good place.
Track Two: Running Candidates:
Controlling state parties is great. However, you also need elected officials in seats of power doing what you want. That means putting forward candidates for office under the party name, and having them win the primary election.
I'm pretty sure most of you already know this, but for those that don't: primary elections are "pre-elections" where the party decides who their official nominee for the spot is. Remember Obama-Hillary(-Edwards-Biden-Richardson etc)? That was a primary election. Luckily for you, non-presidential primary elections are much simpler, with no delegate nonsense. You simply have to win a plurality of votes for your candidate in the primary election, which is usually held months before the "real" election.
Primary elections are in some ways very different from 'normal' elections. ~85-90 of voters in a 'normal' election will usually consistently vote for the nominee of the party they back, no sweat. In a party primary, since everyone's "on the same side", so to speak, votes are much more fluid.
The people who vote in primary elections are the most committed voters, which means: the old and the activist. The activists will be your base - they will hold similar views to you, and you need to reach out to them and get their support. Since you're trying to take over a party from the plutocrats, your opponent will often have much more money than you - you'll need to counter that with people power, which is hard.
Assuming that your candidate wins the primary, they are now the official nominee of the party for that race. That doesn't always mean they'll get party support - they'll be opposed by the entrenched interests in the party you're trying to supplant. Still, if they win, they get to go to congress (or the city council, etc), and winning is much easier a second time, even easier if you make it a third time. (Then it levels off, all things being equal).
That's how you get elected officials you like - primaries.
Challenges:
If it were as easy as sending good people to office, then we wouldn't be in this mess. The structure of power and money constantly incentivizes elected officials to betray their principles.
To keep your hard-won champions in office honest, you need to keep them engaged with your movement. They need to participate in your actions, sure, but you also need to change their incentives. Don't forget to volunteer for your champions and send them money, so they can rely on you. If they can rely on you, they don't need to rely on the power of money to get re-elected.
The Holistic Strategy
Both tracks are good, but doing both at the same time is better. Even better still is taking over a party machinery, running primary challenges to take over elected office, and having a vibrant independent power base outside the party that can serve as a sort of "staging area" and keep your elected champions accountable.
And that's how you use your vote: strategically, in party elections and primaries, to boost your champions and take over one of the two parties.
Good post, by the way. It reminds me of something inspirational I read on Corey Robin's blog a few weeks ago. I shared it on DKos at the time, but probably most people here didn't see it, and since it's a propos I'll repost now:
>From Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm:
>>At their 1964 convention in San Francisco, the Republican Party emerged from a corrosive faction fight between its left and right wings to do something that was supposed to be impossible: they nominated a conservative. Barry Goldwater went down to devastating defeat in November at the hands of Lyndon Johnson, and there, for most observers, the matter stood: the American right had been rendered a political footnote—perhaps for good.
>>The wise men weighed in. Reston of the Times: “He has wrecked his party for a long time to come and is not even likely to control the wreckage.” Rovere of The New Yorker: “The election has finished the Goldwater school of political reaction.” “By every test we have,” declared James MacGregor Burns, one of the nation’s most esteemed scholars of the presidency, “this is as surely a liberal epoch as the late 19th Century was a conservative one.”
>>…
>Men like this did not detect the ground shifting beneath their feet.
It took this country a hundred years to get a weekend. These things take time.
Along these lines, George Nash's Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 is an outstanding survey of the Austrian school. It's been awhile since I've read it, but I remember it being only mildly right-leaning and did not smell like propaganda.
Rick Perlstein, although I assume he's liberal, tells the Goldwater story in a sympathetic manner in Before the Storm. The two 'sequels' on Nixon & Reagan are good as well.
>Keep hammering partisan divides though, because that's gonna solve everything,
he said, without a hint of irony or self-awareness.
Again, you fundamentally fail to grasp my point: it isn't about "association," it's about rhetoric and electoral strategy.
But hey, don't let the lack of any substantial research get in the way of your very-serious opinions. I mean, not when there are paparazzi photos that can tell you what to believe.