Trump: Aberration or Just the Bottom of the Republican Barrel?

Trump: Aberration or Just the Bottom of the Republican Barrel?
A Short History of the DNC since Nixon

The Republican Party has come a long way from the "Ev and Charlie Show" of the 60s. When Eisenhower turned the White House over to John Kennedy in 1961, the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress as they would for the next 20 years.

So, the minority Republicans held a weekly press conference by the minority leader of the House, Charlie Halleck, and the minority leader of the Senate, Everette Dirksen. Its official title was "The Republican Congressional Leadership Statement”, but everyone called it "The Ev and Charlie Show", because of Dirksen's sense of humor.

Then the Republican "Southern Strategy" came along. It led to the Nixon victory and the Party's hopes for success right up to this day. The Democrats were losing the "solid South" since the civil rights acts of 1964-1965 and the Republican Party was happy to step in an absorb the "Dixiecrats".

Memories of that weekly show remind me now of the important distinction between loyal opposition and the obstructionism we see today. Dirksen was the star of the show and could always elicit laughs from Democrats and Republicans. He was the one who said, "When a member of the House moves over to the Senate, he raises the IQ of both bodies."

Southern Democrats were called "Dixiecrats", because they were liberal on every policy (especially farm subsidies) except integration. After the 1964-65 Civil Rights acts—which were supported by some moderate Republicans—they fled the Democratic Party in droves.

Richard Nixon's reelection campaign hired a gang to steal documents from the DNC offices in the Watergate Apartments, but the thieves got caught. Nixon tried to obstruct the special prosecutor investigating the robbery.

For this Nixon was impeached for obstruction of justice and on two other charges. He was convinced by fellow Republicans to resign rather than face trial in the Senate. But Nixon was still a moderate conservative who founded the EPA, OSHA, and signed the endangered species act, among other accomplishments.

I grew up in North Carolina in the 50s and was told time and again that the Civil War was not about slavery, but about "states' rights". Yes, it was true, specifically, the right of states to maintain slavery. After that war, it became the right of states to maintain segregation.

In his 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan gave a speech in which he expressed support for expanding states' rights. He chose Neshoba County Fair to deliver that speech. The capital of Neshoba County is Philadelphia, Mississippi, where James Chaney, Michael Swerner, and Andrew Goodman had been murdered in 1964 for organizing African Americans to vote, leaving little doubt of what he really meant.

When Reagan won by a broad margin and was reelected by an even greater one, the Republicans were convinced they had struck gold. Everyone knew the Southern Strategy was white nationalist, but this could be hidden under euphemisms like "states' rights", "block vote", and others which only southerners would understand.

Now we have Donald Trump, again gaining the presidency from documents stolen from the DNC and again impeached for obstruction of Congress. Trump is a pathological liar and someone who sees the presidency as a marketing boon for his private interests. He is the logical conclusion of the path the Republican Party set out on under Nixon.

There was a time when only honorable men ran for the Presidency; the parties saw to that. The Democrats are still doing a good job at this. The Republicans have long since lost sight of it, letting their sense of humor degenerate into anger.

(PennLive.com, January 17, 2020)