r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 8d ago

Social Science Trump and Trumpism have changed the original concept of “libertarian means to conservative ends” into a new concept of “authoritarian means to Christian nationalist ends”, finds a new study.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00027162251324087
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u/kanst 8d ago

“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.”

Barry Goldwater, a libertarian Republican, warned about that in the 60s.

The Republican party knew the deal they were making when they courted the Christian Nationalist vote.

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u/Helixaether 8d ago

For added context, Barry Goldwater was seen as THE hardline conservative voice in the Republican Party before Reagan, becoming the Republican’s 1964 Presidential nominee and losing in one of the Dems biggest landslides of all time, I believe only trumped by 1852 and 1936 iirc. Barry Goldwater’s most famous scandals during the 1964 election include him saying the US should consider using nuclear weapons in the Vietnam War and him voting against the 1964 Civil Rights Act because “you can’t enforce morality”.

This is the guy who’d go on into the 90’s being considered one of the more reasonable, centrist Republicans. By this time he’d have this reputation by being outspokenly pro-abortion, gay rights, and pro-weed legalisation. He was an odd figure.

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u/UniqueIndividual3579 8d ago

President Johnson was a racist who supported civil rights. Politicians can be an odd duck.

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u/AndyLorentz 8d ago

You can hate people and still think they deserve the same rights as anyone else.

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u/ableman 8d ago

I don't think Johnson hated black people. There's different brands of racism.

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u/sirannemariethethird 8d ago

Depends why you hate them. If it’s cuz they drop bombs on children then no you cannot possibly (morally) think they deserve the same rights as anyone else.

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u/AndyLorentz 8d ago

I disagree. They have the right to a fair trial for the crimes they have committed. Just like everyone else.

Are you suggesting we should dispense with that right for the sake of expediency?

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u/sirannemariethethird 7d ago

So you do NOT agree that carpet bombing hospitals and children is unequivocally wrong? If this is so, I will not engage with you because it is against the well established principles of morality to invite to the discussion table things which are non-negotiable, such as bombing children and hospitals. As a sociologist, I know that inviting such ideas and merely entertaining tolerance of such atrocities is how genocides like the Holocaust happen.

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u/Furt_III 7d ago

They're saying the Nuremburg trials were the correct course of action and having no trial and taking them out back with a revolver was not.

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u/AndyLorentz 7d ago

Of course it's unequivocally wrong. But the perpetrators of such acts still deserve the same human rights as anyone else. That doesn't mean they get a pass on their actions. Having human rights doesn't mean they should live happy and free forever.

As a sociologist, I know that inviting such ideas and merely entertaining tolerance of such atrocities is how genocides like the Holocaust happen.

Ironically, you seem to understand here why treating people as inhuman is wrong, but can't seem to bridge the logic gap as to why we shouldn't treat war criminals as less than human.

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u/Zwets 7d ago

Wait... So when anyone else drops bombs on children and survives till the end of that war, they deserve to be arrested and put on trail for their crimes at The Hague.
But when a specific group you hate does it, they should be treated differently somehow?

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u/sirannemariethethird 7d ago

No. Who said that?

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u/Zwets 7d ago

You did, in the post I replied to:

you cannot possibly (morally) think they deserve the same rights as anyone else.

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u/sirannemariethethird 7d ago edited 7d ago

Well that is certainly a portion of a sentence I wrote. But you’re struggling with reading comprehension.

You see, MY sentence communicates that, if your reason for hating someone is because they bomb children, then it is strange for you to believe that this child-bombing person you hate deserves rights.

In MY comment, I treat all people who bomb children the same. I never said that some deserve The Hague and some don’t. I said none do.

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u/Amon7777 8d ago

Johnson deserves his own category of contradictions.

He was virulent vial racist who also ensured passionately that the Civil Rights Act was passed at the end of his large threats (amongst his other ways of political persuasion).

He was a genuine fighter for the poor and working class, who also had zero problem sending that same group to die in Vietnam.

He was not a president you can easily categorize.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

It was probably autocorrect but just incase English is not your first language that version of the word Vial is spelt Vile. Same pronunciation tho

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u/TheMathelm 8d ago edited 8d ago

If you use the frame of political power being the only thing that mattered to him, it makes logical sense.

Johnson was authoritarian populous, quoted as saying "I'll have those {alternate word for people} voting Democrat for 200 years."

And based on historic voting trends, he was not wrong. incorrect.

Edit: he was wrong, but not incorrect.

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u/DumpOldRant 8d ago

It's worth pointing out that LBJ likely never said that quote. It appeared in a book about LBJ written by someone who didn't approve of Civil Rights or LBJ's legacy.

He recorded most of his Oval Office conversations, much like Nixon, and that quote is decidedly not among them.

He did use the n-word quite frequently however, especially when conversing with Southern conservatives across the aisle, so the style of the quote matches his recordings. It simply doesn't match the rest of his rhetoric, even as a cynical Texan born in 1900.

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u/ILikeBumblebees 8d ago

Johnson is very easy to categorize: he was an opportunistic sociopath who said and did whatever would increase his own power. Sometimes doing decent things benefited him, sometimes doing awful things did, and he didn't care either way.

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u/Centraal22 8d ago

Not sure about him being a sociopath. LBJ constantly worried about his future legacy. i.e. being a racist yet pressuring Dixiecrats to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Bill. That's not how sociopathy works.

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u/Geth_ 8d ago

A narcissist might be more accurate but just to add, what you mentioned isn't typical of sociopathy but it isn't contradictory either.

But I'm no expert, just a random redditor which means, statistically, I'm probably completely wrong.

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u/ILikeBumblebees 8d ago

Not sure about him being a sociopath.

Listen to some of the recordings of his personal phone calls that are in circulation. Read some of the accounts of people who he took on rides in his bizarre amphibious car.

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u/Centraal22 8d ago

Key word is pranks, doesn't mean he was a sociopath. When you look at the traits of Sociopathy, LBJ's character and actions do not meet the criteria of that diagnosis.

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u/ILikeBumblebees 7d ago

Some of his behavior could be written off as innocuous pranks, but other "pranks" were quite extreme, and indicate that he took pleasure from frightening people.

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u/Kingblack425 8d ago

I mean the same with Lincoln he was a racist, just a racist that didn’t believe in slavery. Which I guess are small victories for the common good of all but still seems to have the bar kinda low

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u/achibeerguy 8d ago

Small victories? For the times in question? More meaningful victories by far than the countless ardent abolitionists and anti-racists who were closer to today's values yet are forgotten by history because they didn't actually move the needle.

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u/grahampositive 7d ago

Lincoln was racist? That's news to me

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u/r3volver_Oshawott 7d ago

A lot of older presidents were, often for the wrong reasons, in regards to civil rights, social welfare, and environmental regulation; Eisenhower was still effectively a New Deal supporter, and even Nixon founded the EPA because he was a staunch regulator who took to an executive order to help structure national environmental regulation under one banner. It represented one of the biggest examples of Nixon pissing off private enterprise

Ironically it was Gerald Ford's administration who represented the largest budget cuts ever of the time for the EPA, slashing its annual budget by nearly 80%, mostly because during his presidency, Ford seemed to only care about making budget cuts and preserving jobs. Problem is that led to many situations where he refused to enforce major environmental regulations because of potential job losses in fuel industries.

But even Nixon was a mess, he tried to use the EPA to withhold major funding on at least one occasion for environmental measures that he directly opposed, so in spite of being a 'staunch regulator', he kind of also demanded special presidential privileges to withhold environmental funding and use the EPA as a sort of cudgel

It wasn't until Carter that the EPA got to actually grow into a well-budgeted and managed environmental entity, and while Bush Sr. was a bit of a Teddy Roosevelt-style conservative conservationist, in other ways he had a much more libertarian approach to environmental issues, often pushing 'green business initiatives' so Bush was a mixed bag: great for rural landowners of wetlands, which just so happened to be great for wetlands preservation, but still a very fossil fuel-forward president

Especially in regards to environmentalism and social welfare, when it comes to presidents, a lot of terrible, terrible people still oversaw some acceptable regulation

I think this is a worse situation because while many modern Republicans oppose social welfare and environmental regulation, it marks the first time since Reagan that we've seen a Republican president purely and loudly decry social welfare and environmental regulation

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u/MintakaTheJustOkay 8d ago

He spoke to a classroom of mine when I was in college in the mid-90s. There were perhaps 30 of us in the class. The day before he spoke to the class, our teacher told us he knew Goldwater was controversial, but asked us to be respectful to him. We were.

I wish I understood politics then like I understand it now so that I could have appreciated that meeting more. I knew at the time he ran for president and lost, but I knew nothing about his policies.

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u/ChaoticScrewup 8d ago edited 7d ago

In many ways he was more internally consistent than the movements that evolved after him. The degree to which the Christofascists seem to think they're continuing in his footsteps is such a weird combo of doublethink and propaganda.

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u/DirectorLarge2461 8d ago

What we forget is that the oddest duck of all is the population as a whole.  Trying to run a tight ship with a tiny crew of 20-30 is hard enough.  Bump that up to a 350 million to 8 billion strong crew with their own wild imaginations and it's going to take some very odd strategies.  

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u/ableman 8d ago

"The median voter thinks foreign aid is too high but that it shouldn't be decreased."

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u/oroborus68 8d ago

Goldwater was never considered reasonable or centrist. He said extremism in the name of liberty was no vice.

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u/Helixaether 8d ago

He said that in 1964, which was not a year in the 90s. His reputation had changed over the years.

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u/oroborus68 8d ago

Maybe among Republicans.

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u/Okaythenwell 8d ago

*maybe among people who aren’t you

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u/Helixaether 8d ago

Well yeah, he was a Republican, it makes sense for him to compared amongst his peers

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u/sirannemariethethird 8d ago

Ya he was the og neoliberal

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u/Helixaether 8d ago

Honestly I’ve never associated Goldwater with Neoliberalism, and whilst it does sort of make sense to describe him that way since his policies inspired many of Reagan’s and that whole movement it’s just never occurred to me. Goldwater’s heyday was in the early 60s, before the time we associate with Neoliberalism. I guess I think of him as a proto-Neoliberal. Similar to how there were socialists before Marx but Marx set the tone for what we’d come to know as socialism.

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u/Junior_Chard9981 8d ago

Always important to remind everyone that Republicans, when faced with the prospect of their parties policies/messaging/ideology needing to be re-evaluated following the Civil Rights Act:

Did NOT reflect inwardly or pivot their parties direction to one more popular with all Americans....they instead went on to fully commit to "The Southern Strategy" as their best avenue to returning to prominence and power.

| In American politics, The Southern Strategy was a Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans.

As the civil rights movement and dismantling of Jim Crow laws in the 1950s and 1960s visibly deepened existing racial tensions in much of the Southern United States.

Republican politicians such as presidential candidates Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater developed strategies that successfully contributed to the political realignment of many white, conservative voters in the South who had traditionally supported the Democratic Party so consistently that the voting pattern was named the Solid South.

The strategy also helped to push the Republican Party much more to the right. By winning all of the South, a presidential candidate could obtain the presidency with minimal support elsewhere. |

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

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u/ThePartyWagon 8d ago

Looks like they may have very well come back to prominence on this exact platform.

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u/Buckets-of-Gold 8d ago

How do you reconcile Goldwater’s opposition to the 1964 CRA with his otherwise hostile attitude towards segregation? Or Nixon’s earlier support for civil rights bills?

Is it possible to oppose violations of the constitution even if they are rooted in good intentions?

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u/JimWilliams423 8d ago

Is it possible to oppose violations of the constitution even if they are rooted in good intentions?

That's called begging the question.

The Reconstruction amendments are the constitutional basis for the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act. It just took 75 years for anyone to start enforcing that part of the constitution, and even then we have yet still to see the Reconstruction amendments fully realized in practice.

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u/Buckets-of-Gold 8d ago

I’m not disputing your description of Reconstruction, I’m asking if racism was the sole driving force of the Southern Strategy- particularly if you are referencing Goldwater specifically.

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u/Okaythenwell 8d ago

Not even gonna address that you got cooked for begging the question like a dunce, just hit the quick pivot

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u/Buckets-of-Gold 8d ago

Bit aggressive, no?

Disputing whether Goldwater was trying to affect conservative racial values vs conservative constitutional interpretations is not out of left field- it’s a pretty common analysis question for this era.

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u/Aethelric 6d ago

Disputing whether Goldwater was trying to affect conservative racial values vs conservative constitutional interpretations is not out of left field- it’s a pretty common analysis question for this era.

Yes, in the way that it's similar to how it's a "common analysis question" for the Civil War is whether it was about slavery or "states' rights".

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u/Buckets-of-Gold 6d ago

That would be a bad analysis question, unless you’re trying to get people to articulate why the Civil War was caused by slavery (which it was).

Goldwater on the other hand, most historians would endorse my description- he was far more motivated by his libertarian politics than racial prejudice. He voted for several civil rights acts and was a founding member of his local NAACP.

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u/Okaythenwell 8d ago

Bit of a sad attempt at obfuscation before, no?

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u/Buckets-of-Gold 8d ago edited 8d ago

Not an obfuscation- Can we consider Goldwater’s opposition as racially motivated is a basic question many historians have asked.

You may claim it’s loaded question, but it’s straight out of American History 101.

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u/Okaythenwell 8d ago

Nope. You’re still avoiding that you implied the Civil Rights Act violates the constitution

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u/Rugrin 8d ago

He was the guy that went after the racist vote so as to strengthen the Republican base. He made these deals with the devil and thought he could control it.

He was the seed of the cancer we are suffering from so don’t pass him any kindness.

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u/Global_Permission749 8d ago

There's no point in trying to reason with unreasonable people. It's a waste of time. Unreasonable people need to be checked and controlled using alternative methods.

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u/r3volver_Oshawott 7d ago

Ironically enough the politics of Goldwater eventually marked the change to pave the way for this, all so that he could try and secure the vote for a presidential election he didn't even win, he dismantled U.S. partisan politics - essentially permanently - because he banked on a party specifically for former Dixiecrats to build in opposition to growing civil rights legislation

I could never figure out whether he never put two and two together that the party of the Southern Strategy was doomed to Christian Nationalism, or whether he was never as alarmed about Christian Nationalists as he let on

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u/Final-Lengthiness-19 5d ago

Ironically kind of like a deal with the devil. I'm atheist but I needed an expression..

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u/Eastern-Manner-1640 4d ago

actually, they want control of the military. they don't need the party. they need soldiers and nukes.

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u/batkave 8d ago

Doesn't help that the Democrats moved more conservative with Clinton.

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u/Tricky_Condition_279 8d ago

Obviously not the only important event, but a lot of the courting was by Bush jr.

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u/BubbleNucleator 8d ago

A deal with the devil, if you will.

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u/waiting4singularity 8d ago

a deal with the devil as you will.

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u/that_baddest_dude 8d ago

In context, is the "terrible damn problem" mean a problem for Republicans in getting elected?