Presidential Election Of 1964

JD Vance On Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Abortion: Inheritor Of Maga Philosophy

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JD Vance hated Donald Trump with a passion, until he did not.

He thought Trump was a potential Hitler, said the most insulting things about Trump.

At the same time, he connected with billionaire Peter Thiel, a right wing advocate, who pushed him to run for the Senate seat in Ohio, and is his major benefactor.

As a result, Vance has adopted admiration for Trump, and has taken on positions that are extreme, the most so for any Republican since Barry Goldwater in 1964.

Vance has demonstrated he is an isolationist, not willing to support Ukraine or Taiwan, so like Trump, cozying up to authoritarian governments, a shocking development for the heritage of the Republican Party since World War II.

Vance also has made clear he wants no exceptions for abortion, a national ban, and even if a young girl is made pregnant by a male relative, that incest is not an excuse to avoid following through on pregnancy, an unreasonable view.

Vance should be seen as a real threat long term, because he can now be seen as the inheritor of Donald Trump’s MAGA movement!

The fact that the Russian Foreign Minister has just praised Vance should be a warning sign of the danger of Trump and Vance, and to the long term stability of NATO and other alliances with democracies against authoritarian governments, including Taiwan against China, and South Korea and Japan against North Korea.

If Trump wins or even if he loses, JD Vance will be a presence in American politics for the long run, and it is essential that Americans understand the long term threat to American foreign and domestic policy!

JD Vance: Another Horrendous Republican Vice Presidential Nominee!

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The Republican Party, historically, has often selected horrendous Vice Presidential nominees, and unfortunately, some of them end up as Vice President, making one concerned even more than normally, about the health and safety of the Republican President.

JD Vance of Ohio adds to a list of such nominees, including:

William E. Miller, running mate of Barry Goldwater in 1964
Spiro Agnew, running mate of Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972
Dan Quayle, running mate of George H. W. Bush in 1988 and 1992
Sarah Palin, running mate of John McCain in 2008

Also, others, such as Jack Kemp, running mate of Bob Dole in 1996; Dick Cheney, running mate of George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004; Paul Ryan, running mate of Mitt Romney in 2012; and Mike Pence, running mate of Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020, while all “qualified” and experienced, had many negative aspects to their candidacies.

The only exceptions one could claim were fully qualified and acceptable were Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President to Gerald Ford, and George H. W. Bush as Vice President to Ronald Reagan, and also Bob Dole as running mate of Gerald Ford in 1976.

And now we have JD Vance, who has only served 18 months as a Senator from Ohio, and who has completely changed his views on Donald Trump from what they were in 2016. And Vance comes across as a MAGA extremist who is unwilling to support Ukraine in its war with Russia; wants no exceptions for rape or incest with a total ban on abortion; and is clearly perceived as a “mini Trump”, who could carry on the Trump views in the future Republican Party.

And realize Vance called Trump a potential Adolf Hitler eight years ago, and now embraces him! If that is not a danger sign to voters, then such voters have no principles or conscience!

2024 Presidential Election Crucial As Were 1864 And 1964 Elections, And They Were Election Landslides!

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One could argue that every Presidential Election is significant in some shape or form, but certain elections stand out as turning points in the promotion of American democracy.

Such are the Presidential Elections of 1864 and 1964, and now moving forward, 2024!

In all three, the sustaining of American democracy was crucial, and in the first two cases, the results, after much concern, were massive landslides, hopefully setting the scene for 2024!

In 1864, Republican Abraham Lincoln was running for reelection in the midst of the American Civil War, with his opponent being General George McClellan, who was resentful of his firing for poor performance from Union Army leadership, and represented to many the Confederate hope of pulling out victory late in the Civil War.

Lincoln was so concerned that victory was unattainable, that he decided to replace Vice President Hannibal Hamlin with a Southern Loyalist Democrat Andrew Johnson, and the Republicans invited War Democrats into the party by changing their name to the National Union Party.

The end result was a landslide with Lincoln winning all but three states, winning 55 percent of the vote, and an Electoral College majority of 212-21!

A century later, President Lyndon B. Johnson, having succeeded to the Presidency after the assassination of John F. Kennedy less than a year earlier, faced the most right wing Republican contender for the Presidency in modern times, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, who advocated ending the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt, including Social Security, and also opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Johnson went on to a landslide victory, winning 61.1 percent of the popular vote, the all time high, and 44 of 50 states and 486-52 in the Electoral College, but with five Southern states going to Goldwater, the beginning of the political realignment that has made the South solidly Republican ever since, with only a few exceptions when Democrats nominated Southerners for the Presidency, including Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

Johnson went on to promote the Great Society, a massive increase in government programs, way beyond the New Deal of FDR.

Now in 2024, with the Republican Party being the most extreme right wing since Goldwater, and arguably more so, Joe Biden faces a challenge not only on a personal level, but also on overcoming the menace of Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans, who have repudiated the original basis of the Republican Party’s founding, opposing slavery and its expansion, and instead promoting racism and nativism 170 years after the origins of the party in Michigan and Wisconsin in 1854!

Nikki Haley Backed By Koch Right Wing “Americans For Prosperity”–Makes Her Unacceptable!

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“Americans For Prosperity”, the Charles Koch family libertarian right wing powerful network, has endorsed and is financially supporting Nikki Haley as the best alternative to Donald Trump for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2024, choosing her over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Haley has sold her soul to an evil group, which had done so much damage for many years, most notably backing the Tea Party Movement that emerged under Barack Obama in 2010.

This evil group has opposed any action on global warming; the Affordable Care Act; labor union rights; assisted in the Republican gaining of the House of Representatives in 2010 and the Senate in 2014; is against raising of the minimum wage and supportive of “right to work” laws which undermine worker rights; against Medicaid expansion; opposes internet neutrality; and promotes loads of “dark money” which allows them to have a deleterious effect on all kinds of other social issues, including attacks on Social Security and Medicare.

Basically, it is the Barry Goldwater 1964 right wing assault on the New Deal and later on the Great Society. The fact that Nikki Haley accepts their support, while certainly is common sense for her, it shows that she has no basic principles, is inconsistent in her outlook, and runs the risk of “being owned” by this extremist right wing group, in an attempt to overcome the advantage of Donald Trump as the Presidential campaign moves forward!

From Nelson Rockefeller (1963) To The January 6 2021 Insurrection: Right Wing Threats

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Sixty years ago this week, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller denounced the Right Wing threat working to gain control of the Republican Party, and he fought against Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1964.

Goldwater lost massively against President Lyndon B. Johnson, but the seeds had been planted in a movement that now has become a menace to America under Donald Trump, leading to the January 6, 2021 US Capitol Insurrection.

But even Barry Goldwater was not as extreme as right wing Republicans now are!

If Trump or a Trumpite follower ends up as the Republican nominee in 2024, the concept of American democracy could be dissolved, as the threat of Barry Goldwater sixty years ago has been far surpassed by many Republicans since the 1990s.

Leading potential Republican nominees besides Trump in 2024 include such as Ron DeSantis, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley, and Rick Scott, among others.

The alarm bell has rung, and the question is whether the diminishing band of mainstream Republicans–such as Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, Larry Hogan, Chris Sununu, Chris Christie, Liz Cheney, and Adam Kinzinger–many of them far from ideal–can mount a campaign and take the Republican Party back to the center of American politics!

Fareed Zakaria CNN Special From May 2021 Updated: “A Radical Rebellion: The Transformation Of The GOP”

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The Welfare State–Secularism—changing racial situation.

Fareed Zakaria on a CNN Special today, updated from May 2021, entitled “A Radical Rebellion: The Transformation of the GOP”, presented an analysis of the disaster that the Republican Party has become:

in an era of conservatism attacking the concept of the Franklin D. Roosevelt New Deal and the Lyndon B. Johnson Great Society;

allowing Right Wing evangelical Christianity and theocracy to take over the party in the name of God;

and working against the reality that the white majority face a future in America of minority racial groups together being a majority of the population in about 2040-2045.

He covers from the John Birch Society in the 1950s;
to William F. Buckley, Jr and the National Review;
to Barry Goldwater and the conservative takeover in 1964, leading to massive victory of Lyndon B. Johnson and the Great Society;
to Richard Nixon and the “Southern Strategy”in 1968;
to Jerry Falwell and the “Christian Coalition” and the “Moral Majority” in the late 1970s and early 1980s;
to Ronald Reagan and the “Reagan Coalition” in the 1980s;
to Pat Buchanan’s challenge of George H W Bush in 1992;
to Newt Gingrich and the “Republican Revolution” of 1994 and after;
to the promotion of right wing propaganda and lies by Fox News Channel starting in 1996;
to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in the 2000s;
to the Tea Party Movement rise under Barack Obama’s Presidency;
to the rise of Donald Trump in 2015-2016;
to the “Big Lie” about the Presidential Election of 2020;
to the January 6, 2021 US Capitol Insurrection;
to the present extremism in the Congressional and State Republican parties in 2021;
to the constant threat to women’s rights, including abortion;
to the right wing rejection of Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney as not conservative enough;
and the growing racism, nativism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, misogyny, and homophobia that have become alarming realities for the future of American politics!

Republican Party Is Selling Its Reputation To Donald Trump, Who Is Hellbent On Destroying The Party!

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The Republican Party is in the process of destroying its legacy, and selling its reputation to Donald Trump, who is hellbent on destroying the party in his quest for absolute power, and destruction of American democracy!

Whether one agrees or not with the conservative philosophy of the Republican Party throughout its history, the party has added to the constant debate over the nature of government.

The Republican Party had its great leaders with courage and convictions, from the time of the party being founded as a reform party in the 1850s, through its various highs and lows over the past 167 years from 1854 onward.

Its low points included 1912, when William Howard Taft won only two states, 23 percent of the vote, and 8 electoral votes; to 1964, when Barry Goldwater won less than 40 percent of the vote, and only 6 states; to the shock of a reckless businessman, Donald Trump, who was able to hijack the party and its principles in 2016, and now has set out to destroy the party and the nation by refusing to concede defeat in the Presidential Election of 2020, and is a dire threat for the future!

Where are the “Profiles in Courage” that put the welfare of the nation over their own ambitions, and are willing to stand up to Trump Fascism, and its promotion of white supremacy and domestic terrorism, as demonstrated in the January 6, 2021 Insurrection on the US Capitol!

Only a small group is putting the nation and American democracy ahead of their own naked ambitions!

So on this Thanksgiving Day, we have to be thankful that Joe Biden is President, and do everything to insure that the Democratic Party overcomes history, and keeps control, and gains seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate in 2022!

Time For Washington DC To Be The 51st State

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Washington DC has more population than two states, Wyoming and Vermont, and not much lower than Alaska and North Dakota.

Washington DC has a higher educational and income level than the above named states.

Washington DC had a proposed statehood amendment passed through Congress in 1978 that failed to be ratified within the seven year limit, only gaining 16 states approval.

The 23rd Amendment, giving DC residents the right to vote for President, and giving DC three electoral votes, was ratified in 1961, and in 1964, for the first time, DC participated in the Presidential Election of 1964.

In a 2016 DC Statehood referendum, 85 percent of the residents in DC supported statehood.

DC would be first in Gross Domestic Product Per Capita (nearly two and a half times the next state), and first in Educational Attainment, with 60 percent having an advanced degree, and 34 percent having a bachelor’s degree.

Donald Trump On The Way To A Potential Worst Election Defeat Than Any Republican Since 1964

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Donald Trump, in the midst of the COVID 19 Pandemic, seems to be on the road to the worst election defeat for a Republican Presidential nominee since Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona in 1964, against President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Goldwater only won 6 states and 38.5 percent of the vote in 1964, and since then, only George H. W. Bush lost his reelection in a three way race in 1992 with lower percentage, 37.4 percent, but also 18 states won by Bush.

Trump has never won a majority of support in any legitimate public opinion poll since his inauguration, and remember he won the Electoral College in 2016 by small margins in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

He has seen some of those who voted for him turning against him in recent months, with his horrid policies on the CoronaVirus Pandemic, so uncaring and lacking in empathy, sincerity, decency, and compassion, but now he and his supporters in the top level of government also facing the pandemic themselves.

So in a two way race as now, he may be in the camp of Goldwater, or possibly even worse, as Alfred Landon in 1936 against Franklin D. Roosevelt with only 36.5 percent of the vote!

The Battle For The Republican Future After Trump

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The Republican Party seems likely to collapse in the Presidential and Congressional Elections of 2020, suffering their worst defeat since 1964.

Just as the party collapsed in 1912, and again in 1964, now in 2020, four years late–that is, 56 years, not 52 years—a major regeneration of the party in Congress and the competition for the Presidency seems likely.

It looks right now as if the Democrats will win a lot more than the three to four seats needed to win the majority in the Senate, and that the Republicans will lose another minimum ten seats in the House of Representatives, after losing 42 seats in the 2018 midterm Congressional elections.

And the issue arises, who in the party has a likelihood of competing for President in 2024, with of course, always the possibility someone not yet elected or noticed will enter the fray if successful in this upcoming election.

Youth seems likely to triumph, and there are people in the Senate who can be seen as rivals for the future nomination for President, as well as some not in the Senate.

In the Senate, we have some “old timers”, meaning those who have already run for President, including Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Marco Rubio of Florida. All of them are quite horrific as thoughts as future Presidents, particularly the first two, but really, all three.

Then, we have three others, who clearly, plan to run for President—Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Josh Hawley of Missouri, and Ben Sasse of Nebraska—and all but Sasse are seen as equally totally horrific.

We also have Nikki Haley, former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Governor, and for awhile, thought to be “somewhat appealing”, but no more, after her recent total loyalty to Donald Trump, and the halo she once had is gone.

We also have the horror of the possibility of Donald Trump Jr. or Ivanka Trump considering a run!

And we have the disgrace of Florida Senator Rick Scott, who should have been in federal prison for Medicare-Medicaid fraud from years ago, and instead went on to two terms as Florida Governor, and now Florida Senator, winning all three races by about one percent, and all three races very suspect as to vote total manipulation. Just looking at him is enough to make one vomit!

And if one looks to have regular vomiting, think of the disgrace of Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson, a true Know Nothing moron, with no ethical or moral compass at all!

Then, there is also Maryland Governor Larry Hogan and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, who both have handled the CoronaVirus Pandemic responsibly, and are perceived as moderates.

And another Governor, who has handled the crisis horribly, Ron DeSantis of Florida, will probably be angling as well for the Presidency, and makes a Floridian like myself disgusted as to the three state wide office holders in the third largest state, being as obnoxious as Rubio, Scott, and DeSantis!

Of course, if Trump is reelected, Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo might also enter the race, but it is assumed for this article that Trump will lose!

As an “outsider”, a progressive such as myself, if asked, who could one imagine “accepting” as a future President, and with this progressive hiding his eyes behind a total mask, it would have to be Ben Sasse, Larry Hogan, or Charlie Baker, as the rest of the group totally sickens me.

Likely, one of these sixteen will be the Republican nominee for President in 2024, and the odds will be against Sasse, Hogan or Baker, realistically!