Bill Clinton saying "We're all Eisenhower Republicans here"
Obama claiming he would have been a republican before the conservative revolution
Hillary trying out her fucking GOLDWATER credentials to get elected.
And there's Biden talking fondly of Strom Thurmond (Although at least he didn't try to claim his political legacy)

Who are they trying to appeal to? Anyone who likes Goldwater isn't going to vote for a Democrat, ever, and anyone else who knows who he was would hate it.

  • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Democratic politicians believe they need approval from Republicans to run for office. It's a very bizarre relationship where seeming more like a Republican but with a D next to your name is a positive credential. Democrats think Republicans are their bosses and they need to have a fully fleshed out resume.

    I don't think Republican politicians view this relationship as reciprocal

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
      ·
      3 years ago

      It’s a very bizarre relationship

      It's a consequence of Cold War politics and the entrenched belief that Democrats are Communists. I think it's often lost in hindsight, but Republicans dominated Presidential politics in the wake of Harry Truman. And the DC Media obsession with White House politics created the impression that Republicans must therefore dominate culturally as well. Therefore, Democrats since Clinton have consistently pandered to Republicans-from-20-years-ago as a means of shoring up their moderate credentials.

      In fairness, Republicans will do this as well. The whole "Party of Lincoln" song-and-dance is about making Republicans look comparatively progressive. Eisenhower set the standard as an apolitical centrist (which was kinda true once you disenfranchise half the country). Nixon, Ford, and Bush all ran campaigns to the left of their party's center. Hell, Bush Jr's campaign practically coined the term "Compassionate Conservative" to dilute the Clinton-Era image of a party full of heartless bastards.

      The parties rally the base during the primary, then pivot to the center during the general. But its all ultimately rhetorical and meaningless at a policy level.

      • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        I think it’s often lost in hindsight, but Republicans dominated Presidential politics in the wake of Harry Truman.

        This isn't quite right. Kennedy and Johnson won elections right after Eisenhower. Republicans have held the presidency for 40 years since Truman; Democrats for 32. That's an advantage, but not domination, especially considering that Eisenhower had a Republican Senate and House for two years, but then the Senate was blue until 1980 and the House until 1994.

        It's more accurate to say that Truman firmly decided on a post-war anti-communist foreign policy, and that this would become the bipartisan consensus up to the present day (although it did evolve after Vietnam and again after the end of the Cold War). While the U.S. had opposed communism prior to WWII, the last, best chance of going in another direction was at the end of a long war where you had the USSR as an ally, labor was as organized as it ever was, all sorts of colonized nations had serious national liberation movements, and before the national security state really became entrenched. This anti-communism bled into the domestic sphere, leading to the hollowing out of organized labor and social programs, and eventually the rise of neoliberalism in the 70s. Democrats talking about their conservative credentials is just one symptom of this shift.

        • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Republicans have held the presidency for 40 years since Truman; Democrats for 32. That’s an advantage, but not domination, especially considering that Eisenhower had a Republican Senate and House for two years, but then the Senate was blue until 1980 and the House until 1994.

          I suppose I'm looking at this from the 90s End Of History perspective, when it was closer to 28 GOP to 20 Dems, with Dems watching their House majority whittled away year after year for three decades, until the big 1994 collapse. The Obama-Era has signaled something of a reversal, particularly in the post-Trump Era as college educated whites defect from the GOP.

          While the U.S. had opposed communism prior to WWII, the last, best chance of going in another direction was at the end of a long war where you had the USSR as an ally, labor was as organized as it ever was, all sorts of colonized nations had serious national liberation movements, and before the national security state really became entrenched. This anti-communism bled into the domestic sphere, leading to the hollowing out of organized labor and social programs, and eventually the rise of neoliberalism in the 70s. Democrats talking about their conservative credentials is just one symptom of this shift.

          That gets to the direction of the country. I'm not sure it explains why Democrats (who were never shy about being anti-Communist in word or deed) consistently got pillared as the Leftist party in rhetoric. Or why we've seen something of a reversal under Trump, with Dems taking up Red Scare politics and turning it on the GOP in kind.

          I wonder if this is a product of White Flight in the 80s and 90s. Is being anti-Communist just code for hating brown people? Is that something which has become harder and harder to sell in a country that's grown unseasonably tan over time?