Debunking the SILLY right wing meme that "Today, Kennedy would be a Republican."

[RBInMaine]

It is just incredible. The right wing is just SILLY. They are so insanely jealous, I guess, of America's enduring love of Kennedy, as very personally flawed as he was, that they are actually trying to co-opt him. The TeaPublicans are OFF THE RAILS IN EVERY CONCEIVABLE SENSE OF THE WORD.

Here is how you can fire back if you, as I did, run into some modern TeaPublican who tries to say that "Kennedy was 'conservative' and today would be a Republican."

* First, conservative Republicans and DixieCrats of the time did not like Kennedy. The reason he went to Texas was to try to heal rifts with Southern Democrats there with Johnson's help, but it was going to be a very uphill battle. **The remaining old DixieCrats and their offspring are now hardcore Republicans.

* Kennedy used Marshals and the National Guard to integrate the Southern universities. Conservatives HATED this.

* Kennedy was very sympathetic to the civil rights movement in other ways, very progressive for the times which conservatives hated.

* Kennedy was for very robust investment in public education and saw a strong federal role in it, he expanded the space program tremendously, and he was for very robust investment in transportation infrastructure and other major national investments including HEALTHCARE which conservatives opposed and would oppose today. He favored activist government and a strong federal role in society, very unlike today's TeaPublicans and conservatives of his time.

* Yes, he saw tax cuts as ONE part of an economic program, but tax cuts weighted to the middle class just like Clinton and OBAMA.

* While he was strong on defense, he was also measured in his approaches. Remember, it was the height of the Cold War. Of course he was going to be strong on defense at that time. But during the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example, he resisted the conservative militarist push to bomb and invade immediately, going with the measured blockade approach and negotiation, including a pledge to take missiles out of Turkey as part of the deal. Conservatives would have bombed and invaded Cuba.

* Kennedy and his family were STAUNCH and LOYAL DEMOCRATS, and he took the Republicans to task very strongly time and again. The Republican establishment did not like Kennedy at all. They and their base really despised him and his charisma. However, he would have won re-election in a landslide with strong liberal and moderate Democratic support and strong independent support, not with a whole lot of Republican help.

[liberal N proud]

1. Kennedy is the reason the Right Wing created the Ronald Reagan myth

They needed a hero to look up to so they proclaimed Reagan to be the greatest Conservative President in history. It was all a myth that with a little help from the media has made Reagan their hero, sort of.

[whathehell]

30. Yes..Before him, they had to "borrow" past democrats..Remember the awesome Lloyd Bentson response to

Dan Quayle during their vice-presidential debate?

"Senator, I knew Jack Kennedy...Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine...Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy".

It brought the house down..Truly one of THE most powerful moments in the history of American political debate.

[Scuba]

2. He was also for universal healthcare ....

[Tigress DEM]

3. If Republicans want to model themselves after Kennedy, I can live with that.

[TBF]

4. A product of his times -

he definitely was a cold warrior (I'm sure they love that) and he did have gobs of money.

But Kennedy was not old anglo-saxton protestant money - he was from an Irish immigrant family and was the product of what folks called "The American Dream". In those days many of the protestants (especially the Baptist) tea baggers wouldn't have given him the time of day.

Great historical article in the Boston Globe about the Kennedy family, rise to riches, and what his death did to the Irish Catholic community --

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/11/22/his-life-fulfilled-irish-dream-his-death-shattered/LC31k1HWhHvNY96Xq1wk2O/story.html

[Robbins]

5. Also

When Kennedy was running for president he was advoating for medicare.

when reagan was making speeches and recording blasting medicare as socialism It was against Kennedy he was talking about.

The kennedy administration stopped mergers using antitrust.

Many of the domestic acheivements of the Johnson adminsatrian were things JFK wanted to do.

Kennedy was to left of CLinton and Obama.

Kennedy became leary of what the CIA would tell him after the bay of pigs.A shame Obama hasn't learned a similar lesson.

Kennedy's actions In Cuban Missile crisis Is so unlike any republicans.Unfortuntly both Clinton and Obama probally would have listen
to military and bombed cuba.

[RBInMaine]

12. Kennedy would have bombed and invaded if the Russians didn't blink. Invasion was ready to go. BUT,

he did resist an IMMEDIATE attack scenario when McNamara advanced the blockade idea which was also a serious military action, just short of invasion. But is was a more measured response and allowed some time for negotiation.

[Hippo_Tron]

26. We have no way to know for sure what he would've done if the Russians didn't blink

Kennedy was dead set on not losing Berlin and he knew that was likely if he attacked Cuba. Blockades may be technically considered military action, but they have a clear distinction from invasion (and airstrikes) in that they don't involve killing anyone.

[NewJeffCT]

13. Today's Republicans

believe Obama is the most liberal, socialistic president ever - just beating out Bill Clinton.

They can cherry pick a few Kennedy positions that maybe weren't super-liberal for the time, but most likely still to the left of Republicans of the era (and back then, they actually had true moderate and even liberal Republicans - Lowell Weicker of CT was a 3 term liberal Republican senator, beaten by Joe Lieberman, who ran to Weicker's right.)

[whathehell]

6. OMG...The anti-historical, anti-intellectual nature of the GOP is getting absolutely 1984-ish.

Having lived a little longer than many, I can tell you that JFK was a LIBERAL democrat -- far more liberal than

PBO or Bill Clinton, not to mention any of the repukes.

[RBInMaine]

11. Well, it's very debatable if he was more progressive than BC or BO, but he was progressive.

[whathehell]

16. I'm sorry, but I doubt most would find it debatable at all..

Anyone who knows anything about the traditional democratic party -- the party of FDR and the New Deal and what they have

always stood for -- would know that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are, at best, VERY conservative democrats, certainly

NOT progressive. Thom Hartmann has come out and said that Republican President Eisenhower was more liberal than PBO,

and I believe he is correct.

BC and BO are good on SOCIAL issues, which, as I like to remind people, do not COST anything.

On economic issues, they've basically not much better than republicans, imo, and that is quite significant

considering that those issues affect ALL OF US -- Black, White, Latino, Male, Female, Gay and Straight.

Traditional Democrats ALWAYS stood with Labor...Unlike them, BC ran a "right to work" state in Arkansas,

and did little, if anything for workers in this country. One might even say he hurt workers by allowing the H1-B

visas to continue, and by backing NAFTA. PBO has completely ignored The Employee Free Choice Act ('card check&quot

as he did the Labor uprisings in the Midwest states like Wisconsin and Ohio, again, after taking

campaign contributions from unions....He's presently locked in secret "trade" talks like the Trans Pacific Partnership,

which its many opponents have labeled "NAFTA on Steroids" -- It's a HORRIBLE deal for workers and even the

basic sovereignity of this country. It amounts to dismantling our democracy for Corporate Rule.


These last two presidents are, basically moderate republicans, IMO...Lots of us are hoping to do better in '16

with people more resembling Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown and Alan Grayson.

THEY are Progressive Democrats -- the rest, not so much...

[RBInMaine]

31. None of those you mention could ever win a national election. Sorry, but you're pipe dreaming. And,

BC and BO are NOT "Republicans", moderate or otherwise. Just have to agree to disagree I think.

[whathehell]

32. Yeah, that's what Bill Clinton, and many others, said about Obama in '08..

In any case, you might want to see what Obama himself said about being "considered a moderate Republican".

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/domestic-taxes/137156-obama-says-hed-be-seen-as-moderate-republican-in-1980s.

I'll gladly "agree to disagree"...You seem to have met with a lot of "disagreement" here, lol.

[Arkana]

7. Kennedy did a lot of shitty things to fellow Democrats,

but I agree--no way the old man lets him be a Republican.

[whathehell]

18. Such as?

[Arkana]

20. Well, his family donated to Richard Nixon's Senate campaign

against Helen Gahagan Douglas. That was pretty shitty: http://www.thenation.com/blog/168769/when-jfk-backed-nixon-against-progressive-woman#

I'm not saying Kennedy wasn't a decent President, but he got into the Senate by being more fiercely anti-Communist than some Republicans. Sure, he regretted doing it (he called it "the biggest damnfool mistake I ever made&quot , but his father was close with Joe McCarthy, and Nixon and Kennedy were both of the opinion that the federal government had too much power (obviously, this was before the 1960 election.)

[whathehell]

23. Okay, but that's only one thing, and as you said, he later regretted it.

As even the article states, Jack was not his father...His father was far more conservative, and he really couldn't

help that his father was friends with Joe McCarthy.

As for his fierce anti-communism, well, that was the tenor of the times...He was quite pro-union,

and had no problem going to bat for them, unlike Clinton and Obama.

[Arkana]

24. Not as pro-union as you might like:

From the article:

Politically, however, they were not continents apart. They agreed, for example, on the threat of communism. Kennedy had voted to continue funding the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and favored the latest version of the Mundt-Nixon internal-security bill. Like Nixon, he strongly hinted that Truman’s policy of vacillation had led to “losing” China and inviting Communist advances in Korea. He favored aid to Franco’s Spain and vast increases in the Pentagon budget.

Both congressmen felt that organized labor had grown too powerful. Earlier that year, upon receiving an honorary degree at Notre Dame, Kennedy had warned of the “ever expanding power of the Federal government” and “putting all major problems” into the all-absorbing hands of the great Leviathan the state. Each man craved higher office, but Nixon’s ambition burned even brighter than Kennedy’s, if that was possible.

[whathehell]

28. Maybe not, but that still translates

to a hell of a lot more than Clinton or Obama

[rock]

8. You're gonna try logic and fact with the repiggies?

Good luck with that.

[RBInMaine]

14. I don't expect them to listen. But they do "hear" it, and it makes them squirm. So I have fun. :-)

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. The successful Kennedy said "Success has a thousand fathers, defeat is an orphan." nt

[NewJeffCT]

10. Ask them if they want to go back to JFK's "Republican" tax rate?

he lowered it from like 90% to 77%, right? Or, something like that. But, that was because a lot of the WW2 debt had been paid off by that time as well.

[whathehell]

19. Yes, I'm sure they'd LOVE that, Lol...By the way, he did that ONLY with the provision that

the LOOPHOLES be closed, so, as I understand it, they actually wound up paying just as much, if not more.

[Lasher]

15. Hell, Ike would be a Democrat for sure.

If you know anything about the man, and if you know anything about the two parties now and then, you won't wonder why that's true.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

17. Republicans must not really think much of themselves and their *leaders*

if they feel like they have to keep stealing them from us. They've previously tried to claim MLK and now they're trying to claim JFK as well. I suppose the fact that JFK ran as a Democrat and was clearly a Democrat through and through is completely lost on them. Who and where are are all of their great national leaders? Where are all of the conservative *achievements*?

[Wounded Bear]

21. They have a simple mindset...

Anything "good" must therefore be conservative.

Everything "bad" must be liberal/progressive/socialistic/communistic, etc.

So, if the American people think Kennedy was "good" he must have been a closet Republican.

Hell, I've had arguments (on-line, of course) with RWers that insisted that Hitler was a LW socialist.

[Carolina]

22. Repukes can only wish they had a JFK

Reagan was image, no substance and no intellect.

Kennedy had innate intelligence, but also an inquisitive mind. As David McCullough said last Friday: he was a student of history... he read history, he wrote history. Reagan studied cue cards!

Kennedy had charm, charisma, class, wit and made for TV good looks. No one can light a candle to his press conferences and I remember them in real time not from YouTube!

Kennedy served his country in WWII; Reagan made TV ads about the war effort.

Kennedy was the real and complete deal. Reagan was an actor.

Kennedy stood up to (and against) the generals during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he distrusted them after they led him astray with the Bay of Pigs*, he planned to change the policy on Vietnam (which had been inherited from the Eisenhower administration) after the '64 election and he outlined a foreign policy in his commencement speech at American University just months before his murder that was antithetical to US imperialism which is why I am convinced that the MIC/CIA took him out and Oswald was a patsy. By contrast, Reagan did what the puppet masters who put him in office told him to do.

* Kennedy took full responsibility and didn't whine or complain... recall: "Victory has a hundred fathers, but defeat is an orphan. ... I am the responsible officer of the government"

Finally, Kennedy was liberal and unabashedly so, for as he said: I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, this faith in our fellow citizens as individuals, as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith; for liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of the mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow man the amount of justice, and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves.

For one brief shining moment, we had a great man like President Kennedy. For far too long we've suffered the consequences of a fraud like Reagan!

[Hippo_Tron]

25. That top tax rate was 90%, Kennedy cut it to 70%

If wanting a 70% top tax rate makes you a Republican, then sign me up!

[HockeyMom]

27. Tell them to read Goldwater's last speeches

He would be a SOCIALIST by today's standards for Republicans.

[yellowcanine]

29. They like to pretend the same thing about Truman.

Truth is they have nobody except Ronnie in the last 100 years they can point to. Poor babies.