clemdarkstarzero
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Sep 29, 2025 5:56 PM
clemdarkstarzero
21107
603
6
CorgisButtsDriveMeNuts
Is he talking about usa or israel?
MoonAmericanFloydHeywoodR
U.S. The statement was made in 1981, not ‘65. It had nothing to do with Israel or the Mideast.
SomebodythatIusedtonope
Israel enter the chat
KnightWithShiningCamera
And the industrial military complex goes
MichaelMars
CaiMyrren
And this was right as the Southern Strat was having deep impacts. GOP actively recruited in the most conservative people it could find.
Converting Dixiecrats who still hated the GOP because of Lincoln, well that is basically a political miracle.
We dont put enough blame on Nixon for what we have today. Reagan gets most of it as he was the delivery boy for things Nixon set in motion, or was supposed to get done in his second term.
TheOvy
pssst: Goldwater's presidential campaign is what inspired the Southern Strategy!
CaiMyrren
So he is complaining about the very actions he took? Well if that is not on brand for the GOP.
Having an off day, I think I knew that but migraines are a bitch.
TheOvy
Not quite -- Goldwater was a true libertarian, e.g. he didn't think the state should determine whether same-sex couples could marry. he'd like a lot of the paring down of government by MAGA, but he'd hate all the moralizing, or the FCC Chair's recent attempt to censor ABC.
LoudBirb
And, in "true libertarian" fashion, his libertarian stances focused on limiting the federal government's ability to prevent state government oppression of individuals.
That's the crux with even the most well meaning of libertarians. Their overwhelming desire for a smaller and smaller federal government very often results in fewer freedoms for women and minorities.
Whatever Goldwater's opinions on race, MLK correctly pointed out that racists benefited the most from his policies.
TheOvy
Yep.
spattr
The civil rights act of 1964 sent a lot of southern dimwits into the GOP. He knew the country club Republican Party was doomed.
Antrobus55
Yup. The exact same crowd that ran Texas in 1960 is still running it today. The only difference is that they're all Republicans now.
TheOvy
Barry Goldwater campaigned on his opposition to the civil rights act of 1964, of course, and swept the deep south for the first time in the GOP's century-long history as a result, inspiring Nixon's "Southern Strategy". So Goldwater played a major part in the rise of MAGA.
TheDoctorCrankenstein
Innuendo Studios has an amazing video on this called "Alt-Right Playbook: Death of a Euphemism"
hogeyegrex
Johnson said the CRA lost the south for a generation. He was far too optimistic.
derekjohn
That I should live so long that I agree with Barry Goldwater ! America you have slithered so far into the abyss.
AlmostClever
He was also very progressive about gay people serving in the military.
Dannyalcatraz
He NAILED that one.
XaoJet
That they call themselves "Christian" while consistently doing the most un-Christ like shit you could imagine is just painful for those of us who have been or still are Christian. They are just so obviously self shamed into continuing down this path because they lack the strength to own they got had by some hate spewing rapist con man. It's easier for them to continue than too make amends for what they did, so they ain't stopping. Which is more fucked up as forgiveness is a Christian thing.
notmyrealface
And that guy was pro-segregation. Hillary worked for and praised him which is why it didn't feel good to vote for her. But I still did because it was her or fascists.
MoonAmericanFloydHeywoodR
I'm no spin artist for Goldwater; his 1964 campaign's positions lent aid and comfort to violent racists. But his racial equality record is complex. He founded the Arizona Air National Guard in 1946 and immediately integrated it, something that led impetus to Truman integrating the whole military the next year, which Goldwater supported. Goldwater was a lifetime member of the NAACP, and the Phoenix Urban League chapter - that seems counterintuitive, but it's a fact.
MoonAmericanFloydHeywoodR
... He said the reason he opposed the '64 Civil Rights Act was that he believed private businesses should have been exempt for any federal regulation -- I totally oppose him on that, get me wrong not. He was a mindless anti-federal government fanatic, and a lunatic anti-communist on foreign policy. But he was educable. By the late 1970s, he said he had come around to support the Civil Rights Act.
Poestis
Barry Goldwater, the only Republican I would have ever voted for..
Grapeape2000
lookup "The Family" vis American politics
MoonAmericanFloydHeywoodR
Goldwater did not say that in 1965. He said it in 1981, which gives the quote a very different context. Goldwater was a very different person by then, also. He was condemning the religious right's agenda, he soon was supporting LGBT+ equality, he said his views on the 1964 Civil Rights Act had completely changed and said he now supported it. He had become a strong supporter of American Indian rights and far better treatment of them.
IHaveNoEyeDeer
Growing up willl do that to a person.
MoonAmericanFloydHeywoodR
Goldwater also said, when asked about getting the votes of Christians, “I think every true Christian ought to kick Jerry Falwell right in the ass.”
Some people present have said Goldwater actually said “right in the nuts,” but reporters cleaned the quote up. Either way, Goldwater was correct.
ps238principal
And he was a member of the John Birch Society. That merry band of loons has metric tons of damage to answer for.
MoonAmericanFloydHeywoodR
As a journalist covering education in some rural and suburban communities, I saw Birchers organize against expanding and improving public education. After their defeat in the 1964 presidential election and their subsequent banishing from the Republican Party, they retreated to the hills and hollows and began fighting for their agenda out of sight of the powerful.
MoonAmericanFloydHeywoodR
Goldwater was never a member of the John Birch Society. He condemned the society in 1958, though he had drawn criticism for refusing to condemn them in the years before that, when conservatives, even far right ones, had. But from 1958 on, he had made it clear he did not support them at all. In the '64 convention, there were about a hundred JBS members as delegates, and a large number were from Arizona. Goldwater's candidacy was their darling. But he did not want them in.
euphoricopportunity
I once found a membership card for the John Birch Society at a garage sale. I thought it was hilarious to carry it around back in college. Absolutely no idea what happened to it.
Iaimtomisbehave
I got to see my Dad throw a Bircher off our front porch when I was a kid. "I saw enough of your kind in the war not to recognize ya now!" He was pretty great.
LespritDeLescalier22
Like, physically throw? That would’ve been incredible
Iaimtomisbehave
He "chested" the guy to the steps, spun him and gave him a big ol' shove, I didn't know for many years what had occurred. All I knew was my Dad was mad and that was a very different thing from him.
CaiMyrren
When you see evil up close like your dad. You make sure that does not happen in your house.
And that is to me largely the problem now. Most everyone who personally witnessed that evil is dead and gone. WW2 has almost completely moved on from living memory.
And without that we repeat it.
LespritDeLescalier22
And the cycle begins anew. Every generation is like “THIS time it’ll be different.” -Morgan Freeman- “this time, it was NOT different.”
Freyja33
And that's *him* saying that
stryhf
Literally the eponym for which the Goldwater rule was named. His takes were considered so outlandish (at that time) that he was often labelled as deranged.
cgt9803
"In your guts you know he's nuts" Goldwater
SaturnineCult
Well, broken clock and all that.
yqpqfrdp625772
And he’s a huge piece of shit. Like, he’s the brand name piece of shit. The Kleenex of being a pice of shit.
donthatemecauseimwittier
Wait, what do you mean? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater
yqpqfrdp625772
He’s the root cause of the religious right. Recruited them to help elect Reagan and empowered them in the 80s. Also instrumental in the start of Fox News, saying the right needed its own counterpoint to the then current news ecosystem. You know the bit about Reagan being the root of all your modern day problems? Goldwater was behind that.
yqpqfrdp625772
Also: architect of the southern strategy. e
Freyja33
I mean yeah, that's my point, like this is coming from someone who himself was a extremely and uncomprimisingly right wing, so if even he thought the christofascism we have now was too fanatical, then that says something about just how fanatical christofascism really is
Fengor
My grandfather campaigned for him and we have a box of tiny "goldwater" bottles with flecks of gold leaf in them; got some buttons too.(1/2)
Fengor
Long story short my grandfather was also a piece of shit, but died in a house fire when my mom was 13. (2/2)