Remembering
Barry: Trump’s Prototype
Published in Marietta Daily Journal May 21, 2017
Congressional Republicans are now
hiding under their desks. How I wish
they were either old enough or courageous enough to recall and imitate the man
who foreshadowed our current president.
That man was 1964 GOP presidential
nominee Barry Goldwater who drew the wrath of his political foes with these
words: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the
pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
Twenty years old at the time, I
still had to read the famous line several times to take it in. It was a beautifully balanced and clear sentence.
It made a claim that was
thought-provoking and honored the words, “liberty” and “justice,” words which
though treasured in America, are not so beloved in every corner of the earth.
The wrath the line evoked came
primarily from U.S. Senator Goldwater’s opposing party, but scared many Republicans as well. Have we noticed that Democrats don’t scare
too easily but that Republicans do?
Republicans, unlike the ’64 GOP presidential candidate and our current
president, are still scared of the media.
Why else would they slink from a president who was duly elected and who
still holds the hearts of those who voted for him?
Barry Goldwater was a Trump-like
figure. Like Trump he was not impressed
by power. His satisfaction came from
saying what he truly believed. No doubt
it was his word “extremism” that raised shackles. America in 1964 was very much under the
influence of supposedly (I repeat, supposedly) extremist organizations. Most of these organizations tilted to the
extreme right. We know so because the
only media big boys in town at the time – ABC, CBS, and NBC – said so.
The John Birch Society was supposedly
extremist. All Republican Texas billionaires
were extremist as well. William F. Buckley and his fellow New England
conservatives were. Goldwater’s
supporters were. The South was. And on
and on it went. The ACLU, of course, was
not extremist. Nor were Americans for
Democratic Action, Students for a Democratic Society, Jane Fonda, nor – get
this! – the rising Black Panthers. Again, the news anchors and reporters of the
three New York-based networks told us so.
Get
this as well! Neither was Nikita Khrushchev extremist. Can you believe there was a time from 1917
(the year of Russia’s Communist Revolution) to 2017 (the year of
you-know-who-and-what) when America’s “news” elites defended all things
Russian? Since November 8, 2016,
however, Russia has become the mortal enemy of America’s “news” elites.
As
an ordinary but lifelong political observer, this is the most revealing thing
about the news industry I have ever seen.
It was wonderful for Nixon to visit Mao Zedong, exhilarating for Carter
to physically embrace Brezhnev, and unbearably joyful for Obama to love on the
Communist Castro brothers, but it’s sheer ignorance of geopolitics and a mortal
danger for Mr. Trump to even go near Putin.
Methinks the media doth show its own bias. And ignorance of history. And hypocrisy.
For 100 years America’s news commentariat
felt Russia was just hunky-dory. But in
the last six months Russia has become a pariah.
Like Goldwater and Reagan, like Trump.
The media’s apoplexy toward Trump is exactly what Goldwater and Reagan
endured. Anyone who cannot see media
hypocrisy and ideology in this picture is probably watching too much
television, the medium of “Just in” and constant “Media Alerts.”
Goldwater, Trump’s personality forerunner, carried only 6 states in 1964. But Goldwater’s loss birthed Ronald Reagan’s
victory. In “the speech” that defended
Goldwater, Reagan, forsaking his typical cheer, showed that anger has its place
and that a politician can stand for something.
After
his loss, Goldwater labored on in the Senate, never the camera-loving moderate
or closet Democrat like his successor John McCain. Libertarian on the social issues, he took aim
at Rev. Jerry Falwell (another supposedly right wing extremist), calling him an
ugly name. Falwell’s reply was, “Senator
Goldwater can never call me anything that will diminish my appreciation for
what he has done for America.”
Goldwater’s famous line, of course,
was intentional overstatement. It was
akin to, if not a re-cast of Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death.”
And guess who picked nits and
faulted Goldwater for his use of the word “extremism.” Yep, ABC/CBS/NBC, those yesteryear bulwarks
of fairness and objectivity. Supposedly.
There is probably no storm that our
new president won’t survive, even when timid, disloyal Republicans fall
away. He is too much a populist hero,
hated by a shocked, embarrassed media, but loved by the people.
Beneath the blue sky and soil of
Arizona, Barry Goldwater is smiling. He admired leaders who, like himself, were
fearless.
Roger
Hines
5/17/17
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