Confessions of a Republican - Old Political Ad Gets New Life

[Seawytch]

It's easy to see why this video is making the rounds all these years later...



It's long, about 4 minutes...but WOW!

 

[midcan5]

The republican party has created a coalition of extremists: religious, gun huggers, racists, xenophobes, war mongers, media hacks, etc etc. When Trump came up with his birther nonsense, and the party acquiesced, they planted the seed for where they are today. And while Trump is extreme, so are the others. Republicans made their party and now puzzle over it. Kinda weird.

"On Super Tuesday, Dale Clark voted for a local Republican who claimed on social media that President Obama had worked as a gay prostitute in his youth, that the United States should ban Islam, that the Democratic Party had John F. Kennedy killed and that the United Nations had hatched a plot to depopulate the world."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/u...ner-pushes-the-boundary-of-the-far-right.html

 

[Sunni Man]

The Republican party is the only hope for sanity left in the nation. ......

 

[Seawytch]

[TEXT: Confessions of a Republican]

REPUBLICAN: I don't know just why they wanted to call this a confession; I certainly don't feel guilty about being a Republican. I've always been a Republican. My father is, his father was, the whole family is a Republican family. I voted for Dwight Eisenhower the first time I ever voted; I voted for Nixon the last time. But when we come to Senator Goldwater, now it seems to me we're up against a very different kind of a man. This man scares me.

Now maybe I'm wrong. A friend of mine just said to me, "Listen, just because a man sounds a little irresponsible during a campaign doesn't mean he's going to act irresponsibly." You know that theory, that the White House makes the man. I don't buy that. You know what I think makes a President - I mean, aside from his judgement, his experience - are the men behind him, his advisors, the cabinet. And so many men with strange ideas are working for Goldwater. You hear a lot about what these guys are against - they seem to be against just about everything - but what are they for? (Sound just like today's GOP)

The hardest thing for me about this whole campaign is to sort out one Goldwater statement from another. A reporter will go to Senator Goldwater and he'll say, "Senator, on such and such a day, you said, and I quote, 'blah blah blah' whatever it is, end quote." And then Goldwater says, "Well, I wouldn't put it that way." I can't follow that. Was he serious when he did put it that way? Is he serious when he says I wouldn't put it that way? I just don't get it. A President ought to mean what he says. (Hmmmm, Trump's got a slightly different style of ducking questions, but still eerily similar)

President Johnson, Johnson at least is talking about facts. He says, "Look, we've got the tax cut bill and because of that you get to carry home X number of dollars more every payday. We've got the nuclear test ban and because of that there is X percent less radioactivity in the food." But, but Goldwater, often, I can't figure out just what Goldwater means by the things he says. I read now where he says, "A craven fear of death is sweeping across America. What is that supposed to mean? If he means that people don't want to fight a nuclear war, he's right. I don't. When I read some of these things that Goldwater says about total victory, I get a little worried, you know? I wish I was as sure that Goldwater is as against war as I am that he's against some of these other things. I wish I could believe that he has the imagination to be able to just shut his eyes and picture what this country would look like after a nuclear war.

Sometimes, I wish I'd been at that convention at San Francisco. I mean, I wish I'd been a delegate, I really do. I would have fought, you know. I wouldn't have worried so much about party unity because if you unite behind a man you don't believe in, it's a lie. I tell you, those people who got control of that convention: Who are they? I mean, when the head of the Ku Klux Klan, when all these weird groups come out in favor of the candidate of my party — either they're not Republicans or I'm not. (And there are those Trump similarities again)

I've thought about just not voting at this election, just staying home — but you can't do that, that's saying you don't care who wins, and I do care. I think my party made a bad mistake in San Francisco, and I'm going to have to vote against that mistake on the third of November. (Just like a lot of Republicans will be voting against Trump should he end up being the GOP nominee)

 

[Iceweasel]

The left wing is starting to sweat bullets. I LOVE it! Trotting out LBJ?

LOL

 

[Sunni Man]

Trump scares the bejesus out of the liberals / Democrats...... ..

 

[konradv]

The Republican party is the only hope for sanity left in the nation.

Why? Because they'll rid us of the Muslim scourge?

 

[Seawytch]

Trump scares the bejesus out of the liberals / Democrats...... ..

The idea of a Trump presidency scares the bejesus out of everyone who is not a Trump "supporter".

Of course, I'm secure in the knowledge that Trump will never be President...but I'm thrilled at the prospect that he might be the GOP nominee.

 

[rdean]

The Republican party is the only hope for sanity left in the nation. ......

Really? What did they do under Bush Jr. that was so good for the country? They are running on the same exact policies?

 

[Seawytch]

So Goldwater scared moderate Republicans way back when...but today's GOP would consider many of his policy positions to be "liberal".

 

[Sunni Man]

Hope & Change has been 7+ years of dismal failure.

Trump represents a seismic change from the establishment politicians of both parties.

He is a populist and a nationalist.......just what the country needs. .......

 

[Sunni Man]

The Republican party is the only hope for sanity left in the nation. ......

Really? What did they do under Bush Jr. that was so good for the country? They are running on the same exact policies?

Actually, Obama has just been a continuation of Bush's failed policies.

That is why the voters are excited about Trump......because he represents a departure from the establishment mindset of both parties. ......

 

[bullwinkle]

[TEXT: Confessions of a Republican]

REPUBLICAN: I don't know just why they wanted to call this a confession; I certainly don't feel guilty about being a Republican. I've always been a Republican. My father is, his father was, the whole family is a Republican family. I voted for Dwight Eisenhower the first time I ever voted; I voted for Nixon the last time. But when we come to Senator Goldwater, now it seems to me we're up against a very different kind of a man. This man scares me.

Now maybe I'm wrong. A friend of mine just said to me, "Listen, just because a man sounds a little irresponsible during a campaign doesn't mean he's going to act irresponsibly." You know that theory, that the White House makes the man. I don't buy that. You know what I think makes a President - I mean, aside from his judgement, his experience - are the men behind him, his advisors, the cabinet. And so many men with strange ideas are working for Goldwater. You hear a lot about what these guys are against - they seem to be against just about everything - but what are they for? (Sound just like today's GOP)

The hardest thing for me about this whole campaign is to sort out one Goldwater statement from another. A reporter will go to Senator Goldwater and he'll say, "Senator, on such and such a day, you said, and I quote, 'blah blah blah' whatever it is, end quote." And then Goldwater says, "Well, I wouldn't put it that way." I can't follow that. Was he serious when he did put it that way? Is he serious when he says I wouldn't put it that way? I just don't get it. A President ought to mean what he says. (Hmmmm, Trump's got a slightly different style of ducking questions, but still eerily similar)

President Johnson, Johnson at least is talking about facts. He says, "Look, we've got the tax cut bill and because of that you get to carry home X number of dollars more every payday. We've got the nuclear test ban and because of that there is X percent less radioactivity in the food." But, but Goldwater, often, I can't figure out just what Goldwater means by the things he says. I read now where he says, "A craven fear of death is sweeping across America. What is that supposed to mean? If he means that people don't want to fight a nuclear war, he's right. I don't. When I read some of these things that Goldwater says about total victory, I get a little worried, you know? I wish I was as sure that Goldwater is as against war as I am that he's against some of these other things. I wish I could believe that he has the imagination to be able to just shut his eyes and picture what this country would look like after a nuclear war.

Sometimes, I wish I'd been at that convention at San Francisco. I mean, I wish I'd been a delegate, I really do. I would have fought, you know. I wouldn't have worried so much about party unity because if you unite behind a man you don't believe in, it's a lie. I tell you, those people who got control of that convention: Who are they? I mean, when the head of the Ku Klux Klan, when all these weird groups come out in favor of the candidate of my party — either they're not Republicans or I'm not. (And there are those Trump similarities again)

I've thought about just not voting at this election, just staying home — but you can't do that, that's saying you don't care who wins, and I do care. I think my party made a bad mistake in San Francisco, and I'm going to have to vote against that mistake on the third of November. (Just like a lot of Republicans will be voting against Trump should he end up being the GOP nominee)

I was a Johnson supporter (and Viet Nam supporter) who changed to anti-war after Tonkin, after newspeople I admired (Cronkite) and Republicans I admired (Romney, G) blew away all the fallacies of our mission there. Years later, I also intensely disliked the Swiftboaters, but that's another story. Anyway, I appreciate that this man explained his view without touching on anything personal about Goldwater, who BTW turned out to be a good man and a good citizen. He was right about some issues at the time. I am sorry those days are gone, and even sorrier that they are beyond the memory of many of today's protesters. OTOH, the Chicago 7 also helped give rise to todays atmosphere of agitation, so it was an era of death and rebirth of protest in America.

Seawytch, if you want a comparison, read about the rise of the 3rd Reich, about the effort to "make Germany Great again", complaints of how government let them down, scapegoating, dealing with protesters, the Enabling Act. Notice if any other candidate today has protester problems like the Trump. I've watched Hillary and Sanders and Cruz face protestors, and saw Bill Clinton almost begging one woman, who was walking out after accusing him of lying, to return and listen to his response to her challenge. So far I have seen none of this Trump-type disruptive protest elsewhere. Have you?

CBS reporter arrested at Trump rally: 'I've never seen anything like what I'm witnessing'