Is the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler presently in the White House?
By David in TN
Wednesday, August 8, 2018 at 6:52:00 P.M. EDT
Previously, I have written short reviews of two books by Lionel Lokos, House Divided: The Life and Legacy of Martin Luther King, and The New Racism: Reverse Discrimination in America.
A third book by this rediscovered writer is Hysteria 1964: The Fear Campaign Against Barry Goldwater, published in 1967.
Lokos wrote: "In a period of ten months, Barry Goldwater was accused of being another Adolf Hitler, fomenting a racial holocaust, advocating a nuclear policy that would destroy half the world, seeking to destroy social security, being a lunatic, wrecking the Republican party, trying to subvert labor unions, paving the way for totalitarian government."
Lokos acknowledged Goldwater made tactical mistakes; denounced the War on Poverty in Appalachia, criticized social security in Florid, and attacked the TVA in Tennessee. And using the "extremism in the pursuit of liberty" line in his convention acceptance speech after defending himself from the charge of extremism for months.
Goldwater resembled Donald Trump in thinking out loud, saying too much, and making unforced errors.
Still, Lokos wrote "Admit all these things, but at the same time admit that the campaign against Goldwater reached a fever pitch of verbal barbarism and demagogic savagery unequaled in anything approaching a civilized society."
In July 1964, CBS News Correspondent Daniel Schorr, injected a total lie into the campaign. Schorr "reported" Goldwater was going to start his campaign in Bavaria speaking to a group of right-wing Germans in "Hitler's one-time stomping ground." Shorr added "The American and German right wings are linking up."
Schorr did "retract" it, but in a mealy-mouthed fashion.
Long before anyone spoke of “fake news,” Marxist Daniel Schorr had a perch at CBS News
Lokos gives chapters on reasoned speeches that didn't receive much press attention on:
The Nuclear Issue
The Social Security Issue
The Civil Rights Issue
The California Primary
A Diary of Defamation
A Post-Mortem
The highlight of the campaign was provided by Fact magazine, long out of business but I recall it being on magazine racks. The September issue had psychiatrists (names taken from the AMA) asked whether Barry Goldwater was "psychologically fit to be president of the United States?"
Most of the answers were anonymous. One was quoted: "I believe Goldwater is grossly psychotic." And it went on from there.
Goldwater later won a law suit against Fact magazine.
Lionel Lokos concluded that Goldwater couldn't have won the election, anyway, just a year after the JFK assassination. He felt it was "surprising" Goldwater got 39% of the vote, considering the press and TV hostility. Another factor was the refusal of liberal Republicans to support Goldwater, who had backed THEM previously in various party capacities.
Famous “Daisy” Attack Ad from 1964 Presidential Election
It was like the Never Trump cucks in 2016.
Lokos hit one false note. He shared the belief of many conservatives of the time there was a "silent" conservative vote that doesn't go to the polls, but could be tapped. Our friend Countenance would tell you a candidate counting on the Silent Vote might as well start writing his concession speech.
Speaking of the Daniel Schorr lie, here is a 2010 piece on the subject at the time of Schorr's death, at age 93. The New York Times and Washington Post obits mentioned the story, as if it were true.
Goldwater's liberal biographers Rick Perlstein and Robert Goldberg called the story "false" and a "smear."
5 comments:
1. "using the 'extremism in the pursuit of liberty' line in his convention acceptance speech "
ONLY half of the quotation. The rest goes: "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no vice."
And it is not.
2. YES, they did say that Barry was a dangerous man and willing to use nukes and quite happy to do so. I think they got Barry to merely recite the policy of the USA about using atomic weapons if and when American military men threatened. [will not preclude the use of in such circumstances.
3. Barry also said that minorities [racial] ran this country. He was RIGHT.
4. That commercial with the little girl shown only once but that was all needed.
Ronald Reagan was said to also be fond of the idea of using atomic weapons. Also he slept a lot at cabinet meetings and drooled as well. The man was senile, feeble-minded and not able or fit to be President. Same as they say about Don today. Unfit. Only the voters decide who is unfit.
Let us suppose Trump is "unfit" to be president by the criteria as stated by those in opposition to Don.
If that is so [unfitness], then Clinton, Kennedy, Roosevelt [Franklin], Wilson at least were also unfit. Whatever UNFIT is.
Those psychiatric experts too after Goldwater had made a gentlemen's agreement not to do analysis from afar.
Goldwater himself wrote in his autobio that he knew he wouldn't win in 1964, if for no other reason alone, because Election Day 1964 was not even a full year after the JFK Assassination, and that his election would mean that he would be the third different President in a 15 month time span, and that Americans won't change Presidents that often if they can help it.
What hurt Goldwater way more than any of the slander was his economic libertarianism.
This book review I wrote in August 2018 can be juxtaposed with AOF's post about the Bruce Bawer piece. The Fear Campaign employed in 1964 occurred again in 2020, to, if anything, an even greater degree.
A difference is the public was much more trusting of the major media (as it was then) in 1964 than now. The internet didn't exist in 1964 either.
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