Lacking any role models but Reagan, conservatives have sought to appropriate John F Kennedy. Bob Rucho notoriously blustered that “JFK could have been the founder and leader of the Tea Party.” One of my Facebook trolls recently echoed him. This is an incredibly annoying meme, and having read more Kennedy biographies than I can count I feel compelled to–once again–go to bat for our thirty-fifth president’s liberalism.
In his book Profiles in Courage, Kennedy testified that “I am proud to call myself a liberal.” This damning quote came in the context of a paean to New Deal principles like public health, public education, and welfare. Yes, welfare. His first-ever campaign sign called for government to provide “more jobs, more housing, more industry.” Activist government was his career-spanning commitment.
Upon declaring for president, Senator Kennedy’s first priority was to shore up his left flank. Rivals like Adlai Stevenson ran as purists and tried to question JFK’s liberal credentials. He would have none of it. In the run-up to the crucial West Virginia primary, Kennedy worked to gain the endorsement of FDR, jr. as well as the famously left-wing United Mine Workers. It paid off, and he sailed into the election on a strong liberal platform.
If not for the Great Society, Kennedy’s New Frontier would be remembered as the golden age of liberal governance. JFK pushed hard for a huge, expensive government entitlement in healthcare–which Reagan denounced as the end of freedom. He raised the minimum wage by 25%–exactly the same percentage-change as President Obama called for. He created affirmative action, that boogeyman of Breitbart nationalists. He increased Social Security benefits by 20% and extended them to five million more seniors. He gave government health benefits to immigrant workers. He toughened environmental enforcement. The tax cut that passed after his assassination gave much more to the poor than to the rich. And did I mention the Equal Pay Act?
In short, JFK would have been on the left wing of today’s Democratic Party. Tea Party conservatives would have hated his guts, as their forebears did. There’s a reason that Tea Party philosopher queen Ayn Rand called Kennedy’s program “fascist” and he reciprocated by referring to the far-right hotbed of Dallas as “nut country.”
From beginning to end, John F. Kennedy was a Massachusetts liberal. Deal with it, Republicans.
Alexander Jones is an original contributor to PoliticsNC.
JFK’s position on taxes and economic was in direct conflict with the liberal wing of his party…and the Goldwater GOP
Very good description of the tax system. Unfortunately.
By today’s standards, Reagan was a moderate Republican, No, maybe not a Rockefeller liberal Republican, but a relatively moderate Republican just the same, again, by present day measures.
Look beyond his unfounded and still unproven supply-side, trickle-down doctrine. Reagan understood the need to provide for a common good, the power of personal interactions within and outside of his political party (he got along famously with Dem Speaker Tip O’Neill), and a requirement to seek compromise in Congress, especially with its loyal opposition, in order to avoid grid-lock and nothing getting done.
Today’s so-called conservatives who rule the GOP would have us believe that Reagan was one of them, a conservative role model. That’s B.S., History and the Reagan track record does not support that view. Today, he would be labeled a RINO by the radicals in his own party. In the same way, the neo-cons would have us believe that JFK was also conservative in outlook and spirit. And that’s B.S., too.
Reagan was a pragmatic movement conservative. While he would indeed have been vilified by the House Freedom Caucus, his signature initiatives were an historic tax cut for the wealthy, sweeping financial deregulation (see Simon Johnson’s “Thirteen Bankers), a military buildup, and stocking the federal bench with dozens of aggressive conservatives (including Scalia). No, he was not as extreme as today’s far right, but the Republican establishment would have been very pleased with him.