Democratic Heretics

[Valin]

The Weekly Standard:

 

Would FDR, Truman, JFK, or LBJ be nominated by their party today?

STEVEN F. HAYWARD

7/2/12

 

The never-ending Democratic attempt to resurrect the strategy that destroyed Barry Goldwater in 1964—he’s an extremist, don’t you know—rolls on, with liberals and the media trying to tar the Republican party as an “ideological outlier” in American politics.

 

There are three legs to this rickety barstool of an argument. One is the pseudo-social science findings of Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann that congressional Republican voting records have lurched sharply to the right in recent years (though it is not obvious why this should be bad news). *The second is the populism of the Tea Party, which, to be sure, is a disruptive force in the Republican party much as the anti-Vietnam war movement was a disruptive force in the Democratic party in the late 1960s and 1970s. The wobbliest leg of the triad is the argument, unfortunately abetted by Jeb Bush, that the GOP has become too extreme even for Ronald Reagan.

 

(Snip)

 

Truman’s religious faith has tended to be overlooked by his many biographers. He spoke frequently of the providential mission of the United States, in terms that would find their most distinct echo in Ronald Reagan 30 years later. “God has created us and brought us to our present position of power and strength for some great purpose,” Truman said in a speech in 1951, and that great purpose was defending “the spiritual values—the moral code—against the vast forces of evil that seek to destroy them.” In a 1950 speech, Truman was more direct: “Communism attacks our main basic values, our belief in God, our belief in the dignity of man and the value of human life, our belief in justice and freedom. It attacks the institutions that are based on these values. It attacks our churches, our guarantees of civil liberty, our courts, our democratic form of government.” “To succeed in our quest for righteous-ness,” Truman said elsewhere, “we must, in St. Paul’s luminous phrase, put on the armor of God.”

 

(Snip)

 

*though it is not obvious why this should be bad news