One of the themes I have seen developing in this GOP primary season is a greater "purity" than in past elections. The Mittster's hard swing to the right, Newt reinventing himself...again, Rick "eewww, don't Google that" Santorum blatant play to the evangelicals. Another theme has been the "ascension" of Saint Ronnie to demigod status. If an alien were to listen to the candidates alone, you would almost believe that Ronald Reagan were the only Republican president of recent memory. Now, if you're 18 you may just barely remember the Clinton years, but being of an older vintage (Douglas Adams answer...and if you get the age from that, congrats you get to wear the geek cap for the day.) I know that Republican presidents have outnumbered Democratic presidents 5 to 3 in the last 40 years.
One of my main thesis this political season has been that no Republican president of the Twentieth Century (including Ronald "Trees" Reagan) would have survived the primary process of today's GOP. So, I decided to take a look. Originally, I was not going to include any Republican president prior to 1901, due to the swapping of political identification that appears to have started with Theodore Roosevelt, but to provide some context, I did go back to the first president of the Grand "Old" Party. Jump over the intaglio for some of my thoughts on this.
When I say that there was a "swap" of political identity in the early 20th century, I mean that, in the late 19th century, Republicans were the party that most Kossacks would identify with, mostly a progressive, reformist, party. To be fair, especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Democratic presidents would not have survived our parties process today, but we evolved to our current position earlier. Today, however we are examining the RINO heritage of the opposition and their reluctance to claim their parties heritage. We start with the very first president to take the Republican mantle:
Abraham Lincoln: Did not support the idea that state's right's superseded the federal government's authority. Did not believe and in fact warned against the idea of popular sovereignty (as it applied to slavery) as immoral. Popular sovereignty is the philosophy that the legitimacy of the state derives from the consent of the governed.
Andrew Johnson is generally considered a Republican President, however he was elected Vice President with Lincoln, under the National Union Party ticket and for most of his career caucused with the Democratic Party.
Ulysses S. Grant: "Wars of extermination... are demoralizing and wicked," in discussing campaigns against the Native American population. Grant also greatly increased Federal intervention in securing African American voting and citizenship rights, over the protests of the newly readmitted Southern states.
Rutherford B. Hayes: Hayes vetoed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1879, a bill designed to curb immigration from what was then the country with the greatest influx of immigrants to the West. He believed that treaties should not be unilaterally abrogated without negotiation between the states party to the treaty. Hayes also formed a commission regarding the Ponca tribes dispute with Federal treatment. Hayes stated in a message to Congress that he would "give to these injured people that measure of redress which is required alike by justice and by humanity."
James Garfield: Due to the limited nature of his presidency (Garfield was assassinated after 200 days in office) it is somewhat difficult to fully judge, however one item does stand out as instantly disqualifying him from today's Republican Party. Garfield was concerned that the erosion of African American rights in the South and illiteracy among that group would lead to a permanent underclass, his answer was a universal education system funded by the Federal government. This did not come in front of Congress during his short tenure. He survived the assassin's bullet for eighty days, battling severe infection from an abdominal wound, but his only official act during this period was signing an extradition paper.
Chester A. Arthur: One thing to understand is, prior to an income tax, the federal budget was funded primarily from two income streams. One was tariffs, the other was excise (sin) taxes. After the US Civil War ended, emergency taxes levied during the course of the war were not immediately ended. This led to a budget surplus, when Garfield was assassinated, of 145 million dollars. Republicans of the day felt that reduction of tariffs would endanger living wages in the manufacturing industry, and preferred a series of excise tax cuts and increased spending on internal improvements. He also initially vetoed a bill suspending Chinese immigration (which had a twenty year suspension), but later signed a similar bill that reduced the suspension of immigration to ten years. Another quick note, to those who remember the storm of controversy when President Obama criticized the Citizens United ruling, saying the state of the Union was not the appropriate venue. President Arthur, in a message to Congress, also criticized the Supreme Court in it's 1883 ruling striking down the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
Benjamin Harrison: Enacted the Sherman Antitrust Act and the McKinley Tariff. The Sherman Act is today still the foundation of most antitrust litigation, providing the basis for rulings on whether a corporation is a monopoly or engages in market manipulation or price-fixing. The McKinley Tariff, a protectionist tactic, raised the average duty on imported goods to 50%. He also campaigned for, and was unsuccessful with, federal education funding and protecting the voting rights of African Americans.
William McKinley: Oddly, three of the four Presidents to be assassinated (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley) were Republicans. Kennedy, obviously the exception here and the only President to be assassinated while under the protection of the Secret Service. For the most part he may have been palatable to the Republican Party of today, were it not for his views on civil rights. While he did not try to reverse the Jim Crow laws of the southern States, he did oppose them. He appointed African Americans to federal positions in the south and made several speeches that made equality and justice not just a matter of law, but a birthright. McKinley made certain that African Americans served in the Spanish-American War and even countermanded orders of the Army preventing recruitment of African-Americans.
Theodore Roosevelt: TR happens to be a personal hero of mine, largely having to do with his overcoming a sickly childhood to lead such an amazing life as he had. The first act of his presidency was an address to Congress asking them to curb the power of large corporations. He passed the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act. He formed a commission to investigate claims behind strikes by the United Mine Workers, the results of the commissions work led to higher wages and fewer hours. Do I have disagreements with some of his philosophy? Yes, but oddly enough it is in an area that Rick Santorum would also agree with me. It is in the area of eugenics. In 1914 he said "I wish very much that the wrong people could be prevented entirely from breeding; and when the evil nature of these people is sufficiently flagrant, this should be done. Criminals should be sterilized and feeble-minded persons forbidden to leave offspring behind them."
William Howard Taft:Two things disqualify William Taft immediately from consideration. First, was his initiation of corporate income taxes, which were initially set at 1% of net profits over 5000$ in limited liability corporations. Second, was his advocacy for the Sixteenth Amendment, the amendment that established income taxes. Just a historical note on this amendment for any trolls out there, the 16th amendment passed the US. House 318 Aye 14 Nay and passed unanimously in the Senate. President Taft also supported free immigration.
Warren G. Harding: The first of the "conservative" Republican presidents, his inaugural address included the line, "Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much from the government and at the same time do too little for it." However, he also released Socialist candidate Eugene Debs from prison and granted general amnesty to 23 alleged socialists and anarchists active in the Red Scare of 1919-1920. He signed the Sheppard-Towney Maternity Act, which funded child and health center throughout the US. It required doctors to provide care to pregnant women and provide preventive services to healthy children. This act is considered to be the trailblazer for some of FDR's New Deal social programs that came later.
Calvin Coolidge: "Silent Cal", "The Accidental President"(Coolidge succeeded to the presidency after the unexpected death of Warren Harding in 1923, Coolidge was expected to be replaced on the ticket for the election of 1924) Again, he may have been palatable to today's Republican party, were it not for his views on civil rights. In fact, the decreased regulation of his presidency, might even make him the first "supply-side" president. However, his laissez-faire approach to government on the federal level, was not seen in his service as Governor of Massachusetts, where he supported wages and hours legislation, opposed child labor, imposed economic controls during World War I, favored safety measures in factories, and even worker representation on corporate boards. So, it would be doubtful that as a candidate, coming from that record, he would have been acceptable to a Grover Norquist today.
Herbert Hoover: Hoover denounced lasseiz-faire capitalism, believing instead in increased public-private partnerships. He canceled private oil leases on public lands, he instructed the Justice Department to use tax evasion to pursue, admittedly gangsters. He oversaw a commission that set aside more than 5 million acres as public land. He advocated lowering taxes on low-income Americans, while closing tax loopholes for higher income earners. Hoover was original president to advocate for a federal Department of Education, though not enacted.
Now, we reach a very strange part of American history, for the next generation, due in part to the Great Depression and WWII, the Democratic party held the White House. There are many first time voters in 1952 who could not remember a time when there wasn't a Democrat in the White House.
Admittedly, the Republican domination of the White House in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, broken only by Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland, and Woodrow Wilson, is very close to the same domination, and even exceeds it, in some ways, but I believe the prime driver of that has to do with the South's domination of Democratic politics at the time, and the rest of the country's distrust of the South (not just distaste for their politics) due to the secession and Civil War.
Dwight Eisenhower: First Republican president of the modern era, however, his presidency was still a very progressive one. He also happens to be one of my personal heroes. He shrank defense spending as a way to shrink federal deficits, rather than cut taxes. In fact the top tier tax bracket was 91%, I would love to hear Mitt scream then. He expanded Social Security, launched the Interstate Highway System, sent troops to Little Rock, Arkansas to enforce desegregation orders issued by the federal courts. He forced Israel, the UK and France to end their invasion of Egypt during the Suez Crisis. He spoke against the dangers of the military-industrial complex. And while Truman ordered the desegregation of the armed forces, Eisenhower implemented that order and completed full desegregation in two years. A resume that any president could be proud of, in my humble opinion.
Richard Nixon: Nixon, I can hear you say, the father of the southern strategy? The guy that made even the paranoia of the Teabaggers look sane by comparison? Well, hold on dearies, because Nixon would have been called a Marxist by that group quicker than the current president, if they had an ounce of integrity. Nixon instituted wage and price controls as a means of curbing inflation. He instituted the EPA, and while initially escalating the war in Vietnam, he also ended it. Nixon opened diplomatic and trade relations with China. He also negotiated the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. He also pursued a policy of detente with the USSR.
Gerald Ford: It is somewhat difficult to make a judgement for a president who was not just never elected to the position, but also had not faced an election to serve as the vice president. He barely got the nomination in 1976 in his own party, fending off an attack from the right by Ronald Reagan. My thoughts would be that the initiation of clemency for draft evaders and military deserters would be enough, however, as part of his doomed Whip Inflation Now, gimmicky campaign, he also wished to implement a one-year, five-percent income tax increase on corporations and wealthy individuals. He was an outspoken supporter of ERA, and while he initially supported a constitutional amendment about abortion (making it a matter for each of the states to decide individually), his wife called Roe v Wade a "great, great, decision" and later in life he identified as personally pro-choice.
Ronald Reagan: Saint Ronnie, the only president that modern day Republicans seem willing to acknowledge, other than the Bush Tax Cuts. One quote is all it would take:
"We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are and must remain separate." He also signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which placed the burden of proving immigration status firmly on the business hiring them, the act also granted gasp amnesty to about 3 million illegal immigrants. While he certainly pursued a militaristic approach during his first term, he shifted to a diplomatic approach when Mikhail Gorbachev took power and reverted to a policy of detente. As a policy of "the enemy of your enemy is your friend", he provided material and vocal support to the mujaheddin of Afghanistan, which directly led to both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. We won't even touch the covert arms sales to Iran.
George H. W. Bush:I'm going to end this with Bush Sr., as I am not impartial enough to his son's presidency to be able to make a sound judgement, and I will use the elder Bush's words for this alone "Read my lips, no new taxes"
This exercise is not to say all of these presidents were as progressive as those of us here. Nor is it a blanket endorsement of their policies. It is honestly to show the starkness of how extremely right wing the opposition has become. If they continue to insist on their ideological purity they will end up, to quote one of their heroes "on the ash-heap of history."