#39 William F. Buckley had enough sense to kick out the John Birch Society from National Review. Fellow conservatives followed suit, and the JBS was reduced to the dustbin of Republican/conservative thinking.
In 1980, Reagan said (to a meeting of evangelicals) "I know you can't endorse me, but I endorse you."
Around the same time, Barry Goldwater warned, "Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."
In 1994, the GOP promised a "Contract for America."
In 2011, angry over the passage of the ACA, the "tea party was born." It consisted of Republicans who were concerned about costs, but mostly it was a backlash against a bill that was meant to help Americans.
In 2015, after basking in the Trump's thinly veiled racist attack on Obama's "birth," the MAGA movement was born.
And with it, the acceptance of all that William F. Buckly Jr. rejected, and Goldwater tried to warn against.
The leopard cannot change its spots.
