when did Republicans become such cowards and traitors

[samsingh]

I always believed, if nothing else, that republicans leaders were hawks when it came to American power and security. I felt they didn't care what happened to the average American or how many people were killed by guns. However, i thought there was a line at national security and were brave at that point. Boy was i wrong.

When did repug leaders and i would say many of their supporters become cowards and lovers of foreign enemies?

[exboyfil]

1. When did the country become so base?

or was it always that way.

[drray23]

2. They always were.

Trump made it ok for them to be openly so by showing that you can be like that, win elections and break laws with little consequence if your party sticks together.

[Progressive Jones]

3. Its a genetic defect. nt

[Pantagruel]

4. Reagan years ushered

Ideology and preservation of power over honesty and true patriotism.

[unblock]

5. well, in 1980, the helped keep 52 americans kidnapped in iran for partisan political advantage

and they put our troops in further peril by sabotaging peace in vietnam for partisan political advantage in 1968.

so they care very much about national security when it suits them, and not one bit when it doesn't.

[GeorgeGist]

6. When Murdoch convinced them to be.

[CentralMass]

10. This. He made lying their native tongue.

[DFW]

7. The worst of it started around the year 1950, in my opinion

In February of that year, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wisconsin, made his first big attention-getting speech about Communists having penetrated the US government. He was supported by future Trump pal Roy Cohn, and future VP and President Richard Nixon.

One bad turn deserves another.

[gratuitous]

12. Reasonable people disagree

But 1950 is a good focal point for when the Republicans really went nutso, and never recovered. Mao's takeover of China (1949), Truman's announcement that the Soviet Union had the Bomb (1949), McCarthy (February 1950), the invasion of South Korea (June 1950), the arrest of Julius Rosenberg (July 1950) were all hammer blows that broke Republicans' brains. There was no shortage of folks who moved into the psychic break and exploited the fear and anger of conservative, but perhaps none so masterful as J. Edgar Hoover.

[DFW]

13. Hoover became head of the FBI in 1924

But until WWII, he mostly chased gangsters. After the Nazis were gone, and the gangsters traded in their tommy guns for checkbooks, chasing "kommanists" apparently became his full-time obsession along with others. But with Hoover, rather than using it as a stepping stone to further his career like McCarthy and Nixon, he was really obsessed with it. In 1950, what upward career movement was he going to consider, anyway?

Reasonable people often disagree with me. As long as it stays reasonable, I'm cool with that. No one ever awarded me a monopoly on reason.

[jalan48]

8. Reagan. I'll never forget Oliver North being called a hero for breaking the law because he "was

doing it for the good of the country".

[captain queeg]

9. Reagan for sure. Went into overdrive with Bush Jr

[Laelth]

11. Nixon did it, really.

Goldwater was a right-wing loon, but he was honest and honorable. Eisenhower said of Nixon, his Vice President, “I wouldn’t buy a used car from the son-of-a-bitch.”

To my knowledge, Republicans have generally sucked since 1967 (or so), basically all my life.

-Laelth