Eisenhower Republican--what is it

[Tetrachloride]

serious question.

the term has arisen in some family discussion

[Horse with no Name]

1. A socially progressive and financially conservative Republican.

Very few of them around any more.

[enigmania]

2. That was a type of repub that was

willing to turn a blind eye to excesses of the past and present, and actually do some good work for the people on occasion. Now, the "conservatives" merely flood the zone with BS to rile up the unthinking. I believe this was an unavoidable consequence of the Southern Strategy, welcoming the least among us into their ranks.

[nevergiveup]

3. They were centrist/moderate Republicans

in the 50's, 60's and 70's. Examples would be Jacob Javits and Nelson Rockefeller of New York, William Scranton of Pennsylvania, George Romney of Michigan and Charles Percy senator from Illinois. Today they are few and far between or in other words they are close to being extinct.

[OMGWTF]

4. Eisenhower was the last honest Republican president.

He warned us of the military-industrial complex in his farewell speech. Take a look at the 1956 Republican platform which reads like Bernie Sanders' wish list. Rethuglicans don't even have a platform anymore other than "Whatever Trump said."

[anamnua]

9. Ford was harmless enough

albeit that pardoning Nixon was a blot on his copybook.

[unblock]

5. Snopes has a good discussion of it

Based on a meme of the Republican Party platform in 1956.
Snopes elaborates and clarifies the points in the meme.

But long story short, after the massive Democratic majorities under fdr and the success of "new deal" plans like social security and families rebuilding their lives after wwii, no one opposed the idea of a social safety net, workers' unions, or helping people's lives get better.

[LeftInTX]

12. Yeah...Here:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1956-republican-platform/

[unblock]

14. Thanks. Meant to put that in my post.

Turns out you have to copy *and paste*.

[JT45242]

6. Eisenhower oversaw the building of the interstates and actually use of the GI bill for WW2 vets

He believed that if corporations paid their fair share that all PEOPLE would be better off and could be self sufficient.

He thought that unchecked corporate greed was bad (think like early 1900s Progressive reformers who wanted anti-trust and work safety laws).

The exact opposite of Raygun (emobodied by Gordon Gecko) GREED IS GOOD and trickle down economics.

[FrankBooth]

7. A relic of a bygone era

Before Nixon, Reagan, talk radio, Fox News, News Max, Breitbart, etc...

[RobinA]

8. That's What

sane Republicans used to be called. It's pretty much my entire parents' and grandparents' generations of my family. Unfortunately. most of the ones that remain didn't get the memo that it isn't the '50's anymore and still vote repub because that's what you did.

[LeftInTX]

10. Joe Straus was the last in Texas. Although, he was born in 1959, so no Eisenhower vote from him!

During his career in the state House, Straus was a moderate,[3] "business-friendly, country club Republican"[4] who sometimes clashed with the party's social conservative wing.[3] Toward the end of his five terms as speaker, Straus faced opposition from more conservative factions within the Texas Republican Party, led by Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who regarded Straus as insufficiently conservative,[5][6] and another conservative group that spent millions of dollars in attempts to defeat Straus and allied state legislators in Republican primary elections.[5]

His wife was on the board of Planned Parenthood in the early 90s.

[electric_blue68]

11. Just about Liberal Republicans Mayor John V Lindsey, and Rep Charles Goodell...

the only Republicans I ever worked for; in '69 & '70.

Got the vote in '71.

[Tetrachloride]

13. ty all for the posts

[Kaleva]

15. Ike, Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney, Bill Milliken

and others.

[PufPuf23]

16. Rachel Maddow (circa 2010) self-identified as an Eisenhower Republican in terms of policy.

A lot of people look up to you as a sort of hero of the progressive movement, yet you come from a military family and seem to hold some views that aren't necessarily considered "liberal." Still, many conservatives stapled a scarlet "L" on you years ago and seem to have turned up their "blah-blah-I'm-not-listening" knob so it drowns out anything you might say that they might agree with. What do you make of this quasi-mythological status that's been bestowed on you, and where would you say your views actually hunker down in the political spectrum?

I'm not too much of an expert on what people think about me. It's hard enough to quantify the general perception of anyone—I think it's impossible to do it about yourself. That said, I'm undoubtedly a liberal, which means that I'm in almost total agreement with the Eisenhower-era Republican party platform. Our politics have drifted so far to the right now that, for example, no one believes there is a single, confirmable judicial nominee out there who is as liberal as the Supreme Court Justice he or she will replace—a Republican appointed by a Republican president in the '70s. Justice Stevens didn't become a liberal once he was on the Court—he maintained his moderate Republican-style views, while the Court (and the rest of our national politics) shifted so far to the right that he ended up on the Court's far-left wing, simply by standing still.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140203080207/http://www.valleyadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=11725