Food for thought on Nixon and the GOP

You say conservatives run the GOP?

Think again.

At least that’s the case made in this very interesting post by Fabio Rojas over at orgtheory (via Will Wilkinson):

…[I]t is a mistake to view the modern GOP as the party run by free marketers and social conservatives. Instead, these two factions have been subordinated to a third faction – the Nixonites – who endorse a different agenda focusing on foreign interventionism, national security, and increasing executive power.

In other words, the narrative about Goldwater as the guiding light of the post-war GOP is wrong. Nixon, and his allies, have driven the agenda since the late 1940s. Other Republicans (Eisenhower, Goldwater, Reagan) represented factions who, at most, were allowed a seat at the table created by Nixon.

The post makes sense.  If anything, we’ve seen a concerted effort by religious and social conservatives to pull the Republican party further to the right over the past several years (fiscal conservatism strangely stayed out of that struggle apparently), and not much more of a fight for the soul of the party.

Perhaps that needs to change.