In the 1936 election, one year after President Roosevelt signed the law creating Social Security, his Republican opponent Alf Landon called it a "cruel hoax" and promised to repeal it.
Landon won just two states—and, four years later, Republican nominee Wendell Willkie ran on expanding Social Security. Although congressional Republicans continued guerrilla warfare against the program into the 1950s, the prospect of full-scale repeal sank with Landon.
In 1964, Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater staunchly opposed the creation of Medicare, the health program for the elderly proposed by President Johnson. But after Johnson routed Goldwater and then pushed Medicare through Congress in 1965, opposition collapsed. By 1968, Republican presidential nominee Richard Nixon accepted it as settled law.Meanwhile, today's reactionary Republicans want to do what?
[Rep. Paul "Lyin'"] Ryan's defiant budget—coming immediately after the rush that produced more than 7 million enrollments on the health care exchanges, plus at least another 4 million sign-ups under Medicaid—captured how much momentum the repeal cause retains in the GOP. How far apart are the two sides? Ryan's plan would not only undo the insurance expansions under Obamacare but also impose further sharp cuts on Medicaid, eventually eliminating existing coverage for an additional 15 million to 20 million people. (our emphasis)Brownstein's piece is titled "The Health Care Reform War Without End." For nearly 100 years, the Republican Party has been philosophically opposed to government involvement in ameliorating the lives of the most vulnerable Americans, specifically its providing protections (a "safety net") for those Americans. That long-held view has been further radicalized in the past 30-or-so years by the ascendance of what was once a fringe part of the conservative movement, but is now at its cold, beating heart: far-right libertarianism =cough= Paul Ryan = cough= Rand Paul =cough=. From 1935 to today, every effort to protect the vulnerable, the elderly, the poor, has been met with implacable hostility from reactionary Republicans. It's always helpful to be reminded that every victory is just a battle won in a longer war -- a "War Without End."
BONUS: Nice companion piece by Michael Tomasky on what Republicans are really all about.
