Same as They Ever Were

by Paul Krugman

SAME AS THEY EVER WERE

Rick Perlstein takes on the perception that conservatives have gotten crazier, and argues that they haven’t — they were always like this. It’s an excellent read, and you should go read it.

I’d just like to add a couple of further data points. Rick says, rightly, that Ronald Reagan was very much into crazy conspiracy theories, but learned to hide it. The thing is, it wasn’t just the Bircher stuff: remember, Ronald Reagan warned that Medicare would destroy American freedom:


And as Rick also says, the idea of William F. Buckley as a cuddly, reasonable conservative should make anyone who has looked at the actual record gag. In the “good old days”, National Review was fiercely opposed to equal rights for African-Americans, and hailed Generalissimo Francisco Franco — a brutal dictator, no matter how you try to spin it by saying that the other side was nasty too — as a hero.

All that has happened to conservatism is the moral collapse of “moderate” Republicans, who are now afraid to criticize the extreme wing that has been there all along.