Lisa Couacaud
22 March, 2016
During the fourth Republican debate on 10 November 2015, Donald Trump, the current front-runner for his party’s presidential nomination, invoked former president Dwight D. Eisenhower in support of his proposed immigration plans. Referring to his intentions to deport approximately 11.5 million illegal immigrants Trump said:
Trump was referring to the pejoratively named ‘Operation Wetback’ that in 1954, under the supervision of Eisenhower’s Attorney General Herbert Brownell, targeted Mexican workers who had entered the United States illegally. Estimates for the number deported range anywhere from 250,000 to 1.3 million.[2] In some cases deportation conditions bordered on the inhumane with 88 deportees dying from heat exposure in July 1954. As Conor Lynch later reasoned in Salon it was typical of a modern Republican to select one of Eisenhower’s most “detestable” policies to praise.[3]
Trump’s admission of Eisenhower as a “great president” however would be abhorrent to most Republicans today. Long exiled, the 34th president is still the most consistently popular of all modern presidents. And yet, Eisenhower’s modern Republicanism, which stood for moderate policies and unity of party became, and still is, a derogatory title for many Old Guard Republicans. Eisenhower’s legacy, so completely repudiated by conservative Republicans, raises the question of whether a man of Eisenhower’s political philosophy could capture the Republican nomination now or in the near future.
While the Republican establishment initially dismissed Trump as a plausible candidate, his continuing campaign successes lend credibility to the idea that he will soon be the heir to Abraham Lincoln and Eisenhower. Trump’s attempt to become the most powerful leader in the world is even more confronting when you realise he stands as a “wartime candidate on policies that are, by current legal standards, crimes under the Constitution or the Geneva Conventions.”[4] Donald Trump is not the first demagogic presidential wannabe to eschew the guiding principles of his party. But the current political reality within the United States is such that Trump, “billionaire scion of a New York real-estate dynasty” is a very real chance to become the most unlikely American president.[5]
This paper explores the missing centre within the Republican Party today, the “middle-of-the-road” political position that shaped Eisenhower’s policies and leadership of the party as he sought, and failed, to fashion the Grand Old Party (GOP) into a unified, modern, progressive political party. Charting Eisenhower’s political philosophy, the party’s determined rightward shift following his departure from the White House, and examining Trump’s campaign, this paper asks whether it may now be impossible to rehabilitate Eisenhower to the pantheon of former Republican presidents.
Following the collapse of the Whig Party, a split in the Democratic Party, and the creation of a coalition between numerous splinter groups in 1854, the Republican Party was created as a concerted effort to restrict the further expansion of slavery. The new Republican Party evoked memories of Thomas Jefferson’s original Democratic Republican Party and gave voice to its voters commitment to concepts of political equality, expansive economic opportunity, and a strong ethical foundation.[6]
Internal divisions have, however, existed within the party since its inception. In the 1860s the main debate erupted over the issue of race and what position the party should take regarding African Americans. Those who wanted to win the Civil War but not do much to help freed slaves became known as “Conservatives.”[7] Conservatives, which are today the dominant voice in the party, did not agree with the policies of either Lincoln or Eisenhower who both pursued a more progressive stance that promoted the protection of everyone’s access to the “American Dream.”
As the key military leader associated with the victory of the Second World War and with no publicly declared political allegiance, Eisenhower’s popularity with American voters encouraged both political parties to offer Eisenhower the presidential nomination in 1948 and 1952. He publicly refused any interest in politics in 1948 but by 1952, after twenty years of Democratic leadership and his fears over the increasingly isolationist Republican Party, Eisenhower sought the Republican nomination. This put him in direct competition with the conservative faction of the party who were determined that after two previous failed attempts Senator Robert Taft, “Mr. Republican” himself, would finally secure the party’s nomination.
After a bitter struggle over delegates that hardened conservative opposition Eisenhower won the nomination, beating Taft on the first ballot. While Eisenhower stormed to victory in a landslide win, the party emerged with Congressional control by only the slimmest of margins. During the campaign conservative Republicans had taken Eisenhower’s “vague and honeyed words” and allowed their imaginations to project forward. When Eisenhower neither rolled back Roosevelt’s New Deal nor repudiated the 1945 Yalta agreement that offered compromises in Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union, he raised the ire of conservatives and strengthened their perception of him as simply another “me-too” Democrat.[8] William F. Buckley Jnr., whose National Review launched in 1955 in opposition to Eisenhower, spoke for many conservative Republicans when he claimed that Eisenhower had wholeheartedly accepted “the great statist legacy of the New Deal.”[9]
Eisenhower built his presidency around moderate, middle-of-the-road politics, a stance he had been promoting for years. In 1949, before the American Bar Association he defined the middle as:
But, when it came to fiscal considerations, limited government, and the military Eisenhower was a classic conservative. As Arthur Krock wrote in the New York Times, Eisenhower’s strength as a popular leader stemmed from his “simple virtues of mental and moral integrity, humility, candor and compassion as those words are commonly construed by the American people.” And yet, the qualities that generated such intense public adoration were also a source of his political weakness.[11] Eisenhower could not please conservatives who viewed principle as more important than pragmatic politics, and shunned moderation and compromise.[12] Eisenhower did, however, manage to cool the inflamed partisanship that had dominated the political spectrum since the Depression and he marginalised extremists on both sides of politics.
Eisenhower’s radio and television comments following his successful bid for re-election in 1956 reveal his belief that Americans had embraced modern Republicanism: “Such a vote as that cannot be merely for an individual, it is for principles and ideals…I think that modern Republicanism has now proved itself. And America has approved of modern Republicanism.”[13] The party’s dismal performance at the polls indicated otherwise. The expression also infuriated Taft Republicans who perceived it as implied criticism of their political principles and brought into the open the bitter struggle for power within the party.[14] In 1957 political commentator Stewart Alsop defined modern Republicanism as “solidly based, like the New Deal…on practical political considerations.”[15] To some modern Republicanism, with its refusal to strip Americans of their New Deal inheritances was simply a continuation of Democratic policy. But to roll back the New Deal would have required a bloody revolution. While Eisenhower was decidedly un-revolutionary, conservative Republicans demanded the upheaval.[16]
Eisenhower’s ability to transform the party into an “ideological monolith” may have been improbable. Alsop further argued though that Eisenhower desperately needed to save the heart of his program, “and, in so doing, to place his imprint so indelibly on his party that it will continue to be the party of Eisenhower in the voters’ minds.”[17] But to do so would have required Eisenhower to swap his political “light touch” and wield his vast political power with greater efficacy. Eisenhower’s explicit non-partisanship had created the image that he was a man of the nation, instead of the political party. But by not being of, or in, the party, there could be no Eisenhower Republican Party. There was instead simply Eisenhower; “the enormously popular war hero, sui generis, an insurgent in his own right.”[18] To many Americans in the 1950s Eisenhower was the “peaceful warrior,” driven by his sense of duty to bring the people together.[19] Conservative Republicans were much less favourable, attacking many of his policies during his presidency, and scorning “Modern Republicanism” to such an extent that Eisenhower largely failed to make any long-term impact on the GOP.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, ‘The Future of the Republican Party,’ Saturday Evening Post, 30 January 1965.
Due to his immense personal popularity, Eisenhower’s political appeal crossed all traditional voting lines. With conservative Senator Barry Goldwater’s 1964 campaign a large portion of their voting constituency deserted the Republican Party. In 1956 African-Americans gave Eisenhower, who represented the Party of Lincoln, forty percent of their vote. To Goldwater they gave only six percent.[20] Goldwater’s resounding defeat in 1964 should, or could, have spelled the end of the conservative movement and ushered in a moderate, progressive hegemony within the Republican Party. Eisenhower had been elected on a conservative platform but he had instead delivered “Modern Republicanism.” Goldwater, who made no platform compromises, won the war of ideas but failed to unify moderates behind his leadership. Republicans were back in the White House in 1968, but the Watergate scandal, which dominated politics in the early 1970s overshadowed conservatism’s shift to a more ideological and confrontational position.[21] Enraged by the Democratic use of government power to support equal rights for African Americans, women, and homosexuals, and the failure of liberal economic policies, conservatives awaited a saviour. Ronald Reagan’s 1980 election marked the complete surrender of the centre to the Right.[22]
The 1980 election signified the extent of change within the party since Eisenhower’s presidency. The white South, once a bastion for Democratic loyalties shifted its allegiance towards the Republicans. Centrists or “Republicans in Name Only” (RINOs) have essentially been purged from the party, and those who remain have been compelled to observe the ideology and programmatic demands of the right.[23] Yet, with Mitt Romney’s 2012 defeat, Democrats have won four of the previous six presidential elections.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, ‘The Future of the Republican Party,’ Saturday Evening Post, 30 January 1965.
Peace and prosperity were the hallmarks of the 1950s. Eisenhower’s personality and legislative programs harmonised perfectly with the attitudes of much of that section of American society that thought of itself as middle class.[24] The values that Eisenhower represented: caution, conciliation, fiscal conservatism, respect for the nation’s foundational myths and bipartisan accord, today seem to lack importance within either political party, or in American culture as a whole.[25] The angriest and most pessimistic Americans are, as Geoffrey Kabaservice contends “the people we used to call Middle Americans. Middle-class and middle-aged; not rich and not poor; people who are irked when asked to press 1 for English, and who wonder how white male became an accusation rather than a description.”[26] It is not that traditional Republican platforms of sound economy, low taxes and business enterprise, have lost their appeal. Rather, the United States is confronting complex challenges to do with globalisation and the concurrent loss of blue-collar jobs, exploding costs of living and stagnant wages, for which the conservative Republican Party is seen, only sometimes unfairly, as judgmental and backward.[27]
Conservative Republican activists may have triumphed in their quest for ideological domination of the party, but conservatism’s hold on power is not total and at the national level the party suffers a fundamental weakness: it is deeply divided into hostile camps that are so ideologically opposed as to make common ground and compromise appear virtually impossible. In the midst of this political fratricide, Republican leaders have all but dismissed the needs of the rank-and-file Republicans. While the worst of the 2008 global financial crisis has passed, economic anxieties still weigh heavily on many Americans. The Republican Party has long been considered the party of big business, but today, millions of traditional Republican voters are using the 2016 election to provide the GOP with a painful re-education: “what’s good for Wall Street isn’t always good for Main Street.”[28] The “silent majority” are demanding to be heard.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, ‘The Future of the Republican Party,’ Saturday Evening Post, 30 January 1965.
Trump’s “cult-of-personality” candidacy comes at a time when the GOP leadership and the agenda of its conservative activists has veered perilously close to the extreme Right.[29] Trump’s greatest political asset is his ability to read people and understand what they want. And what they want is someone to mirror their fury at the broken promise of the ascendant United States they have been promised. To echo their anger, the United States is witnessing a meanness not seen from a politician for many years. “This time, it’s not about nice,” as Trump likes to say. “We have to be mean now.”[30] There is a growing influence of non-ideological, populist voters that are heeding the message that Trump is preaching. According to Trump the majority of Americans are war-weary, alienated by the political establishment, filled with anxiety and as such, will heed his call. The rallying cry within his campaign is to “Make America Great Again” and revolves around his ability to restore the nation’s confidence, returning the United States to a less complex, less politically correct and more secure nation. Yet, when Americans were perceived to be living the “American Dream” they sought for their president a man of peace, a man who unified not divided, and a man who reassured and calmed their fears rather than inflaming them. In short, they elected Eisenhower.
In early February 2016, a Trump enthusiast remarked of his support for the candidate: “We’re voting with our middle finger.”[31] The Republican establishment would like to see Trump’s campaign, which has developed into a “one-many chaos theory at the center of a primary campaign in disarray” written off as a simple aberration, or temporary voter madness.[32] But Trump has intuited something that greatly reduces this likelihood. Trump understands that the United States is an anxious and angry nation and he plays expertly to those fears. Understanding Trump’s appeal becomes simpler when you consider David Brooks’ argument that “(s)ocial inequality is always felt more acutely than economic inequality. [And] Trump rose up on behalf of people who felt looked down upon, made them feel vindicated and turned social conduct on its head.”[33] Primary season is often “silly season” in American politics, vulnerable to phenomena such as “The Donald.” Yet, the 2016 Republican race for the presidential nomination has found the GOP mired in an unusually severe level of ridiculousness, and witness to an elevated level of fear mongering by the party’s front-runner for the nomination.[34]
Trump’s approach to politics cannot be defined as classical conservatism, which stresses prudence, proportion and respect for institutions. Instead, Trump has captured the “political philosophy of the middle finger…[which] assumes that practices we know are wrong in our private lives – contempt, mockery, cruelty, prejudice – are somehow justified in our political lives.”[35] Lacking a coherent ideology, it is Trump’s representation of their populist rage: “the bricolage of emotions and prejudices; the stream-of-consciousness orations; the gleeful tangling with hostile journalists and protesters; aggressive candor,” that has garnered voter support.[36] Inappropriately appealing to emotion and prejudice to gain political power Trump, like Joseph McCarthy and George Wallace before him, is a master of the public spectacle, terrifying and delighting in almost equal measure. More importantly, he is putting significant pressure on the idea of American national identity.[37] Trump advocates for economic nationalism that favours protectionism, and a “strongman” attitude to foreign policy that defies decades of Republican platforms and policies.[38]
The Republican Party has been almost as reticent to embrace Ted Cruz’s candidacy as they have Trump’s. While Trump has no real coherent political principles, Cruz’s association with the Tea Party has drawn parallels with Barry Goldwater, who in 1964 suffered one of their worst political defeats in American history. Trump is less conservative than Cruz but together they are turning the Republican Party into a “rage-filled movement, as the duelling demagogues chew up opponents and each other.”[39] Both men have taken a foreign policy stance diametrically opposed to Eisenhower’s. While Eisenhower engaged in plenty of Cold War rhetoric, aspirations for peace and mutual cooperation were the hallmarks of Eisenhower’s presidency. Trump and Cruz however, both seem to view their militaristic bombast as a positive attribute.
According to Scott McConnell, there are plenty of signs that Trump “aspires to be a sort of Eisenhower for his time.” Pledging the restoration of a stable, prosperous United States, by focusing his campaign on Middle America Trump is evoking the nostalgic image of the Eisenhower era.[40] But while Eisenhower sought to maintain the United States’ greatness, his ideal nation was one that rested on the foundational narratives of the Founding Fathers. Trump’s on the other hand could lead us into the next World War. To imagine then the rehabilitation of Eisenhower back into the Republican lexicon would be to see just convulsive it would be.[41]
Dwight D. Eisenhower, ‘The Future of the Republican Party,’ Saturday Evening Post, 30 January 1965.
There should be no doubt however that it is past time for the Republican Party to rehabilitate the image of the 34th president. Eisenhower himself understood that the intra-party conflict between conservative and moderate factions posed serious problems for the future of the party. For Eisenhower much of the factional conflict stemmed his conviction that many within the party had forgotten their common dedication to the party’s principles.[42] Today, with the long-term estrangement of the conservative intellectual movement from their most popular president, the question remains whether, given the primacy of conservatism within the establishment and the current political spectacle of the 2016 Republican primaries, rehabilitation is possible. Trump did not produce the rift within the party but he exposed and exploited the very serious disconnect between the establishment and its rank-and-file members. The Grand Old Party faces an uncertain future and regardless of whether “Trump-mania” recedes they confront a pivotal moment within the history of their party.[43] The tragedy would be if, in the midst of all that anger, Republicans turned so completely away from their party’s historical legacy as to make a return all but impossible.
‘Text of General Eisenhower’s Address before Bar Association’, New York Times, 06 September 1949, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, p. 17.
Alsop, Stewart, ‘Just What Is Modern Republicanism?’, Saturday Evening Post, 230/4, 1957, pp. 18-19, 88-90.
Boot, Max, ‘Is a New Republican Foreign Policy Emerging’, Commentary, 2016, pp. 11-17.
Brooks, David, ‘Donald Trump Isn’t Real’, The New York Times, 02 February 2016.
Crable, Richard E., ‘Ike: Identification, Argument, and Paradoxical Appeal’, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 63/2, 1977, pp. 188-96.
Dochuk, Darren, ‘The Fissuring of the Republican Party: A Road Map to Political Chaos’, New Labor Forum, 25/1, 2016, pp. 26-33.
Eisenhower, Dwight D., ‘The Future of the Republican Party’, Saturday Evening Post, 30 January 1965, f5h, p. 21-5.
Eisenhower, Dwight D., ‘Radio and Television Remarks Following Election Victory’, in (eds.) Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.
Frank, Jeffrey, ‘Rand Paul and the Eisenhower Dream’, New Yorker, 2014.
Fraser, Steve and Freeman, Joshua B., ‘Only Yesterday: The Strange Odyssey of the Republican Party’, New Labor Forum, 22/1, 2013, pp. 94-7.
Frum, David, ‘The Great Republican Revolt’, The Atlantic, 2016.
Gabriel, Trip, ‘The More Trump Defies His Party, the More His Supporters Cheer’, The New York Times, 17 February 2016.
Gerson, Michael, ‘Donald Trump and the Politics of the Middle Finger’, The Washington Post, 18 February 2016.
Gerson, Michael and Wehner, Peter, ‘How to Save the Republican Party’, Commentary, 2013, pp. 13-20.
Gould, Lewis L., Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans, Random House, New York, 2003.
Hernández, Kelly Lytle, ‘The Crimes and Consequences of Illegal Immigration: A Cross-Border Examination of Operation Wetback, 1943 to 1954’, Western Historical Quarterly, 37/4, 2006, pp. 421-44.
Kabaservice, Geoffrey M., ‘Why Won’t the Gop Stick up for Dwight Eisenhower?’, New Republic, 2012.
Krock, Arthur, ‘Impressions of the President–and the Man’, New York Times, 23 June 1957, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times with Index, p. 187.
Lavine, Harold, ‘The Decline of the Republican Party: Eisenhower Has Failed to Rebuild the Machine’, Commentary, 1958.
Leibovich, Mark, ‘Donald Trump Is Not Going Anywhere’, The New York Times Magazine, 2015.
Lynch, Conor, ‘The Gop’s Eisenhower Charade: Why Ike Wouldn’t Have Liked Modern Republicans’, Salon, 2015.
McConnell, Scott, ‘Donald Trump Is More Like Ike Than George W. Bush’, The American Conservative, 2016.
Montgomerie, Tim, ‘Lashing out in All Directions: Trump Denounces Muslims, Mexicans…And Millionaires’, The Spectator, 2016, pp. 15.
Nash, George H., The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945 [online text], ISI Books, 2006. <http://ezproxy.deakin.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat00097a&AN=deakin.b3211457&site=eds-live&scope=site
http://ezproxy.deakin.edu.au/login?url=http://site.ebrary.com/lib/deakin/Doc?id=10852778>.
Raab, Scott, ‘The Esq&A: Donald Trump’, Esquire, 2016, pp. 18-21.
Reinhard, David W., ‘Stick with Ike’, The Republican Right Since 1945, University Press of Kentucky, Kentucky.
Scherer, Michael, ‘Donald Trump: He Blew Open the Republican Presidential Primary – and the Republican Party’, Time, 2015, pp. 104-14.
Tanenhaus, Sam, ‘Donald Trump and the Hidden History of the Gop’, The Progressive, 2016, pp. 33-6.
Tanenhaus, Sam, ‘The Gop or Goldwater’s Old Party’, The New Republic, 2001, pp. 33-42.
Williamson, Kevin D., ‘Why Like Ike: Conservatives Got Eisenhower Wrong the First Time Around’, National Review, 2013, pp. 24-8.
[1] http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/11/11/media-slam-trump-for-invoking-a-deadly-unabashe/206792
[2] For further information on the ‘Operation Wetback’ program and its origins, see Kelly Lytle Hernández, ‘The Crimes and Consequences of Illegal Immigration: A Cross-Border Examination of Operation Wetback, 1943 to 1954’, Western Historical Quarterly, 37/4, 2006, pp.421-44.
[3] Conor Lynch, ‘The Gop’s Eisenhower Charade: Why Ike Wouldn’t Have Liked Modern Republicans’, Salon, 2015,
[4] Scott Raab, ‘The Esq&A: Donald Trump’, Esquire, 2016, p.18.
[5] Max Boot, ‘Is a New Republican Foreign Policy Emerging’, Commentary, 2016, pp.16-17.
[6] Lewis L. Gould, Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans, Random House, New York, 2003, p.14.
[7] Ibid., pp.34-5.
[8] David W. Reinhard, ‘Stick with Ike’, The Republican Right Since 1945, University Press of Kentucky, Kentucky. pp.121-2.
[9] William F. Buckley Jnr., as quoted in George H. Nash, ‘The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945’, ISI Books, Wilmington. p.395.
[10] ‘Text of General Eisenhower’s Address before Bar Association’, New York Times, 06 September 1949, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, p. 17.
[11] Arthur Krock, ‘Impressions of the President–and the Man’, ibid.23 June 1957, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times with Index, p. 187.
[12] George H. Nash, ‘The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945’. p.397.
[13] Dwight D. Eisenhower, ‘Radio and Television Remarks Following Election Victory’, in (eds.) Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.
[14] Harold Lavine, ‘The Decline of the Republican Party: Eisenhower Has Failed to Rebuild the Machine’, Commentary, 1958,
[15] Stewart Alsop, ‘Just What Is Modern Republicanism?’, Saturday Evening Post, 230/4, 1957,, p.88.
[16] Ibid., p.88.
[17] Ibid., p.90.
[18] Lewis L. Gould, Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans, p.334.
[19] Richard E. Crable, ‘Ike: Identification, Argument, and Paradoxical Appeal’, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 63/2, 1977, p.192.
[20] The trend continued with Ronald Regan who won the election with less than ten percent of the black vote. Jeffrey Frank, ‘Rand Paul and the Eisenhower Dream’, New Yorker, 2014,
[21] Lewis L. Gould, Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans,, p.395.
[22] Sam Tanenhaus, ‘The Gop or Goldwater’s Old Party’, The New Republic, 2001,, p.40.
[23] Steve Fraser and Joshua B. Freeman, ‘Only Yesterday: The Strange Odyssey of the Republican Party’, New Labor Forum, 22/1, 2013, p.94.
[24] Kevin D. Williamson, ‘Why Like Ike: Conservatives Got Eisenhower Wrong the First Time Around’, National Review, 2013, p.28.
[25] Geoffrey M. Kabaservice, ‘Why Won’t the Gop Stick up for Dwight Eisenhower?’, New Republic, 2012,
[26] David Frum, ‘The Great Republican Revolt’, The Atlantic, 2016,
[27] Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner, ‘How to Save the Republican Party’, Commentary, 2013, p.14.
[28] Tim Montgomerie, ‘Lashing out in All Directions: Trump Denounces Muslims, Mexicans…And Millionaires’, The Spectator, 2016,, p.15.
[29] Sam Tanenhaus, ‘Donald Trump and the Hidden History of the Gop’, The Progressive, 2016,, p.35.
[30] As quoted by Michael Scherer, ‘Donald Trump: He Blew Open the Republican Presidential Primary – and the Republican Party’, Time, 2015,, p.110.
[31] As quoted in Michael Gerson, ‘Donald Trump and the Politics of the Middle Finger’, The Washington Post, 18 February 2016,
[32] Mark Leibovich, ‘Donald Trump Is Not Going Anywhere’, The New York Times Magazine, 2015,
[33] David Brooks, ‘Donald Trump Isn’t Real’, The New York Times, 02 February 2016,
[34] Darren Dochuk, ‘The Fissuring of the Republican Party: A Road Map to Political Chaos’, New Labor Forum, 25/1, 2016, p.27.
[35] Michael Gerson, ‘Donald Trump and the Politics of the Middle Finger’,
[36] Sam Tanenhaus, ‘Donald Trump and the Hidden History of the Gop’, p.34.
[37] Michael Scherer, ‘Donald Trump: He Blew Open the Republican Presidential Primary – and the Republican Party’, p.108.
[38] Trip Gabriel, ‘The More Trump Defies His Party, the More His Supporters Cheer’, The New York Times, 17 February 2016,
[39] Michael Gerson, ‘Donald Trump and the Politics of the Middle Finger’,
[40] Scott Mcconnell, ‘Donald Trump Is More Like Ike Than George W. Bush’, The American Conservative, 2016,
[41] David Frum, ‘The Great Republican Revolt’,
[42] Dwight D. Eisenhower, ‘The Future of the Republican Party’, Saturday Evening Post, 30 January 1965, f5h, p. 21-5., p.22.
[43] Darren Dochuk, ‘The Fissuring of the Republican Party: A Road Map to Political Chaos’, p.28.
22 March, 2016
“Here is the challenge, perhaps the greatest the Republican Party has faced since the Civil War: Can we Republicans put aside our differences and agree on a plan for increasing the strength and influence of our Party?”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, ‘The Future of the Republican Party,’ Saturday Evening Post, 30 January 1965.
During the fourth Republican debate on 10 November 2015, Donald Trump, the current front-runner for his party’s presidential nomination, invoked former president Dwight D. Eisenhower in support of his proposed immigration plans. Referring to his intentions to deport approximately 11.5 million illegal immigrants Trump said:
“Let me just tell you that Dwight Eisenhower — good president, great president, people liked him. I like Ike, right? The expression: I like Ike. — moved a million and a half illegal immigrants out of this country, moved them just beyond the border. They came back. Moved them again, beyond the border, they came back. Didn’t like it. Moved them way south, they never came back. Dwight Eisenhower. You don’t get nicer, you don’t get friendlier. They moved a million and a half people out. We have no choice. We have no choice.”[1]
Trump was referring to the pejoratively named ‘Operation Wetback’ that in 1954, under the supervision of Eisenhower’s Attorney General Herbert Brownell, targeted Mexican workers who had entered the United States illegally. Estimates for the number deported range anywhere from 250,000 to 1.3 million.[2] In some cases deportation conditions bordered on the inhumane with 88 deportees dying from heat exposure in July 1954. As Conor Lynch later reasoned in Salon it was typical of a modern Republican to select one of Eisenhower’s most “detestable” policies to praise.[3]
Trump’s admission of Eisenhower as a “great president” however would be abhorrent to most Republicans today. Long exiled, the 34th president is still the most consistently popular of all modern presidents. And yet, Eisenhower’s modern Republicanism, which stood for moderate policies and unity of party became, and still is, a derogatory title for many Old Guard Republicans. Eisenhower’s legacy, so completely repudiated by conservative Republicans, raises the question of whether a man of Eisenhower’s political philosophy could capture the Republican nomination now or in the near future.
While the Republican establishment initially dismissed Trump as a plausible candidate, his continuing campaign successes lend credibility to the idea that he will soon be the heir to Abraham Lincoln and Eisenhower. Trump’s attempt to become the most powerful leader in the world is even more confronting when you realise he stands as a “wartime candidate on policies that are, by current legal standards, crimes under the Constitution or the Geneva Conventions.”[4] Donald Trump is not the first demagogic presidential wannabe to eschew the guiding principles of his party. But the current political reality within the United States is such that Trump, “billionaire scion of a New York real-estate dynasty” is a very real chance to become the most unlikely American president.[5]
This paper explores the missing centre within the Republican Party today, the “middle-of-the-road” political position that shaped Eisenhower’s policies and leadership of the party as he sought, and failed, to fashion the Grand Old Party (GOP) into a unified, modern, progressive political party. Charting Eisenhower’s political philosophy, the party’s determined rightward shift following his departure from the White House, and examining Trump’s campaign, this paper asks whether it may now be impossible to rehabilitate Eisenhower to the pantheon of former Republican presidents.
The Party of Lincoln
“One of our highest priority missions is that of reminding the nation that ours is still the Party of Lincoln, deeply dedicated to his concepts of human liberty, dignity and equality.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, ‘The Future of the Republican Party,’ Saturday Evening Post, 30 January 1965.
Following the collapse of the Whig Party, a split in the Democratic Party, and the creation of a coalition between numerous splinter groups in 1854, the Republican Party was created as a concerted effort to restrict the further expansion of slavery. The new Republican Party evoked memories of Thomas Jefferson’s original Democratic Republican Party and gave voice to its voters commitment to concepts of political equality, expansive economic opportunity, and a strong ethical foundation.[6]
Internal divisions have, however, existed within the party since its inception. In the 1860s the main debate erupted over the issue of race and what position the party should take regarding African Americans. Those who wanted to win the Civil War but not do much to help freed slaves became known as “Conservatives.”[7] Conservatives, which are today the dominant voice in the party, did not agree with the policies of either Lincoln or Eisenhower who both pursued a more progressive stance that promoted the protection of everyone’s access to the “American Dream.”
Middle-of-the-Road Politics
“There is room for many shades of opinion within the Republican Party so long as it is reasonably offered, but we should make it very clear that we have nothing in common with fanatics and their warped doctrines. I have no patience with extreme Rightists.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, ‘The Future of the Republican Party,’ Saturday Evening Post, 30 January 1965.
As the key military leader associated with the victory of the Second World War and with no publicly declared political allegiance, Eisenhower’s popularity with American voters encouraged both political parties to offer Eisenhower the presidential nomination in 1948 and 1952. He publicly refused any interest in politics in 1948 but by 1952, after twenty years of Democratic leadership and his fears over the increasingly isolationist Republican Party, Eisenhower sought the Republican nomination. This put him in direct competition with the conservative faction of the party who were determined that after two previous failed attempts Senator Robert Taft, “Mr. Republican” himself, would finally secure the party’s nomination.
After a bitter struggle over delegates that hardened conservative opposition Eisenhower won the nomination, beating Taft on the first ballot. While Eisenhower stormed to victory in a landslide win, the party emerged with Congressional control by only the slimmest of margins. During the campaign conservative Republicans had taken Eisenhower’s “vague and honeyed words” and allowed their imaginations to project forward. When Eisenhower neither rolled back Roosevelt’s New Deal nor repudiated the 1945 Yalta agreement that offered compromises in Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union, he raised the ire of conservatives and strengthened their perception of him as simply another “me-too” Democrat.[8] William F. Buckley Jnr., whose National Review launched in 1955 in opposition to Eisenhower, spoke for many conservative Republicans when he claimed that Eisenhower had wholeheartedly accepted “the great statist legacy of the New Deal.”[9]
Eisenhower built his presidency around moderate, middle-of-the-road politics, a stance he had been promoting for years. In 1949, before the American Bar Association he defined the middle as:
“derided by all of the right and of the left. They deliberately misrepresent the central position as a neutral, wishy-washy one. Yet here is the truly creative area in which we may obtain agreement for constructive social action compatible with basic American principles and with the just aspirations of every sincere American. It is the area in which is rooted the hopes and allegiance of the vast majority of our people.”[10]
But, when it came to fiscal considerations, limited government, and the military Eisenhower was a classic conservative. As Arthur Krock wrote in the New York Times, Eisenhower’s strength as a popular leader stemmed from his “simple virtues of mental and moral integrity, humility, candor and compassion as those words are commonly construed by the American people.” And yet, the qualities that generated such intense public adoration were also a source of his political weakness.[11] Eisenhower could not please conservatives who viewed principle as more important than pragmatic politics, and shunned moderation and compromise.[12] Eisenhower did, however, manage to cool the inflamed partisanship that had dominated the political spectrum since the Depression and he marginalised extremists on both sides of politics.
Eisenhower’s radio and television comments following his successful bid for re-election in 1956 reveal his belief that Americans had embraced modern Republicanism: “Such a vote as that cannot be merely for an individual, it is for principles and ideals…I think that modern Republicanism has now proved itself. And America has approved of modern Republicanism.”[13] The party’s dismal performance at the polls indicated otherwise. The expression also infuriated Taft Republicans who perceived it as implied criticism of their political principles and brought into the open the bitter struggle for power within the party.[14] In 1957 political commentator Stewart Alsop defined modern Republicanism as “solidly based, like the New Deal…on practical political considerations.”[15] To some modern Republicanism, with its refusal to strip Americans of their New Deal inheritances was simply a continuation of Democratic policy. But to roll back the New Deal would have required a bloody revolution. While Eisenhower was decidedly un-revolutionary, conservative Republicans demanded the upheaval.[16]
Eisenhower’s ability to transform the party into an “ideological monolith” may have been improbable. Alsop further argued though that Eisenhower desperately needed to save the heart of his program, “and, in so doing, to place his imprint so indelibly on his party that it will continue to be the party of Eisenhower in the voters’ minds.”[17] But to do so would have required Eisenhower to swap his political “light touch” and wield his vast political power with greater efficacy. Eisenhower’s explicit non-partisanship had created the image that he was a man of the nation, instead of the political party. But by not being of, or in, the party, there could be no Eisenhower Republican Party. There was instead simply Eisenhower; “the enormously popular war hero, sui generis, an insurgent in his own right.”[18] To many Americans in the 1950s Eisenhower was the “peaceful warrior,” driven by his sense of duty to bring the people together.[19] Conservative Republicans were much less favourable, attacking many of his policies during his presidency, and scorning “Modern Republicanism” to such an extent that Eisenhower largely failed to make any long-term impact on the GOP.
The Grand Old Party, or Goldwater’s Old Party?
“Its future and, equally importantly, the future of the two-party system in the United States have been thrown in doubt.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, ‘The Future of the Republican Party,’ Saturday Evening Post, 30 January 1965.
Due to his immense personal popularity, Eisenhower’s political appeal crossed all traditional voting lines. With conservative Senator Barry Goldwater’s 1964 campaign a large portion of their voting constituency deserted the Republican Party. In 1956 African-Americans gave Eisenhower, who represented the Party of Lincoln, forty percent of their vote. To Goldwater they gave only six percent.[20] Goldwater’s resounding defeat in 1964 should, or could, have spelled the end of the conservative movement and ushered in a moderate, progressive hegemony within the Republican Party. Eisenhower had been elected on a conservative platform but he had instead delivered “Modern Republicanism.” Goldwater, who made no platform compromises, won the war of ideas but failed to unify moderates behind his leadership. Republicans were back in the White House in 1968, but the Watergate scandal, which dominated politics in the early 1970s overshadowed conservatism’s shift to a more ideological and confrontational position.[21] Enraged by the Democratic use of government power to support equal rights for African Americans, women, and homosexuals, and the failure of liberal economic policies, conservatives awaited a saviour. Ronald Reagan’s 1980 election marked the complete surrender of the centre to the Right.[22]
The 1980 election signified the extent of change within the party since Eisenhower’s presidency. The white South, once a bastion for Democratic loyalties shifted its allegiance towards the Republicans. Centrists or “Republicans in Name Only” (RINOs) have essentially been purged from the party, and those who remain have been compelled to observe the ideology and programmatic demands of the right.[23] Yet, with Mitt Romney’s 2012 defeat, Democrats have won four of the previous six presidential elections.
The GOP: A Fratricidal Party?
“I believe that the American people basically want their political parties to cover a broad spectrum of political philosophy, not a narrow economic, social or religious ideology.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, ‘The Future of the Republican Party,’ Saturday Evening Post, 30 January 1965.
Peace and prosperity were the hallmarks of the 1950s. Eisenhower’s personality and legislative programs harmonised perfectly with the attitudes of much of that section of American society that thought of itself as middle class.[24] The values that Eisenhower represented: caution, conciliation, fiscal conservatism, respect for the nation’s foundational myths and bipartisan accord, today seem to lack importance within either political party, or in American culture as a whole.[25] The angriest and most pessimistic Americans are, as Geoffrey Kabaservice contends “the people we used to call Middle Americans. Middle-class and middle-aged; not rich and not poor; people who are irked when asked to press 1 for English, and who wonder how white male became an accusation rather than a description.”[26] It is not that traditional Republican platforms of sound economy, low taxes and business enterprise, have lost their appeal. Rather, the United States is confronting complex challenges to do with globalisation and the concurrent loss of blue-collar jobs, exploding costs of living and stagnant wages, for which the conservative Republican Party is seen, only sometimes unfairly, as judgmental and backward.[27]
Conservative Republican activists may have triumphed in their quest for ideological domination of the party, but conservatism’s hold on power is not total and at the national level the party suffers a fundamental weakness: it is deeply divided into hostile camps that are so ideologically opposed as to make common ground and compromise appear virtually impossible. In the midst of this political fratricide, Republican leaders have all but dismissed the needs of the rank-and-file Republicans. While the worst of the 2008 global financial crisis has passed, economic anxieties still weigh heavily on many Americans. The Republican Party has long been considered the party of big business, but today, millions of traditional Republican voters are using the 2016 election to provide the GOP with a painful re-education: “what’s good for Wall Street isn’t always good for Main Street.”[28] The “silent majority” are demanding to be heard.
The Trump Phenomenon
“It is my deepest conviction that this can be a time of great opportunity for Republicanism – if we make it so, if all of us who believe in the Lincolnian principles of our Party join in renewing the spirit and rebuilding the strength of the Republican Party on those principles.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, ‘The Future of the Republican Party,’ Saturday Evening Post, 30 January 1965.
Trump’s “cult-of-personality” candidacy comes at a time when the GOP leadership and the agenda of its conservative activists has veered perilously close to the extreme Right.[29] Trump’s greatest political asset is his ability to read people and understand what they want. And what they want is someone to mirror their fury at the broken promise of the ascendant United States they have been promised. To echo their anger, the United States is witnessing a meanness not seen from a politician for many years. “This time, it’s not about nice,” as Trump likes to say. “We have to be mean now.”[30] There is a growing influence of non-ideological, populist voters that are heeding the message that Trump is preaching. According to Trump the majority of Americans are war-weary, alienated by the political establishment, filled with anxiety and as such, will heed his call. The rallying cry within his campaign is to “Make America Great Again” and revolves around his ability to restore the nation’s confidence, returning the United States to a less complex, less politically correct and more secure nation. Yet, when Americans were perceived to be living the “American Dream” they sought for their president a man of peace, a man who unified not divided, and a man who reassured and calmed their fears rather than inflaming them. In short, they elected Eisenhower.
In early February 2016, a Trump enthusiast remarked of his support for the candidate: “We’re voting with our middle finger.”[31] The Republican establishment would like to see Trump’s campaign, which has developed into a “one-many chaos theory at the center of a primary campaign in disarray” written off as a simple aberration, or temporary voter madness.[32] But Trump has intuited something that greatly reduces this likelihood. Trump understands that the United States is an anxious and angry nation and he plays expertly to those fears. Understanding Trump’s appeal becomes simpler when you consider David Brooks’ argument that “(s)ocial inequality is always felt more acutely than economic inequality. [And] Trump rose up on behalf of people who felt looked down upon, made them feel vindicated and turned social conduct on its head.”[33] Primary season is often “silly season” in American politics, vulnerable to phenomena such as “The Donald.” Yet, the 2016 Republican race for the presidential nomination has found the GOP mired in an unusually severe level of ridiculousness, and witness to an elevated level of fear mongering by the party’s front-runner for the nomination.[34]
Trump’s approach to politics cannot be defined as classical conservatism, which stresses prudence, proportion and respect for institutions. Instead, Trump has captured the “political philosophy of the middle finger…[which] assumes that practices we know are wrong in our private lives – contempt, mockery, cruelty, prejudice – are somehow justified in our political lives.”[35] Lacking a coherent ideology, it is Trump’s representation of their populist rage: “the bricolage of emotions and prejudices; the stream-of-consciousness orations; the gleeful tangling with hostile journalists and protesters; aggressive candor,” that has garnered voter support.[36] Inappropriately appealing to emotion and prejudice to gain political power Trump, like Joseph McCarthy and George Wallace before him, is a master of the public spectacle, terrifying and delighting in almost equal measure. More importantly, he is putting significant pressure on the idea of American national identity.[37] Trump advocates for economic nationalism that favours protectionism, and a “strongman” attitude to foreign policy that defies decades of Republican platforms and policies.[38]
The Republican Party has been almost as reticent to embrace Ted Cruz’s candidacy as they have Trump’s. While Trump has no real coherent political principles, Cruz’s association with the Tea Party has drawn parallels with Barry Goldwater, who in 1964 suffered one of their worst political defeats in American history. Trump is less conservative than Cruz but together they are turning the Republican Party into a “rage-filled movement, as the duelling demagogues chew up opponents and each other.”[39] Both men have taken a foreign policy stance diametrically opposed to Eisenhower’s. While Eisenhower engaged in plenty of Cold War rhetoric, aspirations for peace and mutual cooperation were the hallmarks of Eisenhower’s presidency. Trump and Cruz however, both seem to view their militaristic bombast as a positive attribute.
According to Scott McConnell, there are plenty of signs that Trump “aspires to be a sort of Eisenhower for his time.” Pledging the restoration of a stable, prosperous United States, by focusing his campaign on Middle America Trump is evoking the nostalgic image of the Eisenhower era.[40] But while Eisenhower sought to maintain the United States’ greatness, his ideal nation was one that rested on the foundational narratives of the Founding Fathers. Trump’s on the other hand could lead us into the next World War. To imagine then the rehabilitation of Eisenhower back into the Republican lexicon would be to see just convulsive it would be.[41]
An Uncertain Future
“Any group that establishes a position that is incompatible with the beliefs of the bulk of the people, or that violates the limits of common sense, simply cannot long exist as a political party of any consequence.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, ‘The Future of the Republican Party,’ Saturday Evening Post, 30 January 1965.
There should be no doubt however that it is past time for the Republican Party to rehabilitate the image of the 34th president. Eisenhower himself understood that the intra-party conflict between conservative and moderate factions posed serious problems for the future of the party. For Eisenhower much of the factional conflict stemmed his conviction that many within the party had forgotten their common dedication to the party’s principles.[42] Today, with the long-term estrangement of the conservative intellectual movement from their most popular president, the question remains whether, given the primacy of conservatism within the establishment and the current political spectacle of the 2016 Republican primaries, rehabilitation is possible. Trump did not produce the rift within the party but he exposed and exploited the very serious disconnect between the establishment and its rank-and-file members. The Grand Old Party faces an uncertain future and regardless of whether “Trump-mania” recedes they confront a pivotal moment within the history of their party.[43] The tragedy would be if, in the midst of all that anger, Republicans turned so completely away from their party’s historical legacy as to make a return all but impossible.
Bibliography
‘Text of General Eisenhower’s Address before Bar Association’, New York Times, 06 September 1949, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, p. 17.
Alsop, Stewart, ‘Just What Is Modern Republicanism?’, Saturday Evening Post, 230/4, 1957, pp. 18-19, 88-90.
Boot, Max, ‘Is a New Republican Foreign Policy Emerging’, Commentary, 2016, pp. 11-17.
Brooks, David, ‘Donald Trump Isn’t Real’, The New York Times, 02 February 2016.
Crable, Richard E., ‘Ike: Identification, Argument, and Paradoxical Appeal’, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 63/2, 1977, pp. 188-96.
Dochuk, Darren, ‘The Fissuring of the Republican Party: A Road Map to Political Chaos’, New Labor Forum, 25/1, 2016, pp. 26-33.
Eisenhower, Dwight D., ‘The Future of the Republican Party’, Saturday Evening Post, 30 January 1965, f5h, p. 21-5.
Eisenhower, Dwight D., ‘Radio and Television Remarks Following Election Victory’, in (eds.) Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.
Frank, Jeffrey, ‘Rand Paul and the Eisenhower Dream’, New Yorker, 2014.
Fraser, Steve and Freeman, Joshua B., ‘Only Yesterday: The Strange Odyssey of the Republican Party’, New Labor Forum, 22/1, 2013, pp. 94-7.
Frum, David, ‘The Great Republican Revolt’, The Atlantic, 2016.
Gabriel, Trip, ‘The More Trump Defies His Party, the More His Supporters Cheer’, The New York Times, 17 February 2016.
Gerson, Michael, ‘Donald Trump and the Politics of the Middle Finger’, The Washington Post, 18 February 2016.
Gerson, Michael and Wehner, Peter, ‘How to Save the Republican Party’, Commentary, 2013, pp. 13-20.
Gould, Lewis L., Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans, Random House, New York, 2003.
Hernández, Kelly Lytle, ‘The Crimes and Consequences of Illegal Immigration: A Cross-Border Examination of Operation Wetback, 1943 to 1954’, Western Historical Quarterly, 37/4, 2006, pp. 421-44.
Kabaservice, Geoffrey M., ‘Why Won’t the Gop Stick up for Dwight Eisenhower?’, New Republic, 2012.
Krock, Arthur, ‘Impressions of the President–and the Man’, New York Times, 23 June 1957, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times with Index, p. 187.
Lavine, Harold, ‘The Decline of the Republican Party: Eisenhower Has Failed to Rebuild the Machine’, Commentary, 1958.
Leibovich, Mark, ‘Donald Trump Is Not Going Anywhere’, The New York Times Magazine, 2015.
Lynch, Conor, ‘The Gop’s Eisenhower Charade: Why Ike Wouldn’t Have Liked Modern Republicans’, Salon, 2015.
McConnell, Scott, ‘Donald Trump Is More Like Ike Than George W. Bush’, The American Conservative, 2016.
Montgomerie, Tim, ‘Lashing out in All Directions: Trump Denounces Muslims, Mexicans…And Millionaires’, The Spectator, 2016, pp. 15.
Nash, George H., The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945 [online text], ISI Books, 2006. <http://ezproxy.deakin.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat00097a&AN=deakin.b3211457&site=eds-live&scope=site
http://ezproxy.deakin.edu.au/login?url=http://site.ebrary.com/lib/deakin/Doc?id=10852778>.
Raab, Scott, ‘The Esq&A: Donald Trump’, Esquire, 2016, pp. 18-21.
Reinhard, David W., ‘Stick with Ike’, The Republican Right Since 1945, University Press of Kentucky, Kentucky.
Scherer, Michael, ‘Donald Trump: He Blew Open the Republican Presidential Primary – and the Republican Party’, Time, 2015, pp. 104-14.
Tanenhaus, Sam, ‘Donald Trump and the Hidden History of the Gop’, The Progressive, 2016, pp. 33-6.
Tanenhaus, Sam, ‘The Gop or Goldwater’s Old Party’, The New Republic, 2001, pp. 33-42.
Williamson, Kevin D., ‘Why Like Ike: Conservatives Got Eisenhower Wrong the First Time Around’, National Review, 2013, pp. 24-8.
Endnotes
[1] http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/11/11/media-slam-trump-for-invoking-a-deadly-unabashe/206792
[2] For further information on the ‘Operation Wetback’ program and its origins, see Kelly Lytle Hernández, ‘The Crimes and Consequences of Illegal Immigration: A Cross-Border Examination of Operation Wetback, 1943 to 1954’, Western Historical Quarterly, 37/4, 2006, pp.421-44.
[3] Conor Lynch, ‘The Gop’s Eisenhower Charade: Why Ike Wouldn’t Have Liked Modern Republicans’, Salon, 2015,
[4] Scott Raab, ‘The Esq&A: Donald Trump’, Esquire, 2016, p.18.
[5] Max Boot, ‘Is a New Republican Foreign Policy Emerging’, Commentary, 2016, pp.16-17.
[6] Lewis L. Gould, Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans, Random House, New York, 2003, p.14.
[7] Ibid., pp.34-5.
[8] David W. Reinhard, ‘Stick with Ike’, The Republican Right Since 1945, University Press of Kentucky, Kentucky. pp.121-2.
[9] William F. Buckley Jnr., as quoted in George H. Nash, ‘The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945’, ISI Books, Wilmington. p.395.
[10] ‘Text of General Eisenhower’s Address before Bar Association’, New York Times, 06 September 1949, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, p. 17.
[11] Arthur Krock, ‘Impressions of the President–and the Man’, ibid.23 June 1957, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times with Index, p. 187.
[12] George H. Nash, ‘The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945’. p.397.
[13] Dwight D. Eisenhower, ‘Radio and Television Remarks Following Election Victory’, in (eds.) Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.
[14] Harold Lavine, ‘The Decline of the Republican Party: Eisenhower Has Failed to Rebuild the Machine’, Commentary, 1958,
[15] Stewart Alsop, ‘Just What Is Modern Republicanism?’, Saturday Evening Post, 230/4, 1957,, p.88.
[16] Ibid., p.88.
[17] Ibid., p.90.
[18] Lewis L. Gould, Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans, p.334.
[19] Richard E. Crable, ‘Ike: Identification, Argument, and Paradoxical Appeal’, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 63/2, 1977, p.192.
[20] The trend continued with Ronald Regan who won the election with less than ten percent of the black vote. Jeffrey Frank, ‘Rand Paul and the Eisenhower Dream’, New Yorker, 2014,
[21] Lewis L. Gould, Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans,, p.395.
[22] Sam Tanenhaus, ‘The Gop or Goldwater’s Old Party’, The New Republic, 2001,, p.40.
[23] Steve Fraser and Joshua B. Freeman, ‘Only Yesterday: The Strange Odyssey of the Republican Party’, New Labor Forum, 22/1, 2013, p.94.
[24] Kevin D. Williamson, ‘Why Like Ike: Conservatives Got Eisenhower Wrong the First Time Around’, National Review, 2013, p.28.
[25] Geoffrey M. Kabaservice, ‘Why Won’t the Gop Stick up for Dwight Eisenhower?’, New Republic, 2012,
[26] David Frum, ‘The Great Republican Revolt’, The Atlantic, 2016,
[27] Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner, ‘How to Save the Republican Party’, Commentary, 2013, p.14.
[28] Tim Montgomerie, ‘Lashing out in All Directions: Trump Denounces Muslims, Mexicans…And Millionaires’, The Spectator, 2016,, p.15.
[29] Sam Tanenhaus, ‘Donald Trump and the Hidden History of the Gop’, The Progressive, 2016,, p.35.
[30] As quoted by Michael Scherer, ‘Donald Trump: He Blew Open the Republican Presidential Primary – and the Republican Party’, Time, 2015,, p.110.
[31] As quoted in Michael Gerson, ‘Donald Trump and the Politics of the Middle Finger’, The Washington Post, 18 February 2016,
[32] Mark Leibovich, ‘Donald Trump Is Not Going Anywhere’, The New York Times Magazine, 2015,
[33] David Brooks, ‘Donald Trump Isn’t Real’, The New York Times, 02 February 2016,
[34] Darren Dochuk, ‘The Fissuring of the Republican Party: A Road Map to Political Chaos’, New Labor Forum, 25/1, 2016, p.27.
[35] Michael Gerson, ‘Donald Trump and the Politics of the Middle Finger’,
[36] Sam Tanenhaus, ‘Donald Trump and the Hidden History of the Gop’, p.34.
[37] Michael Scherer, ‘Donald Trump: He Blew Open the Republican Presidential Primary – and the Republican Party’, p.108.
[38] Trip Gabriel, ‘The More Trump Defies His Party, the More His Supporters Cheer’, The New York Times, 17 February 2016,
[39] Michael Gerson, ‘Donald Trump and the Politics of the Middle Finger’,
[40] Scott Mcconnell, ‘Donald Trump Is More Like Ike Than George W. Bush’, The American Conservative, 2016,
[41] David Frum, ‘The Great Republican Revolt’,
[42] Dwight D. Eisenhower, ‘The Future of the Republican Party’, Saturday Evening Post, 30 January 1965, f5h, p. 21-5., p.22.
[43] Darren Dochuk, ‘The Fissuring of the Republican Party: A Road Map to Political Chaos’, p.28.