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This persistence of this campaign message since the New Deal is something to behold. But rather than juxtaposing "socialism" with an opposite--such as "free enterprise" or "individualism"--Loeffler here offers only its negation without even bothering to say what she stands for. https://twitter.com/KLoeffler/status/1339401941139517441
In his campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglass, in which he denounced the Fair Deal as "the same old socialist boloney," Nixon at least offered a "choice between freedom and state socialism."
Also remarkable is the notion, echoed consistently for 90 years, that we face a point of no return. As Ronald Reagan said in his "A Time for Choosing Speech" in 1964, "freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment."/3
In FREE ENTERPRISE, I note the persistence of the expression that it was "five minutes to midnight." Every election represented an existential crisis. /4
As early as the 1934 election, the framing that "socialism
has already driven its entering wedge" was present. /5 https://www.newspapers.com/clip/65461764/
has already driven its entering wedge" was present. /5 https://www.newspapers.com/clip/65461764/
And here in 1949 is Hearst's San Francisco Examiner calling the Republican Party the "last line of defense" against "New Deal socialism" in an editorial cartoon./6 https://www.newspapers.com/clip/65464803/
