Governor Nelson Rockefeller: 1964 Republican National Convention Speech

Source:Enemy Nation- Governor Nelson D. Rockefeller (Republican, New York) speaking at the 1964 Republican National Convention, at the San Francisco Cow Palace.

"Grandson of billionaire John D. Rockefeller, Nelson Rockefeller's 1964 Republican Convention Speech." 

From Enemy Nation

Part of Governor Rockefeller's speech speaking out against what he saw as extremism in America, including in the Republican Party.

“The time has come for the Republican Party to face this issue realistically and take decisive action.” After each sentence, a hail of cheers and jeers rained down on him. Each time he spoke, Rockefeller paused and looked out into the crow before making his move, “It is essential that this Convention repudiate here and now any doctrinaire, militant minority, whether Communist, Ku Klux Klan or Bircher which would subvert this party to purposes alien to the very basic tenets which gave this party birth.”

From Past Daily

I don't think that Governor Rockefeller was speaking out so much against Senator Barry Goldwater here, as he was speaking out against the far-right, or what would be called the alt-right, or the nationalist-right, that you see in America, especially in the Republican Party. If this speech was about Senator Goldwater, who was Jewish, (by the way) and Jews being people that the far-right has always hated, then the Governor obviously didn't know the Senator very well. 

What Nelson Rockefeller was really doing here, was taking one last stand for the Progressive Republicans. I know Progressive Republican sounds like someone who calls themself a Libertarian Communist, or a a wingless airplane, or looks like a goldfish with feet, walking on the beach. But, if you are a political history junky such as myself, you know what's called the modern Republican Party today, (what some people call the MAGA Party) was not the Republican Party 60 years ago. or even 40 years ago. 

Pre-Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party had two dominant factions in it: Progressives from the Northeast and West Coast. And I'm not talking about hippie-leftists from Vermont, Greenwich, Manhattan, in New York, or San Francisco. But people who believed in progress and that government could play a limited role in seeing that as many Americans as possible, of all backgrounds, could succeed in America, if only given the the opportunity. That the private market couldn't take care of everybody, or that it could be unregulated. That's the wing of the Republican Party that Nelson represented, as well as Dwight Eisenhower and Tom Dewey before him and many others. 

So in 1964, sort of in response to the Democratic Party not just being in complete charge in Washington, with not just The White House, but the entire Congress, Supreme Court, they controlled most of the states as well, the right-wing of the party, including the populist-right, that part of Barry Goldwater's movement, but who even to the right of him politically, took over the party. And in 1964, this new, emerging, right-wing movement in he Republican Party, now controlled the Republican Party. 

And at the 1964 RNC, Governor Rockefeller stood up and gave one last attempt during the election, to speak out for the Progressive elitists in the Republican Party, that he was part of, to try prevent this right-wing takeover of the Republican Party. 

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