re: #175 HappyWarrior

Hmmm. I’m not sure. Hoover, Landon, Willkie, & Dewey really didn’t seem to engage in race baiting. But if you ask me, the GOP’s turning point is Taft succeeding TR as the GOP standard bearer.

Wilkie in particular was more, not less, liberal on civil rights issues than FDR himself. He was the first major party candidate to address the NCAA convention (though only after the election). He was a remarkable character in many respects, a strident internationalist in a time of isolationism, and an advocate of equality when segregation was the norm. His premature death from heart disease was one of the great “what if” moments of American history. Wilkie traveled around the world as a special envoy for former opponent FDR during World War II. His book about those travels, One World, would send present day Republicans into screaming fits of rage.
The far right of the Republican Party had always been there but it really began to gain traction only after 3 liberal candidates in a row, Landon, Wilkie, and Dewey, had lost to the Democrats. Eisenhower, the outsider, delayed their complete ascendancy while Nixon, the Hunt brothers, and the Taft wing perfected their game in the background.