Matt Yglesias has a piece up about the cognitive dissonance that ensues, or ought to, when someone claims to be a ‘Goldwater Conservative’:

I always find it shocking that conservatives in 2010 openly say that the political founder of their movement and an icon to be admired is Barry Goldwater, and that Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign was an admirable thing that constitutes a key foundationstone of the modern conservative movement. After all, on the most important issue of the early 1960s Goldwater was totally wrong […]

Whenever I bring this up, people quickly rush to assure me that Goldwater didn’t stand shoulder-to-shoulder with white supremacists on the most important political issue of his time out of racism, instead at the decisive moment in his career he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with white supremacists out of principled constitutional reasoning that made it impossible for him to do otherwise. But this is actually more damning. You could imagine the founder of a movement being afflicted by an unfortunate character flaw that his followers lack. But the argument is that Goldwater didn’t suffer from a character flaw. Instead, having acquired a major party presidential nomination he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with white supremacists on the most important issue of the day because his sincere political ideology led to horribly wrongheaded conclusions.

Odd hero.

I’m increasingly fascinated by the GOP’s revision of history w/r/t to the Southern Strategy. In some ways it’s a general reflection of the current temper of their party, which is best described as being like that of a cranky two year old entering the third straight hour of a tantrum: their political messaging in large part now consists of “Are not— YOU are!” and the like. “Democrats are the real racists!” and extended sad-face meditations wondering why-o-why black people insist on voting Democratic.

Some of such wingnut wondering is cynical and conscious revisionism: the sort that comes from commentators and operatives old enough to know and remember both Goldwater and Lee Atwater:

“You start out in 1954 by saying, “N====r, n——r, n——r.” By 1968 you can’t say “n——r” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N——r, n——r.”“

It’d be nice to hear from some ‘Goldwater conservatives’ precisely what they mean by ‘Goldwater conservatism’ and why they consider this man a hero.

(I would also like to know what these people mean by fiscal conservatism, and what exactly they want to see cut, but I would also like a pony, and I don’t expect to get either soon).

Edge of the American West has much more. Takeaway:

Considering today’s government, CC Goldwater says, “Anyone who motivates our decisions by fear cannot restore the principles of a country founded in freedom.” And she is surely right. Unfortunately her grandfather laid the foundation for the modern use of that motivation. Liberals don’t recognize it. But it’s all there if you read Goldwater on Goldwater.