Michael Beschloss Quotes
As parties began to develop around the turn of the 19th century, you had party nominees for President nominated in caucuses made up of party members in Congress.
He was a liberal Republican in an era where the Republican paty was controlled by arch conservatives, the Tea Party extremists, and evangelical Protestants while Gullani was divorced, a Catholic, and lived openly with a woman to whom he was not married. He supported a woman’s right to abortion and gay rights.
In 2012, the Republican party had shifted to the right and was split between two factions. None of the 4 leading candidates had the support of a majority of the activist Republicans who vote in Primary elections. The then started to vie with each other for the most conservative elements of the party and did so by attacking the other candidates, making moral pronouncements and attacking President Obama. None of them offered any positive programs or solutions to the problems they claimed existed, and the attacks on the others were always that they were “really not conservative” and “could not get elected.” The result was that all the candidates negatives rose.
In reality, Donald Trump won despite the opoposition of the leaderships of both political parties. In the Republican Primary elections he defeated the condidates preferred by the Republican leaders and elected officials accross the country. However, once he won the promaries, most--many reluctantly--supported him rather than the Democrat. Then Tump, to almsot everyone's surprise, bested Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Candidate and became President.
Michael Richard Beschloss is an American historian specializing in the United States presidency. He is the author of nine books on the presidency.
