Talk:Confessions of a Republican

Notes on creation

I created this article on 9 March 2016 after seeing the social media spread of the ad in connection to Donald Trump. I was aware of the 1964 Daisy ad, but had never heard of this ad, which is probably typical of Americans who have no memory of the 1964 elections or were born well after them. Daily Kos posted a piece on the ad comparing it to the Trump situation on Feb 29 [1]. Nate Silver appears to have drawn attention to the ad by February 28.[2]. Jonathan Darman, reporter and author of a book with LBJ coverage tweeted about it on Feb 27 (one retweet only).[3].

It appears the ad was first uploaded in full to youtube by the LBJ Presidential library on July 9, 2014[4] and that upload has only 21,870 views as I make this comment; copies are proliferating. It only had about 2,000 views until very recently.[5].

It was uploaded to "The Living Room Candidate" website -- a compilation of political ads for every Presidential election, at least early as 2008 (via archive.org)[6] (and live: [7] )

An edited version of the ad posted on facebook by Quartz had over 4.2 million views in 19 hours, as of today.[8] --Milowent • ^hasspoken 15:26, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Well, you are quite right. What you have discovered here, Milowent, is that one of the aspects of history writing is that what interested people today about the past often reflects present day concerns. To take an excellent example, between 1850-1950, American universities granted about 300 PhDs on the subject of Russian/Soviet history. Between 1950-1960, American universities granted about 3, 000 PhDs on the subject of Russian/Soviet history. Of course, the reason for this sudden surge of academic interest in Russian/Soviet history in the 1950s was because of the Cold War, which led American historians to want to help people "understand the enemy". Indeed, if you go to the library or a book store, it is striking that just many books about Russian/Soviet history were written during the Cold War and how since the Cold War ended academics have really lost interest in Russian/Soviet history. The same goes with other areas of history. After 9/11 attacks of 2001, there was this huge publishing boom about the subject of Islamic/Middle Eastern history as people really wanted to know about the histories of Islam and the Middle East, again to "understand the enemy". It is striking that at my library that all of the books about the history of Pakistan were published after 2001 and the same is true about the majority about the history of Afghanistan. The few pre-9/11 books about Afghan history deal only with the subject of the Soviet-Afghan war of the 1980s. Likewise after the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, there was a publishing boom about Iraqi history. At my library, every single book about Iraqi history was published after 2003. China has always been an important country, but it noteworthy that since China's economic rise, there has been an enormous increase in books about Chinese history. The subject of Korean history with the exception of the Korean War was largely ignored for a long time. However, since the rise of South Korea from a backward Third World to the world's 11th largest economy and North Korea's status as a nation with nuclear weapons with an alarming habit of saying provocative things such as that they would really like to fire a nuclear-armed missiles at American cities, interest in Korean history has surged massively. In short, for a lot of people, interest in the past reflects the concerns of the present.

This ad Confessions of a Republican aired in the summer of 1964 and was forgotten until February 2016, when it was re-discovered. Everybody remembers the Daisy Girl ad, which is probably the most infamous attack ad of all time with its suggestion that an adorable girl out in the field pulling off the petals of a daisy will be killed in a nuclear war presumably started by Barry Goldwater. The fact that it was in early 2016 at a time when at least several Republicans were making very clear their discomfort about the possibility of Donald Trump becoming their party's candidate is no accident. This ad where William Bogert says that he has always been a Republican, but is going to to vote for President Johnson because Senator Goldwater is just too extreme for him has obvious parallels with those Republicans such as William Kristol, John McCain, Mitt Romney, John Kasich, and David Frum who made it quite clear right from the start their profound distaste for Trump. Initially, there was a belief that Trump who had been leading the Republican polls ever since he announced his candidacy in June 2015 would stumble and flame out once the primaries started in early 2016. Instead he won the New Hampshire primary, which is always the first primary and went on to win the South Carolina primary which always the second. So by February 2016 there was a concern that it was quite possible that Mr. Trump was going to win the Republican nomination, which he indeed do so by May 2016. There was a "Pod People" tendency with the GOP in 2016 as a number of Republicans at the start of the year said that they would never support Trump, but ended up becoming loyal disciples of him by the end of the year. Just look at somebody like Rick Perry who in the summer of 2015 called Trump a "cancer" in the GOP, but by the summer of 2016 was singing praises of Trump as the greatest man who ever lived who he was happy to submit to. Conservatives such as Kristol and Frum who still are critics of Trump were the exception, not the rule. The reason why this ad that was forgotten after 1964, but became famous again in 2016 was because of the dynamics of the situation caused by the rise of Mr. Trump. The obvious implication of the media interest in 2016 that just as Mr. Bogert says that he always been a Republican but he will vote for Johnson because Goldwater scares him is that so should Republicans do likewise in 2016. Unfortunately for those raising the subject of Confessions of a Republican, there was that this "Pod People" tendency within the Republicans as most of the ones who said they were against Trump at the start of 2016 turned it into his ultra-loyal cheerleaders as the year went on. The prospect of power all too easily corrupts the souls of men and women. This article could benefit quite a bit by discussing this-namely how the memory of the past is often shaped by the concerns of the present.--A.S. Brown (talk) 07:35, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Chain-smoking???

Why does this article describe the person in the ad as "a jittery, chain-smoking young man in his late twenties"? Take a look at the ad; it is linked under External links. The ad is 4 minutes long. At about minute 2 he takes out a cigarette. At about minute 3 he lights it. He takes one puff. One! And the ad is over. What possible reason can there be for describing this person as "chain-smoking"? --MelanieN (talk) 01:42, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Maybe the actor was a chain-smoker? Anyways, Blythwood added that description on March 11. clpo13_(talk) 06:48, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm inclined to remove it if no one objects. I'll wait to see if Blythewood responds to the ping. MelanieN alt (talk) 00:10, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

I see that it has been removed. --MelanieN (talk) 23:43, 14 April 2016 (UTC)