Thread by @FidelisToJusti1

1/ Life and career of longtime GOP Senate leader and 1996 POTUS nominee Bob Dole is instructive on the GOP's descent from respectability to depravity. Dole was someone I never liked but had at one time respected and even (Cont)
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en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dole

2/ admired. Dole grew up in rural Kansas during the Depression. He enlisted in the army in 1942 and was wounded on the battlefield in Italy in 1945. As a result, he had limited mobility in his right arm and numbness in his left. Simply put, there's no denying Dole's valor. (Cont)

3/ And Dole overcame his injuries to lead an important and distinctive life. He joked that when he decided to run for office in 1950 for the KS House, he did so as a Republican because there were more of them in his district. Dole was elected to the U.S. House in 1960 and (Cont)

4/ supported the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Dole was a mainstream prarie Republican when he joined the US Senate in 1969. But he was also a partisan rough edged Nixon Republican. Nonetheless, he partnered with liberal (Cont)

5/ George McGovern, a fellow WWII Vet to strengthen Food Stamps. His best friend in the senate was a fellow WWII vet and Democrat, Daniel Inoyue. In the early '80s, Dole partnered with NY senator Patrick Moniyhan to preserve Social Security during Reagan's far right supply (Cont)

6/ side insanity. But Dole had presidential ambitions, and that meant following the center of political gravity in the era of Newt Gingrich. After failing to secure the GOP nomination in '88, Dole was following the winds. He was still a patriot and supported Bill Clinton (Cont)

7/ in Bosnia and Kosovo. But the days of his supporting policies to help the poor were gone. Dole prevailed over far right nutjob Pat Buchanan to secure the GOP nomination. But he was selling his soul and supporting vodoo economics. Thankfully, Bill Clinton was easily (Cont)

8/ reelected. Dole had left the senate during the '96 campaign. His best role for America should've been to serve as elder statesman and advocate for national decency. Instead, this mainstream prarie patriot who had bled for America opted to support a depraved treasonous (Cont)

9/ uber wealthy draft dodger from New York. We New Yorkers saw through Trump, but the patriot from Russell, KS, who had to know better, supported him anyway. Hence, Dole's legacy was forever tarnished when he died in 2021. And sadly, the GOP he once led is now irredeemable.