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1. This thread by Prof. @KevinMKruse unfortunately presents a misleading & oversimplified history of John F. Kennedy & his presidency. Let's dig in and explore why, moving from the general to specifics.
@KevinMKruse 2. Prof. Kruse argues that JFK was a liberal, not a conservative, in the terms of our own day. This is a false dichotomy; he wasn't Goldwater, but he was a conservative Democrat on many issues by the standards of his day, and would be off the far right end of today's Democrats.
@KevinMKruse 3. I do not claim JFK as a movement conservative. As @KevinMKruse notes, he believed many things the Goldwater/National Review Republicans rejected then, & continue to criticize now. JFK was more John Kasich than Joe Lieberman. In today's terms, a centrist, not a liberal.
@KevinMKruse 4. The fact that JFK - like every president ever - had both partisan & extremist critics in the other party proves nothing. These are the same people who thought Ike was a Communist & were blood feuding with Bill Buckley.
@KevinMKruse 5. Ira Stoll argues, in this column & listicle & his book, that JFK was a conservative. That's a stretch & some of his examples are as trolly as Prof. Kruse's, but he notes some important ways in which JFK was really not liberal.
buzzfeednews.com/article/irasto…
ideas.time.com/2013/10/14/jfk…
buzzfeednews.com/article/irasto…
ideas.time.com/2013/10/14/jfk…
@KevinMKruse (Sorry, I should probably tag @IraStoll here)
@KevinMKruse 6. Consider *why* JFK needed to give a campaign speech defining himself as a liberal: he needed to secure his base after a divisive primary. As @IraStoll notes, he had often been identified as a conservative by fellow Democrats before 1960. 
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 7. And *listen* to that speech! JFK denies being "someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of 'Liberal.'"
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 8. 1960 was a zigzag race: in the primaries, JFK got to the left of LBJ, then seen as more conservative, but added LBJ as his VP. He navigated a breach w/Harry Truman, who resigned as a convention delegate in protest. On issues he & Nixon were barely distinguishable.
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 9. Following the closest general election in 44 years, JFK governed with one eye on both wings of his party. That’s one reason why it’s common to find him saying things that cater to both conservative & liberal sentiment. Prof. Kruse elides that, but it's crucial context.
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 10. One example of that dynamic is this: JFK's invocation of separation of church & state was *defensive* because he was trying to reassure fears about a Papist president that had led Al Smith in 1928 to lose must-win Democrat base states in the South.
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 11. And it is tendentious to just say that “JFK was, after all, the president who coined the phrase "affirmative action.” The actual text of the EO says "without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." eeoc.gov/eeoc/history/3…
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 12. On the specific issue of race-conscious remedies, JFK took a stance rather different from the one Prof. Kruse implies - a position that would get him condemned by today's Ds & embraced by today's Rs: jfklibrary.org/archives/other…
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 13. One, religious liberty is a conservative cause today, not a liberal one. Two, if you actually watch the video, JFK never endorses the decision, implies he disagrees, waffles on a Congressional response, & tells everybody to go pray with their kids.
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 14. This is a distinction without a difference. JFK pushed to cut marginal rates across the board, like Reagan or W, & corporate taxes, like Trump. Like Reagan, W & Trump, he defended this with both supply-side & demand-side rhetoric.
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 15. There is no reasonable universe in which you can dispute the fact that JFK's arguments for lower taxes were conservative arguments or that marginal & corporate tax cuts are conservative, not liberal policy. He explicitly argued that cutting taxes would raise revenue!
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 16. Prof. Kruse excuses this by noting that JFK left rates a lot higher than they are today. True! But he also pushed to increase defense spending, even though he inherited a *vastly* bigger defense budget than we have today.
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 17. JFK pushed defense spending to almost 10% of GDP and 50% of federal spending; today it is roughly 3.5% of GDP & 16% of federal spending. He also ran on fears of a "missile gap" - that Eisenhower, of all people, was soft on nukes - & expanded our nuclear arsenal.
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 18. Like many aspects of JFK's policies, his expansion of defense spending was clawed back some, & he built more missiles but also signed a nuclear test ban treaty. But then again, Reagan signed arms control deals, too. History is complicated!
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 19. JFK urged "strengthening NATO, promoted free trade and denounced the use of protective tariffs." Yes, these are longstanding conservative positions, & are shared by many Rs in Congress today. This just shows that JFK was more conservative than Trump.
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 20. Tariffs are taxes; JFK cutting them was consistent with his overall orientation towards tax cuts. Also "strengthening NATO" is an understated way of saying JFK was a vocal & vigorous Cold Warrior who almost came to blows with the Soviets in Berlin. rarehistoricalphotos.com/standoff-check…
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 21. Prof. Kruse does the same thing here: "oh yeah, he stood up to the Russians." Tough-on-USSR was, of course, the conservative position throughout the Cold War, not the liberal one. It has remained the position of many non-Trump conservatives since.
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 22. Again, "JFK was really, really against Communism" is not the killer gotcha that you think for why he was more a liberal than a conservative. He wasn't a Bernie Sanders "honeymoon in Moscow" guy. He almost had nuclear war over Fidel Castro. He spoke of Communism as evil:
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 23. JFK's Vietnam policy remains controversial on Right & Left alike, as does what we *should* have done in Vietnam. But the fact that his Administration escalated our presence there & backed the overthrow of Diem in South Vietnam should tell you how far JFK was from the Left.
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 24. JFK lifted regulatory & ratemaking burdens on natural gas producers: "If it is in the public interest to maintain an industry, it is clearly not in the public interest by the impact of regulatory authority to destroy its otherwise viable way of life."
presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/spec…
presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/spec…
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 25. On welfare programs, JFK in his 1962 SOTU argued for "stressing services instead of support, rehabilitation instead of relief, and training for useful work instead of prolonged dependency." A 1990s neoliberal theme, but surely more Reagan & Newt than Pelosi.
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 26. Prof. Kruse doesn't mention guns. JFK was the only Democratic president to be a Life Member of the NRA. He gave a pro-Second Amendment statement to Guns Magazine in 1960: jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/a…
web.archive.org/web/2018032606…
web.archive.org/web/2018032606…
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 27. Note that JFK statement on guns stressed "the right of each citizen" to bear arms. Also some other lawmakers ducked the question; one who came out roughly where JFK did was Democratic Senator Willis Robertson, father of Pat.
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 28. JFK in 1961: "Today we need a nation of minute men; citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life..." jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jf…
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 29. What about abortion & birth control? JFK was Catholic. He put Byron White, dissenter in Roe v Wade (& author of Bowers v Hardwick) on SCOTUS. In 1959-60, JFK described abortion as "repugnant" & opposed US funding of birth control abroad:
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 30. You get the point: JFK was liberal on some issues, but quite conservative on others. He was more conservative than the Democrats who preceded or followed him, & took key positions his party later renounced as anathema.
Don't let progressives tell you history says otherwise.
Don't let progressives tell you history says otherwise.
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 31 (epilogue) I see the Prof. has posted a response, which declines to engage with Kennedy's position on any issue & falls back mostly on numerical ratings.
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 32. More on this later, but note that the Congressional coalitions have shifted quite a lot since then
@KevinMKruse @IraStoll 33. Also, Bob Novak calling him a liberal is...not surprising. He was arguing against electing him!
34. This too is unsurprising. As I noted upthread, JFK's primary strategy required courting liberals unenthused with Texan LBJ & Missouri's Stu Symington (backed by Truman). Thus his protean effort to paint himself as a liberal intellectual author
35. Anyway, if @KevinMKruse wants to define this as what a "liberal" should believe, I'm fine with that. George W. Bush probably would, too.
@KevinMKruse 36. That is not how this works. Each vote's scoring is subjective. Whether to weight different votes by importance is subjective. Not everything that has a number is a hard fact.
@KevinMKruse 37. To put a bow (for now) on this thread, some furthe reading on numerical ratings....
@KevinMKruse 38. ...and the point where the Professor threw the towel. But again: don't take my, or his, word for it. Read the evidence yourself on an issue-by-issue basis & decide.
