By Mary Miller James

I just returned from a trip to Buffalo, New York, where my sister and I were invited to share our memories of campaigning during the 1964 GOP Presidential election with a group assembled to commemorate the 60th anniversary of that event. It has left me pondering how the same issues of six decades ago could be framed so differently by the same party today.

My dad was Bill Miller, 14-year upstate New York congressman, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman, Republican National Chairman and finally Senator Barry Goldwater’s vice-presidential running mate.

Both Goldwater and my dad espoused what has always been a bedrock GOP principle: a strong military devoted to defending America and her allies. They were staunch supporters of the Vietnam War for fear its fall to Communism would trigger a domino effect that would threaten the region and the world. How has today’s GOP become so isolationist as to care so little about Ukraine and the worldwide threat Russia poses, to support our departure from NATO?

With respect to the Christian Right, Goldwater made these remarks: “Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the (Republican) party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.”

When Democrats accused my dad of being anti-Catholic for opposing President Kennedy, he responded: “I’m Catholic, I oppose Kennedy based on his policies, period.”

The point is, both men were dead set against the comingling of religion and politics. Sure, many of our Founding Fathers were Christian but they made sure our Constitution stated, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” Does today’s GOP not recognize that it is religious zealotry that produced the Salem witch hunts as well as Iran’s Islamic theocracy?

When it came to gays, at the time referencing their inclusion in the military, Goldwater made this oft-quoted assessment: “You don’t need to be ‘straight’ to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight.” … “You don’t have to agree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay.”

Indeed, today we deal with additional contentious issues like transgenderism, but how has today’s GOP become so LGBTQ-hostile?

Illegal immigration has been an issue under both Republican and Democratic administrations for decades and neither has fixed it. But it was conservative Republican President Ronald Reagan who provided amnesty to 11 million undocumented immigrants in 1986. How has today’s GOP become so hatefully anti-immigrant?

There are issues today that never surfaced in the 1960s, so I cannot know how Goldwater or my dad would feel about them. Abortion is one of them as it would be a decade before Roe v. Wade would reach the Supreme Court. But I recall this from Goldwater: “The conservative movement, to which I subscribe, has as one of its basic tenets the belief that government should stay out of people’s private lives. Government governs best when it governs least — and stays out of the impossible task of legislating morality.”

That said, both believed government still plays a critical role, for example, in regulating private enterprise that, unchecked, can lead to the despicable environmental pollution our N.C. hog farms have produced. How has today’s GOP become so fiercely anti-government? 

We didn’t experience mass shootings six decades ago, but despite knowing both men served in the military and undoubtedly supported the Second Amendment, I have a hard time imagining they wouldn’t back reasonable restrictions like national background checks and banning weapons of war from our streets.

Climate change wasn’t on the radar back then either. But both men were smart, practical and deeply devoted to the health and well-being of Americans and our responsibility to the rest of the world. So I can’t imagine they would dismiss the science of global warming as a hoax and the need to address it. How has today’s GOP become so anti-science?

Goldwater and my dad were pillars of conservatism 60 years ago and would find no place in today’s GOP. And it is the ultimate irony of my life that Democrats now represent the values I cherish. I long for the return of a Republican party that can once again stand for the decency, integrity, kindness, civility, inclusivity, common sense and open-minded tolerance I feel define both men’s legacy. The country needs it.