In 1964, Barry Goldwater was fond of saying he gave voters “A choice, not an echo.” Goldwater’s campaign theme was a reference to those “me-too” Republicans who accepted the New Deal and even expanded it. A decade before, Dwight Eisenhower undertook a massive enlargement of the federal government by creating a Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; founding the modern interstate highway system (an infrastructure investment unmatched until the Biden administration); expanding Social Security; increasing the minimum wage; and making a significant federal investment in education after the Soviet Union’s successful 1957 launch of Sputnik. Goldwater derided Eisenhower’s domestic agenda as a “dime store New Deal.” His contrast to Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society was stark, and he lost in a landslide.
But Johnson’s overreach created a backlash. Two years after his overwhelming victory, Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California, and he began a revival of the conservative movement that resulted in three presidential landslides. Democrats recalibrated by offering their own version of “me-tooism” that included promises to cut spending and balance the budget.
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