The Democrats hold John F. Kennedy in high esteem, but would Kennedy really be a Democrat in today’s political climate? Radio host Larry Elder argues in PragerU’s latest video that Kennedy would be a Republican today.
First, there is no way that Kennedy would have supported affirmative action, as he once expressed his disdain for racial quotas and preferences, stating: “We are too mixed, this society of ours, to begin to divide ourselves on the basis of race or color.” That view would have not been welcome in today’s Democrat Party given their embrace of identity politics.
Kennedy also believed in cutting taxes for everyone, even for the rich.
“A tax cut means higher family income and higher business profits,” Kennedy said in a speech. “Every taxpayer and his family will have more money left over after taxes for a new car, a new home, new conveniences, education and investment. Every businessman can keep a higher percentage of his profits in his cash register or put it to work expanding or improving his business.”
This too would be frowned upon in today’s Democrat Party, which features the class warfare rhetoric from politicians like Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
Additionally, Kennedy’s foreign policy was more akin to Ronald Reagan’s “peace through strength” mantra than Barack Obama’s Chamberlain-esque appeasement, as he believed in bulking up America’s armed forces; he threatened military action against the Soviet Union when they were establishing missile sites in Cuba.
The Democrat Party today embraces gun control and scorns the National Rifle Association (NRA); Kennedy was a lifetime NRA member and supporter of the Second Amendment. He once said that in order for America to remain free, the country needed “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, and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.”
Abortion was not a prominent issue during Kennedy’s time, but Justice Byron White, whom Kennedy appointed, was one of the two dissenting justices in Roe v. Wade and Kennedy was repulsed by Japan’s use of abortion to control their population. The Democrat Party today is the party of the baby-dismembering-for-profit Planned Parenthood, so Kennedy’s abortion record would be unwelcome in the party as well.
“Today, if a Democrat advocated the positions on race, taxes, foreign policy, guns and abortion that our 35th president once did, he wouldn’t be a Democrat,” Elder concluded. “He’d belong to that other party.”
The full video can be seen below: