Former President Donald Trump is now the official Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential race. His bombastic style and boastful rhetoric are something people either love or hate. But Trump is not the first president or presidential candidate to make such colorful remarks and push the Republican Party further to the right.
Sixty years ago, another grandiloquent and explicitly extreme presidential candidate appeared on the scene. Barry M. Goldwater is a name that lives on in Arizona and has expanded beyond the political arena.
Terminal 4 at Sky Harbor Airport bears his name. There is the Goldwater Institute and the Goldwater Boulevard in Scottsdale. There is the Goldwater Brewing Co., although their about page on its website doesn't go into why they chose the name Goldwater.
For longtime Arizonans and political historians, the name Goldwater is synonymous with "extremism" and a man who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. For conservatives, he was a leader they could rally behind during a time of immense change.
In this episode of The Gaggle, hosts Ron Hansen and Mary Jo Pitzl sit down with The Republic's politics editor and Goldwater historian, Dan Nowicki, to discuss the man behind the name, and how he paved the way for America's political right to swing far to the right.
Listen to the episode
The best way to listen is to subscribe to The Gaggle on your favorite podcast app, but you also can stream the full episode below.
Read the episode transcript here. Please note that there might be slight discrepancies due to the AI used to transcribe the conversation.
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