A 1964 political ad produced by the Lyndon Johnson campaign to brand Barry Goldwater as a dangerous extremist is now a viral video being used against Donald Trump.
This campaign ad from the 1960's is going viralThis "Confessions of a Republican" ad from the 1964 presidential election is going viral, thanks to its uncanny relevance to the 2016 presidential election.
Posted by Quartz on Tuesday, March 8, 2016
The black-and-white TV spot titled "Confessions of a Republican" features a Republican explaining why he was abandoning his party in the wake of Goldwater's nominate for president.
It features an actor, who recently confirmed that he was at the time a Republican who agreed with the scripted message:
"I've always been a Republican. My father is, his father was, the whole family is a Republican family. I voted for Dwight Eisenhower the first time I ever voted; I voted for Nixon the last time. But when we come to Senator Goldwater, now it seems to me we're up against a very different kind of a man. This man scares me."
Johnson, who assumed the presidency a year earlier after John Kennedy's assassination, wanted voters to fear what Goldwater might do when his finger was on the nuclear button. Fears of a global nuclear war were hight then, just two years after the Bay of Pigs crisis with Russia. China also tested it's first atomic bomb in October 1964.
"I wish I was as sure that Goldwater is as against war as I am that he's against some of these other things," the actor said. "I wish I could believe that he has the imagination to be able to just shut his eyes and picture what this country would look like after a nuclear war."
The ad also refers to Goldwater's endorsement by Ku Klux Klan leaders, a criticism that Trump has fought against.
"I mean, when the head of the Ku Klux Klan, when all these weird groups come out in favor of the candidate of my party -- either they're not Republicans or I'm not," he said.
LBJ won election in a landslide.
