Here are clearer screenshots of the article. McCall was referring of the failed efforts of Walter Huss to take over the Oregon GOP. Huss failed in 1970 and again in 1976, but succeeded in 1978.pic.twitter.com/k8XgIHddWA
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Here are clearer screenshots of the article. McCall was referring of the failed efforts of Walter Huss to take over the Oregon GOP. Huss failed in 1970 and again in 1976, but succeeded in 1978.pic.twitter.com/k8XgIHddWA
Most of the platform proposals put forward by Huss's faction narrowly failed, but they pointed toward the GOP future in a host of ways.pic.twitter.com/p0TuvsBUz1
They wanted to "free a person from any legal liability for his actions to protect his home and family or to help anyone threatened with violence." They wanted to eliminate all teacher tenure laws.
They wanted to require parents in a school district to vote on what type of sex ed classes should be taught. They also "opposed any form of gun control" and said that "dangerous pesticides shouldn't be barred from use until there is 'conclusive evidence'" of harm.
More on Huss's backstory here.https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1394175618170855424?s=20 …
Some snippets from the newspaper Huss produced in the 1960s, The National Eagle.https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1394309230811746304?s=20 …
In 1966 Huss challenged liberal Republican Mark Hatfield in the GOP Senatorial primary. This endorsement of Huss, the populist outsider who will shake up Washington, might ring a few bells. [Albany] Greater Oregonian, 20 May 1966.pic.twitter.com/PC2YZyfw1m
This thread has gotten a lot of traction outside of Oregon, so I feel obliged to add this article about Tom McCall, one of many moderate, even liberal, Oregon Republicans from the 1970s and 1980s.https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/mccall_thomas_l/ …
I'm interested in Walter Huss because his story points to the long, protracted struggle within the GOP to turn it into a party of the far right. Huss was working away at that starting in 1958. As were the folks who produced the media identified here.https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1392921857414795268?s=20 …
Despite Huss's efforts, Oregon in the 1970s had a Republican Senator who was a staunch critic of the Vietnam War (Hatfield) and a GOP Governor (McCall) who advocated for very progressive environmental regulations.
Huss very much represented the GOP's future, while McCall and Hatfield are now long discarded parts of the GOP's past. Neither would be remotely welcome in today's GOP. The point is this, parties change over time. The future of the GOP depends upon what the party leaders do.
In the 1970s, most establishment Republicans in Oregon dismissed Huss and his supporters as "nuts" and "kooks." They did not take them seriously enough as a threat to their vision of the GOP. And now the state GOP nominates QAnon supporters for US Senate.
But here's the important part. We may scoff at the idea of a QAnon supporter winning a seat in the US Senate. But that candidate got 40% of the vote in 2020. This is why parties matter.https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1388161267777511431?s=20 …
The 1980s and 90s iteration of Huss's far right politics in Oregon came in the form of anti-gay crusader Lon Mabon. Thx to @AndrewFmOregon for cluing me into this excellent article on Mabon. https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19931003&slug=1724056 …
The history of the American far right from 1950 to the 2000s, right there in a nutshell. From that 1993 article on Mabon.pic.twitter.com/BlkGS1V6eW
Like every bigot ever, Mabon claimed that he didn't have anything *against* gay people, he just built an entire political career around demonizing them and encouraging others to demonize them.pic.twitter.com/ohauofmO0O
Again we see the tell-tale amnesia about the far right. "Where did Mabon and his movement come from?" Well, maybe if people hadn't ignored or dismissed Huss and his followers as "kooks" and "nuts" who don't really represent the GOP, they wouldn't have asked that question.pic.twitter.com/0trNonUyCM
This is the Flight 93 mentality we saw articulated by pro-Trump "intellectuals" in 2016. This paragraph was written in 1993, describing the Oregon far right. "What they see [is] their way of life threatened and opportunities to do anything about it fading fast."pic.twitter.com/eOrm8aFFIp
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