‘Radical’ Is in the Eye of the Beholder
Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the Republican Party’s most ubiquitous surrogates, went on NBC’s “Meet the Press” this past Sunday and proclaimed Kamala Harris “the most radical nominee in the history of American politics.”
As a political tactic, it makes sense that the Trump campaign is trying to divert voters’ attention away from their own candidate’s antics. Even GOP-friendly Fox News cut away from Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania as he started wading into bizarre territory.
Asserting that Harris is the most radical nominee in the history of American politics, however, betrays an utter lack of understanding of both U.S. history and the moment we are in today – and maybe perhaps confusion of what the word “radical” actually means.
If by “radical” South Carolina’s senior senator means advocating for fundamental, often drastic, changes to the status quo, there have been many truly radical major party presidential nominees in American history.
At the turn of the century, William Jennings Bryan was the Democratic Party nominee on three separate occasions. The “Great Commoner” advocated stopping the teaching of evolution in schools, federal takeover of railroads, and moving the U.S. economy to one based on silver. The gold standard, he said, was “not only un-American but anti-American.” Ironically, his brand of economic populism, coupled with social conservatism, might be in step with today’s Republican Party. At the time, it was radical.
In 1964, Barry Goldwater, arguably the father of modern-day conservatism, ran as a Republican promising among other homages to states’ rights to stop any civil rights legislation as an unnecessary federal overreach. He embraced his radical label, famously saying at the 1964 Republican convention, “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” Ronald Reagan, with the help of the Heritage Foundation and their 1000-page “Mandate for Leadership,” repackaged much of Barry Goldwater’s thinking into a mainstream political vision that swept Reagan to a second term in 1984.
In 1972, George McGovern ran for president promising to dramatically cut the defense budget, legalize marijuana, and provide Americans with a guaranteed minimum income. Twenty years later, Bill Clinton cut the defense budget during every year of his first term and was still reelected. In 2024, almost every state in the nation allows for the medical use of marijuana and roughly half allow for recreational use. Tests of guaranteed minimum income programs have popped up for the past decade. All three positions were radical at the time.
Each of those candidates lost badly because of their “radical” positions – many of which are now considered mainstream.
Finally, a string of Democratic candidates was considered radical for proposing what some described as socialized medicine that would force the desegregation of hospitals. An idea first floated by Harry Truman to provide government sponsored healthcare for senior citizens took almost 20 years to get enacted. While Medicare was considered radical when it was first suggested, now more than 80% of Americans express support for the program. Millions of seniors would be in dire straits without it.
Which brings us to the current presidential contest. Assuming that The Heritage Foundation’s attempt to reprise the Mandate for Leadership success with Project 2025 has nothing to do with the Trump campaign (an assumption that some might say borders on naivety), both candidates are on roughly equal footing when it comes to making “radical” suggestions.
Both candidates have proposed policies that would fundamentally change the status quo. Harris continues to advocate for taxing unrealized gains in the portfolios of the wealthiest Americans, something we’ve never done before. Trump is proposing Hawley Smoot-type tariffs on imported goods and eliminating the Department of Education. Whether or not you support any or all of those policy changes, one could easily argue that each of those positions is “radical.”
If we’ve learned anything in the Trump era, however, it’s that political candidates are separated by more than just their positions on policy. The way they act and what they say matters.
In that regard, the Republicans trying to whip up worries about the liberalism of the 2024 Democratic ticket should look inward. The most genuinely radical candidate in this presidential contest is their own nominee. Trump’s refusal to accept the results of any contest he loses – be that a golf match or a presidential election – wouldn’t be acceptable behavior in an 8-year-old. In a presidential candidate it’s, well, radical. How radical? Well, we’ve never seen it before even though we’ve had several other highly contentious elections.
Trump’s calls for terminating inconvenient parts of the U.S. Constitution might be expected at a college campus protest rally. From the leader of a major political party, they’re radical. His public dialogue may be acceptable when discussing feelings of inadequacy with one’s therapist. On the campaign trail, it’s radical (and more than a little creepy). As far as foreign policy goes, has America ever had a major party nominee who vowed to end a war between two foreign nations (Russia and Ukraine) before he’s even inaugurated? No.
As one of the Republican Party’s few remaining foreign policy hawks and a defender of democracies across the globe, a candid Lindsey Graham would have to admit: Donald Trump is the most radical major party presidential nominee in our nation’s history.