Even in 1960 Kennedy-Hating-Republicans Spread Conspiracy Theories (& Booze)

My parents were Democrats unlike my other relatives. Five years after my father died, my brave mother avoided conflicts about politics she had so much on her plate. I was 13.

I became aware of tension in the family in the year leading up to Kennedy’s win and subsequent inauguration. I wasn’t political, and only knew my mother thought Kennedy was the man for the job.

My grandmother hated Catholics and propagandized the whole family against the Commie-Democrat-Catholic. Her information came from little yellow journalism letters from the Republican Parrty. At 13, I saw the misinformation. My mother rejected it and stayed away from the constant disparaging comments.

Election workers who volunteered to drive people to the polls were mostly Republicans with pints of liquor to sweeten votes for Republicans. In rural areas like ours, I suspect people with cars “needed rides for booze” gifts. My grandmother of course denied it all. She said Kennedy-lovers were giving it out.

So, I began at 13 watching a bit of the news, and I fell in love with Kennedy’s accent, his wife and children. They prompted me to look into Catholicism, and since the surrounding Protestant churches frowned on Catholicism—even better.

My mother and I watched the Kennedy inauguration with joy, but I’m positive my grandmother was seething at her house. Life seemed calmer after the election, and I was involved in school. Time passed. In study hall on November 22, 1963, an awful announcement on the intercom broke our peace and said the President had been shot in Dallas. No additional details were given, but soon after we boarded buses home

Total silence and shock on a high school bus was unheard of—but the shock was on every face. No one dared talk for fear someone would start crying. The boys had sucked in their shock and didn’t look at the girls. Back then the boys sat on one side of the bus, and the girls on the other. There were some tears other than mine.

We all went home to watch television for 4 days of Jackie, Johnson, Oswald, Ruby, and the funeral. It was an emotional time. I doubt if my grandmother shed a tear like we did. My little student world changed that day.

Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash

We treasured our copies of “Profiles in Courage” and “The Torch Has Passed”; we saved magazine articles about the Kennedy family. Much later when Robert Kennedy was assassinated, we felt the grief all over. Even today decades later, I can drop a tear looking at photos of the way things were pre-assassinations.

Then, the world was horrified by violence unlike in 2024. Today people assume that violence is part of the American nightmare, and too many dreams and lives have been sacrificed for 2nd Amendment fantasies of power, greed, and racism. Ironically, what President Kennedy said about Congress is truer today than in the 1960’s.

“There is nothing in the record of the past two years when both Houses of Congress have been controlled by the Republican Party which can lead any person to believe that those promises will be fulfilled in the future. They follow the Hitler line - no matter how big the lie; repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as truth.”

John F. Kennedy

Democrats are trying to change the program, but it won’t happen until the old white Republican Dinosaur Party dies off. The courts have the power to hurl legal-meteors at Trump and his right-wing-nut enablers. Will they rise to the occasion? Will they honor the 13th Amendment, Section 3? All eyes are on SCOTUS.

If I were in my 20’s or 30’s, I would get on some honorable Democrat’s campaign team and hit the road. Instead I will get the Blue vote out because we must beat the worst Republican candidate in my lifetime. I really don’t want to die knowing he’s ruined my country beyond repair.

Do you?