THE FIRST RINO: NELSON ALTGELD ROCKEFELLER "ROCKY"

Vol. I | Issue. 98 | June 23, 2022

Nelson “Rocky” Rockefeller, the grandson of Standard Oil founder and Billionaire John D. Rockefeller, was Governor of New York (1959 - 1973) and Vice President under President Gerald R. Ford. The Rockefellers have been one of America’s wealthiest families and most powerful clans for over 125 years. Nelson, the son of John D. Rockefeller Jr., in addition to being intimately involved in parts of the family business, was most prominently the overseer of the depression-ear masterpiece for the construction of Rockefeller Center in NYC.

After the general public began to disdain the Rockefellers due to their monopolistic control over the oil industry (which led to their power over the lives of everyday American Life) and several well-publicized Rockefeller/Standard Oil industrial accidents causing the deaths of Standard Oil workers in the public eye through nationally saturated newspaper coverage (See Ludlow Massacre), John D. Jr. turned his focus to philanthropy. Through his efforts and those of his sons, AKA "The Rockefeller Brothers”, the family became America’s most generous philanthropists.

The Rockefeller family were long-standing Republicans, and Nelson, with his wealth, drive, and winning personality, was a natural for politics and elective office. People forget that the Republican Party, known as the party of Lincoln, was the party that "freed the slaves”, while the Democrat Party was the party of slavery. Nelson Rockefeller was elected as New York’s Governor in 1959 and was a failed candidate for President in 1964. Despite his wealth and general abilities, he was always considered to be a "Republican-lite" and not conservative in any meaningful way.

In 1960, the Republicans nominated Richard Nixon, a former California Congressman, Senator, and two-term Vice President under Dwight D. Eisenhower, as their Presidential candidate. Nixon lost to JFK in a photo finish election which many suspect was attributable to Mayor Richard J. Daley's stuffing of the Cook County ballot boxes, giving Kennedy the Illinois win, and putting him over the top in the electoral college.

After the Presidential election of 1960, Rockefeller continued on with his governance of New York. While professing to be conservative, he spent like a drunken sailor, cozied up to labor unions, and was generally soft on crime as New York City's crime rates began to soar. Rockefeller’s conservative political branding was effectively hollow. In short, he was a “Republican In Name Only”, or “RINO” as this group of faux Republicans has come to be known.

The liberal Republicans of that era came to be known as "Rockefeller Republicans". This crowd essentially had no conservative convictions except rhetorically. They all claimed to be socially liberal, but fiscally conservative. That was all bullsh*t. This group was socially liberal and fiscally extravagant, just like their northern Democrat brethren across the aisle. 

Rockefeller sought the Presidential nomination again in 1964, along with others who adopted Rocky’s phony mantle of conservatism. In 1964, America was at a critical juncture; It was the year after the JFK assassination when America’s elite educational establishment began its “Hate America” campaign in the classroom. The culture wars had unofficially begun and the RINOS were nowhere to be found… While Ivy League professors began poisoning their students with admiration of MAO, Che Guevarra, and others (see American Way and Mass Murders Row Article), the Republican establishment was asleep at the switch.

That year, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, a clear outsider to the establishment was nominated and lost to Lyndon Johnson in a landslide. Although something happened at that Republican Nominating Convent, a star was born… That star was Ronald Reagan.

Reagan’s speech at the 1964 convention, “A Time for Choosing”, electrified true conservatives. Reagan touched on the issues that were a mortal threat to American Freedom, Democracy, and the survival of The American Way. This speech at the 1964 Republican convention was Reagan’s first step in the steady rise of his career leading first to the Governorship of California in 1967 and ultimately to the Presidency in 1980. Sadly, Reagan did not pay enough attention to the Left-wing poisoning of our cultural educational and philanthropic institutions that have created the “Woke / Hate America” cultural environment that is now eating away at our national fabric.

Ronnie, you did some great things, but you should have spent some time doing some defunding of your own, starting with the Department of Education and the billions given to Colleges and Universities that spewed their hate American Curricula. 

The hackneyed cliché of the RINO has become “I’m a social liberal, but a fiscal conservative” which provides cover for those who wish to beard their conservative Republican views. 

It is always important for conservatives to support Republican candidates who have a clear understanding and commitment to a capitalist constitutional democracy… Not just those who pretend to be.

Sorry Rocky, but to your credit, you were the original… Just like the one in the movie. Yo Adrian!

-Emes