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RIP John Anderson, the Last Liberal RepublicanJohn B. Anderson of Illinois, who died today at the age of 95, served in Congress for 20 years. But what gave him national fame was a briefly sensational independent candidacy for president in 1980, running against President Jimmy Carter and soon-to-be-president Ronald Reagan. By doing so, Anderson represented two milestones in modern political history: He was the most conspicuous of early conscientious objectors to the conservative movement’s takeover of the Republican Party, and he was the prototype for the kind of centrist third-party presidential candidate that so many pundits and billionaires long for in today’s era of partisan polarization.
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Anderson was never afraid to take heretical positions. His signature economic proposal in 1980 was a 50-cent-per-gallon federal gasoline tax increase with the proceeds to be devoted to a cut in the Social Security payroll tax. It’s still a pretty good idea, if not necessarily something that would poll well, much like Anderson himself
Pretty much he was the last one to make a stand against the narcissism and the fantasy of the American people, the last one willing to claim that we needed to suck it up and pay, and suck it up and do good work, if we wanted to be a great nation.
He was roundly rejected at the polls, and the entire political establishment took note.
RIP John B.