I’d note that the author had a point. Republicans used to be, fairly overtly, the party of business—particularly big business.

Despite the occasional coded message and pandering to the racist or religious fanatic wings, the GOP is now, more than ever, the party of crony capitalism.

(Although that is no longer the case. Most private-sector union members are Republicans; many big businesses depend heavily on regulation, which Democrats are always perceived to be more favorable toward than Republicans.)

I’d be curious to see a cite. This Pew study indicates that a substantial majority of union households vote Democratic.

If big business loves Democrats, why do drug and insurance companies donate twice as much to Republicans, while tobacco companies, and oil and gas, donates four times as much to Republicans?

This dynamic is very noticeable in the tobacco industry; the big, established companies are in favor of higher taxes and more regulation, because that helps squeeze out the smaller companies.

See above.

We are seeing that here in Virginia—there’s a major fight within the Republican party between the business interests and the more conservative “leave-us-alone” interests.

If there is any libertarian or small government element to the Republican party, it’s invisible to the naked eye.

They’re just recycling an observation from Paul Fussell’s CLASS (published 1980). He chose bowling and polo as his two class examples.

The whole golf-Eisenhower thing was explained by Robert Coover’s The Public Burning, a historically accurate account of the eletrocuting of Fred and Ethel Merz… um, I mean Ethel and Julius Rosenberg in Times square. Eisenhower went to the links because it was a good place for Uncle Sam to incarnate himself in our war hero Prez. Those who want the details should go to the chapter in the book about the Burning Tree course, which is narrated by Nixon—like Woodward, recently, Coover was able to get the cooperation of Nixon himself for this behind the scenes look at Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam, as Coover discovered, favors golf as a place not only to display his powers, but to interrogate his candidate vehicles. Uncle Sam started incarnating in Presidents on the golf course under a democrat, Woodrow Wilson—and in fact it was a transmutation that didn’t come off that left Wilson only half alive in 1919.

So Golf is essential to the American fabric, not just republicans.

Read it here if you have a subscription.

No, nonono. The conservative doesn’t have time for golf. Researching the Bavarian Illuminati and correlating it to the Kennedys is quite time consuming.

Maybe in a previous era. Today, they’re all just blowhoard sleazebags on the take.

Does it mean ‘no’?