On June 8, 2023, televangelist and political influencer Pat Robertson died at the age of 93. I am not covering his legacy today, but that of his father, Absalom Willis Robertson (1887-1971), a political actor in his own right.
Robertson, an attorney, started his political career in Virginia young, in 1915 being elected to the Virginia State Senate, getting elected at the same time as a major player in Byrd. There he would author the Robertson Road Act, providing $14 million to assist localities for road construction, and was okay with using some bonds to fund road construction (Heinemann). He was a man of deep religious faith, after all he was named after the third son of King David, Absalom (Hill). Robertson, who would go by A. Willis, would pass on this faith to his children, most notable of course being Marion Gordon “Pat” Robertson. Although Pat’s central figure of instruction was his mother, Gladys, who was even more Biblically focused than her husband (Epps). Robertson would move out of the legislature in 1924 to serve as Commonwealth Attorney for Rockbridge County and would serve until 1928.
Robertson Goes to Congress
In 1932, Willis Robertson is elected to Congress At-Large from Virginia in the Roosevelt landslide. His territorial district is the 7th, and this would be restored with the 1934 midterms. The 7th was not the most secure territory for Democrats, as Republican John Paul had briefly served in the 67th Congress and the 1928 landslide by Herbert Hoover brought into office Republican Jacob Garber for a single term. Robertson was initially a supporter of FDR’s New Deal, backing the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the National Industrial Recovery Act, but he would soon have major disagreements with Roosevelt, and in 1935 he voted against work relief and Social Security. Although Robertson often quoted the Bible, he was in truth foremost devoted to the Constitution according to his friend Senator John C. Stennis (D-Miss.), stating, “He almost worshiped the Constitution — and had a fine knowledge of it, too” (Epps).
Robertson in the Senate
Robertson, like most Virginia politicians, was part of the Byrd Organization, and after Carter Glass’ death in 1946, he competed against Congressman Howard W. Smith and former Congressman Colgate Darden for the seat. These men all being friends of Byrd, he maintained neutrality in the contest. The primary was challenging, but Robertson pulled ahead after Darden withdrew and his supporters went to him. Winning the primary in Virginia at the time was tantamount to election.
Although a conservative, Robertson is considerably more moderate than Byrd himself. Unlike the hyper cost-conscious Byrd, he joins most Democrats in voting for Greek-Turkish Aid and the Marshall Plan. He was, like Byrd, an opponent of the Fair Deal. Also, unlike him, Robertson maintains loyalty in backing the Democratic Party’s candidates nationally. He backed Truman in 1948 and while Byrd found himself unable to endorse Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and 1956 on account of his liberalism, Robertson considered him a quality nominee and backed him whatever ideological differences existed. He also was far more devoted to his Senate duties than Byrd (he had a near perfect attendance record) and regularly studied legislation (Hill).
By the 1960s, Robertson is roughly equal to Harry Byrd in his conservatism but is independent of the Byrd Organization and is the chairman of the Banking and Currency Committee due to seniority. Although he publicly backs Byrd’s “Massive Resistance” policy to desegregation, he does so lukewarmly and has private reservations about its wisdom. This doesn’t mean that he slacks in his opposition to civil rights legislation nationally; on one occasion he dislocated his shoulder while gesticulating against a civil rights bill. Robertson also votes against the New Frontier and Great Society programs including LBJ’s “War on Poverty” and voted against its flagship legislation, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. He stated on the law, “Jesus said, ‘The poor ye shall always have with you'” (Epps). It is also no surprise given Robertson’s vote against Social Security that he voted against Medicare and Medicaid the following year. Robertson, among the many ways he crossed liberals, was in his opposition to financial disclosure statements from senators. But this was not out of fear that it would expose how wealthy he was, rather “He didn’t want anybody to know how poor he was because then they might run against him” (Epps).
The Lady Bird Whistle Stop – The End of a Career
Although Robertson is getting increasingly out of the times on his civil rights stances, it is a personal affront that most directly brings about his defeat. In 1965, Robertson was one of four Southern senators to snub Lady Bird Johnson in her traveling by train to Southern states to encourage support for civil rights legislation. This ticks off President Johnson, who sees an opportunity to end Robertson’s career. This wouldn’t have been possible in the last election as the Byrd Organization was a solid force, but in 1965 Byrd resigns due to his terminal brain cancer and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 dramatically increased voter participation of blacks and poor whites. Thus, Johnson recruits State Senator William B. Spong, a moderate, to run against Robertson in 1966. Spong criticizes a number of his conservative votes and him as being a man of the past. Robertson’s age doesn’t help as a few days before the primary election, Byrd, who was two weeks younger than him, slipped into a coma (Epps). Spong prevails in the primary by only 611 votes (Heinemann). His MC-Index score, which covers his entire career, is a 73% and his adjusted* ADA average score, covering 1947 to 1966, is a 14%. Robertson subsequently engaged in consulting work for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He maintained an active lifestyle and good health until his sudden death on November 1, 1971. Robertson’s legacy partially lived on in his son, who one friend would state, “spent 50 years as a professional politician, with an alert bright son who just absorbed piles of this stuff — and then the very strange, remote, religious mother. The result is almost what you’d get if you wrote that novel” (Epps).
* – Not counting unopinionated absences towards ideology.
References
Epps, G. (1986, October 19). Pat Robertson’s a Pastor, But his Father Was a Pol. The Washington Post.
Retrieved from
Heinemann, R.L. A. Willis Robertson (1887-1971). Encyclopedia Virginia.
Retrieved from
https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/robertson-a-willis-1887-1971/
Hill, R. Virginia’s Gentleman: Senator Willis Robertson. The Knoxville Focus.
Retrieved from
https://www.knoxfocus.com/archives/this-weeks-focus/virginias-gentleman-senator-willis-robertson/
Mad Politics: The Bizarre, Fascinating, and Unknown of American Political History 
Awesome read; the baton of Virginia’s conservative Christianity in its political aspect passed from A. Willis to Pat Robertson (and which seems to be currently held in politics de facto by Bob Good) was of slight interest to me two years back, and on racial issues, the shift is quite interesting. The senior Robertson appears to have been a typical neo-Bourbon segregationist while the televangelist Pat, OTOH, was colorful with a different flavor.
I recall losing a substantial amount of brain cells reading about Pat Robertson claiming that MLK, Jr., conspired with Planned Parenthood to hasten “black genocide.” MLK receiving the Margaret Sanger Award was likely due to his support for natural family planning, as several sources report his opposition to abortion. Robertson’s statement, while possibly in good faith in concordance with Booker T. Washington-inspired conservative views on uplifting blacks, reeked of terrible ignorance on U.S. history which many standard hardline right-wing activists fail to sufficiently do their extra research on. As a whole, their usual efforts at countering neo-Marxist propaganda, especially the “KKK were Democrats” line, gets boring quickly and aren’t a match against the horde of revisionist left-wing historians, to put it mildly. As someone who has commented elsewhere on the Great D’Souza-Kruse Twitter Wars, I can say with strong certainty that American conservatives have long failed to fight the mainstream leftist propaganda apparatus properly, and the old battle on racial issues nowadays is mostly conceded as the increasing direction of “right-wing” populism often embraces white identity politics (rather ironic, IMO, to embrace tenets of neo-Marxist blather albeit in a different form for a movement which claims to fight neo-Marxists) in its increasing affiliation with the “alt-right.”
As for Pat Robertson’s view on black history and civil rights, his contention that the civil rights movement was bad for blacks in the long-run because it allegedly ruined family values and contributed to their cultural moral degradation was quite an… interesting and unique stance compared that of his father. While the civil rights movement did lead the charge for increasingly active government initiatives, it wasn’t the civil rights legislation themselves, rather the Great Society welfare programs, that decimated family values. It was unfortunately terribly ignorant for the colorful televangelist to ignore the atrocities faced by black people amidst the vicious waves of race riots and lynchings from the Progressive Era to the New Deal era, as some form of paternalistic racial attitudes held by the senior A. Willis probably was passed on to Pat and lingered, to reiterate, in a different flavor.
Thanks! Yeah, the right’s got some work to do here and Pat Robertson had some really out there takes (blaming natural disasters on certain social issues is foremost in my mind, but that MLK stuff is out there too). Robertson got a lot of his politics from his father but his religiosity from his mother.
The rise of white-identity politics has been profoundly disheartening for me as someone who despises identity politics altogether. One cannot in good conscience condemn identity politics from the Democrats regarding demographic groups that predominantly vote for them while condoning it from demographic groups that predominantly vote Republican. Regarding tying new Democrats to old as D’Souza wishes to do, it has to be understood that the Democratic Party in base philosophy HAS remained the same, but their methods have differed and the groups they have appealed to overtime have differed as well. Their emphasis is more on identity today than of traditional class issues (although the latter is seen as deeply tied to the former). The Democratic Party’s consistency is that throughout its history seen itself as the champion of the underdog against privilege. Jackson’s veto of the Second Bank of the United States included the following language, “The rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes…When the laws…make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society – the farmers, mechanics, and laborers – have a right to complain of the injustice to their government.”
This is a philosophy that has survived from the Democrats of old to the Democrats of today, and I think conservatives would do well to try and argue that the base philosophy behind conservatism isn’t racist and that supporting conservative principles isn’t inherently based in racism even if there are those out there who will find racist reasons to support, rather than some ridiculous argument about contemporary Democrats and the KKK. Its rather like how there are neo-Marxists who support Democratic policy as better than Republican policy, but it doesn’t mean the base motives for many Democrats are based in neo-Marxism, even if I do think they have gotten overly influenced by them and too easily buy into certain narratives.