As Donald Trump would do 52 years later Goldwater wrested the GOP nomination away from the Establishment creating a fissure in Republican politics that exists to this day Unlike Trump Goldwater did not become president He lost to Lyndon Johnson in a historic landslide I ve never heard any political observer blame the Fact magazine article for that defeat but it was so nasty and gratuitous that when the campaign was over Goldwater filed a libel suit in federal court 