As obvious as the overt white supremacy/fascist politics of the Trump admin is, let's not forget...

[ArtTownsend]

....that another tired old celebrity turned right-wing demagogue was elected President while explicitly pandering to - no, outright promoting - racist “states rights” narratives and tropes about “South Side of Chicago welfare queens” - along with outrageous and vicious claims that the US military would have won the Vietnam War if it hadn’t been for the “defeatists” at home, in Congress, in the “liberal media”, and the leftists and dirty hippies and other anti-war protestors at home. You know, if the military hadn’t been STABBED IN THE BACK.



During his Presidency, Ronald Reagan openly supported apartheid South Africa, devastated black America via slashing anti-poverty programs and the War on Drugs, destabilized much of Central America via support for the “Freedom Fighters” (right-wing death squads), all while presiding over an increase in far-right/white supremacist activity and violence (The Order, for example). The careers of people like David Duke and the more “respectable” Pat Buchanan - Reagan’s Communications Director - also took off during this period.

And lest we forget, Donald Trump first became a household name in Ronald Reagan’s 1980s. “Greed is Good.”


The more things change....

[guillaumeb]

1. Recommended.

And Nixon laid the foundation for the modern GOP. The GOP needs racists and promotes racism to appeal to those racists.

[ArtTownsend]

2. Yup, can't forget Nixon. Roger Ailes, Pat Buchanan, Karl Rove...

Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Roger “Nixon tattoo on my back” Stone all came out of that era.

[guillaumeb]

3. And of the three, Trump is the most openly racist.

But a close second was Reagan, who opened his Presidential campaign in Philadelphia Mississippi at the fairgrounds. A fairgrounds where the KKK was having rallies in the 1960s.

[ArtTownsend]

4. Philadelphia, MS was where three civil rights activists from the North were murdered by Klansmen...

With assistance from the Klan’s allies in local law enforcement.

IIRC one of the murdered was a friend of Robert Reich.

[guillaumeb]

6. An excellent response.

From the "southern strategy" of Nixon, to the welfare queens of Reagan, to the "shithole countries" of Trump. In any Venn diagram, racism is the common factor.

[ArtTownsend]

7. Good ole-fashioned All-American racism is the Trojan Horse for right-wing economic policies.

And time and time again, it’s worked.

[wryter2000]

10. And go back just a tiny bit farther

George Wallace made right wingery, complete with racism, a popular craze in the mid to late 60's. He was the darling of the college speakers circuit. I remember being a freshman at Syracuse U when some friends came up and enthusiastically asked if I wanted to hear him speak. "Hell no, he's a racist pig. Have you forgotten?" was my answer. Apparently, they had forgotten.

There's an interesting book about all that called The Politics of Rage. I really believe that was what told wingnuts they could openly go for the racist vote.

Reagan, on the other hand, made up the idea of "cruel joke" appointments by naming people to head an agency who were openly hostile to the goals of said agency. He, also, is responsible for the deviation from truth and science that makes modern right wingery possible.

Yes, Nixon created the southern strategy, but things got into full swing under Reagan.

[ArtTownsend]

17. Yes, George Wallace was a VERY important antecedent, as was another, even more racist George...

George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder and leader of the American Nazi Party, who was one of the pioneers of showing up at college campuses, civil rights demonstrations (especially those led by Martin Luther King, Jr.; Rockwell gained some notoriety for trying to sabotage MLK's Chicago protests), and other places where he could - to coin a phrase -"trigger the libs."

[wryter2000]

29. Wow

I was not aware of that. Target the libs is a lot of the motivation behind Trumpism.

[raccoon]

5. Reagan was a Dotard, although most of us didn't know the word then. Nt

[ArtTownsend]

8. Republican voters like their leaders willfully ignorant and mean-spirited.

Republican donors like it too, but only because having a media attention-sucking figurehead provides them cover for their quiet nefariousness - enacting policies that screw the masses on behalf of the super-rich.

[TreasonousBastard]

9. The difference is in style, not substance...

Reagan, after years of experience in Hollywood, was able to create a "down home" character that managed to show these evils as positives. Even if you didn't like much of what he did, you felt comfortable about it.

Trump does not have the ability to put a gloss on his basic shttiness.

[lunatica]

12. Trump happened because of Reagan

Trump happening is a phenomenon that will tax many historians in our future. Hell, the world is still trying to figure out the cultish following of Hitler and religious leaders like Davis Koresh and Jim Jones where the followers preferred death over common sense.

Trump is an aberration and should have never happened in a civilized society, but the roots of his eventual embrace by MAGATs lie with Reagan.

Of course, it’s much more complicated, but it’s easier to understand when you ignore the Presidents and focus on the election machinery that got them there.

[ArtTownsend]

21. THIS

[TreasonousBastard]

28. It's far more complicated and made worse by the number of other autocrats around...

the planet. France is leaning rightward, Turkey, Poland, Hungary, and a bunch of others seem to prefer dictators, and the situation isn't any better in SA or Africa. Or Asia.

I suspect the real problem is cyclical-- we go in one direction and that doesn't work the way we like, so we try another way. Rinse, repeat... And old New Yorker article I remember reading, but can't find now, says it's been roughly 30 year cycles. 30 years? Doesn't that sound that by the time a new generation grows into power it knows it doesn't like what's going on but doesn't remember what preceded it so goes ahead and brings that old failure back.

Rinse repeat...

Trump is far too stupid and self-involved to see all this. I think Nixon saw it, and even Reagan might have had some idea how it works. Clinton (both of them) probably had a clue, but never figured out how to use the phenomenon to any good purpose. Perhaps there is no good way and we just need more evolution.

At any rate, it's not a bad thing that we don't fully trust our leadership, but when we don'r trust our own judgment and pass our responsibilities off to others, right or left, it becomes a real problem.

[wryter2000]

11. He made all that crap acceptable

He, truly, set us on the road to where we are now.

[ArtTownsend]

27. My thoughts exactly.

[JoeOtterbein]

13. K n R ! Thanks for posting!

[ArtTownsend]

22. You are most welcome!

[Mr.Bill]

14. If this country ever experiences

total collapse of it's economic system, historians will note that it began with Reagan showing us the prosperity of borrowed money.

Whenever you debate economics with a republican remind them that only two presidents doubled the national debt while in office. Their names are Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

[ArtTownsend]

24. They cut taxes , increase military spending, and deregulate everything while in office.

Then, when the economy inevitably goes into a recession, and if a Democrat is elected POTUS- particularly if that Democrat is, say, a black man, just as an entirely hypothetical example - they rally the racist troops to sabotage that Democratic President and distract people from their own (Republican) crimes and corruption.

[NCLefty]

15. And now we have audio of St. Ronnie being racist.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-reagans-racist-conversation-richard-nixon/595102/

I finally understand why he was such a Republican hero.

[ArtTownsend]

18. Yup, there it is.

[Farmer-Rick]

16. Raygun doubled the deficit, excellerated the GOP war on workers

Cut our Social Security benefits while doubling our Social Security Taxes.

Traitor Trump is just finishing off what's left of our democracy.

[ArtTownsend]

26. All true, unfortunately.

[czarjak]

19. 1964 Civil Rights Act sent them over the edge.

[ArtTownsend]

20. Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrats walked out of the 1948 DNC when Hubert Humphrey put civil rights

into the party platform.

[czarjak]

23. Barely before my time...

You can keep going as far back as the beginning.

[ArtTownsend]

25. Yup, incredible, isn't it??

[Hermit-The-Prog]

30. this entire discussion should be required reading

[ArtTownsend]

31. Thanks, I appreciate that.