I Think Reagan Started The Republican Fascist Movement

[DanieRains]

Tax cuts for the rich.
Attack government relentlessly while promising better times.
Attacking minorities.

The list goes on.

[JT45242]

1. it predates him but...

opening his campaign at a known KKK site gave it a more clear wink, wink than Nixon ever did with the southern strategy.

[katmondoo]

2. I hated Reagan for the way he treated women. Wrote him a letter telling him

mind his own business and just try to be President of all people.

[HUAJIAO]

3. republican fascists have been around a long time, long before reagan

but I agree, republican fascism grew quickly under reagan and now is growing like a mushroom cloud

[Celerity]

18. The Business Plot (also called the Wall Street Putsch and The White House Putsch) was a political

conspiracy in 1933 in the United States to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and install a dictator. Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler asserted that wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans' organization with Butler as its leader and use it in a coup d'état to overthrow Roosevelt. In 1934, Butler testified under oath before the United States House of Representatives Special Committee on Un-American Activities (the "McCormack–Dickstein Committee" ) on these revelations. Although no one was prosecuted, the Congressional committee final report said, "there is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

[HUAJIAO]

25. This is mainly to what I was referring....

[Bluethroughu]

4. Nixon started, raygun took over the plan...

Rump was the crazy rule breaker the GOP(Kochs) have always wished for. He went where the others didn't have the balls to go. These fascists are embolden, if they achieve majority rule in the next election, our Democracy will end.

I will blame Manchin and Sinema, for being self interested sell outs, and I can only hope that they have to live with the thought of ruining democracy in the world....for a bargain price.

[Polybius]

16. The Koch brothers hate Trump though

They are more economically conservative than fascist.

[Thomas Hurt]

5. The roots of christofascism go all the way back to the KKK, Brichers and....

the rise of the christian fundamentalist activism with Reagan, started us down a path to christian theocracy.

[relayerbob]

6. They've been here all along, but he certainly gave them the national platform

and kicked off the modern "ignorance is good, greed is better" GQP mindset.

[DFW]

7. The Republican acceptance of Joe McCarthy put all this in motion

Nixon caught the train because he thought it would take him places (he turned out to be right).

[Buckeye_Democrat]

34. I agree that's when it started in the USA.

A modern cable news reporter would probably blame it on the many years of FDR and Truman, supposedly making Republicans that way.


Edit: Panic after the Russians got nukes was probably the biggest impetus for more people even paying attention to them.

[Aristus]

8. He definitely got in on the ground floor.

Shilling the ridiculous idea that a national health insurance plan would mean we were not "free"...

[madinmaryland]

30. Huh? I thought everyone want to have the freedumb to be uninsured!

🤬🤬🤬🤬

[Xolodno]

32. And yet he endorsed the Kerr-Mills Act which could have led to socialized medicine...

..at the state level.

Block grants to states to set up their own health care system. The irony never ceases to amaze me.

[brooklynite]

9. What do the first two have to do with fascism?

[Equomba]

28. Well, I would say nothing at all,

but I'm looking forward to the OP's response!

[Hortensis]

10. Agree with all those who say it predated Reagan and why and in whom.

We defeated a large fascist movement here at the same time some other nations fell to fascist leaders. Americans worried that Germany might win the war and invade speculated "who's a Nazi" as they looked for acquaintances and politicians who'd welcome it. RW authoritarian types were and are everywhere, though to be fascist or just extreme right wing depends on the leader who organizes them.

[andym]

11. R didnt start the GOP's move to fascism: R popularized anti-New Deal and anti-Great Society politics

Fascism involves creation of a strongman who encourages worship of the leader and eventually results in a dictatorship like Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco. Disinformation, and nationalism abound. A weak federal government like Reagan wanted is not at all a requirement, and in fact may be counterproductive to a real fascist government.

That's not to say Reagan was not transformational: he was. He single-handedly ended the dominance of New Deal/Great Society politics and went after the federal government and welfare, stirring resentment by using racist stories about welfare "queens" driving Cadillacs.

However, the polarization about abortion rights that occured in the mid-70s more significantly affected both Democrats and Republicans in that it created new alignments, with fundamentalists/evangelicals mostly moving to the GOP. A fundamentalist/conservative like Barbara Bachman actually supported Jimmy Carter in 1976, before the two parties split on supporting abortion rights. Strongly religious people may be more prone to hierarchical organization and strong leaders.

[getagrip_already]

12. just be happy agnew did not replace nixon.....

Or this thing would have happened a lot sooner and ended a lot worse.

[Eyeball_Kid]

13. Former LBJ official Bertram Gross:

Wrote a book in 1980 titled: Friendly Fascism. He details the macro-economic and political trends that were leading up to the Reagan victory in the same year.

The list goes on, indeed. Reagan reaped his victory from the fascist groundwork that was established in the years before. Gross concentrated his observations on the financial/economic underpinnings of fascism that were ascendant in the 1970s. He also noted that the social/civil oppression aspects of fascism hadn't yet become a dominant political theme. It was a great book and one that I'll always remember.

[musette_sf]

14. I agree - the bitter ex-Nixonians

have planned Scorched Earth since pre-1976.

[unblock]

15. It goes back to Christopher Columbus.

And we had actual nazis, as in Americans who wanted the US to join the war on the axis side, who wanted to assassinate fdr.

Reagan and the fawning media merely made that crap fashionable.

Gingrinch brought the hyperpartisanship and obstructionism.

Hate radio and foxnews brought the propaganda.

And a few billionaires such as the kochs brought the money.

[moondust]

20. +1

And the Internet has allowed them to organize, conspire, and propagandize in their underwear from their basements without having to show up to a Klan or Nazi rally in person.

[young_at_heart]

17. Reagan never deserved to be "glorified"!

He had a dark side, which he hid behind his insipid smile.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

19. It was around before that

He just made it look warm and fuzzy.

[themaguffin]

21. Goldwater's RNC speech had trump cult like reactions

[Faux pas]

22. Totally!

He was the true beginning of our end.

[RFCalifornia]

23. Goes back to Goldwater I'm afraid

Even though he lost

[localroger]

24. It actually started in the 1960's with the Southern Strategy

Reagan was the beginning of its adolescence. Before Reagan the movement had only been part of the Republican party, halting and parochial and limited to the target audiences. Under Reagan it became more assertive and belligerent, loudly proclaiming itself through talk radio and confidently riding a crest of lies and naked misdeeds. And with GWB it achieved maturity, confidently stealing an election in plain sight with a stacked Supreme Court who even said that decision should never be used as precedent for another, and laying the groundwork for Trump to take over the entire party and dig in with the aggressive gerrymanders, vote suppression through baseless claims of fraud, and prototype laws designed to let stacked state legislators change the outcome of elections they don't like.

Comparisons to the rise of fascism in Italy and Naziism in Germany in the 1920's and 1930's are entirely appropriate.

[Caliman73]

26. He was certainly a large contributor to its success.

As other posters said, this movement predates Reagan. Remember that Republican Businessmen were plotting a coup against FDR in the 1930's and wanted to continue doing business with Nazi Germany. There was an America First movement in that time fronted in part by Charles Lindbergh that had sympathies for the Nazis, they had large rallies at Madison Square Garden. That thread has never left the US and was prominent in both Democratic and Republican party members. Nixon, while more liberal than today's hardcore conservatives, was just as corrupt and wanted more power. He absolutely hated the Press and worked with Pat Buchanan, a paleo conservative white nationalist, and Roger Ailes, to start a GOPTv, the progenitor idea for Fox News. A lot of those people, including Buchanan, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Abrams, Negroponte, Schultz, etc... were around from the 60's and remained staples of the Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush Sr. and Jr. administrations. Our friend Bill Barr was the AG during Bush Sr. and was pushing his "Unitary Executive" bullshit back then.

The conservative movement championed by Buckley and infused with the fanaticism of Billy Graham and evangelism is the catalyst for where we are today. Reagan was a very effective spokes man, which his folksy charm. He was generally a B list movie star but he was also a "Pitch man" for cigarettes and other items and knew how to sell.

[Equomba]

38. To be clear, would that be the same FDR who

signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, which incarcerated 120,000 people of Japanese descent, including U.S. citizens, into concentration camps?

[Caliman73]

39. The very same.

Do you think that I am an apologist for the actions of Democratic Presidents? FDR, though a champion of the Union movement, also allowed for continued discrimination against Black people and workers of Mexican heritage in the laws written to boost the labor movement. He also failed to integrate the military. He also allowed a carve out from Social Security for Black people. The history of racism and discrimination is not a Southern, or a Republican thing. It is an American problem.

That said, conservatives, whether the Democrats of 1800's - 1950's of the South, or the Republicans of today, are the ones who continue to actively promote White Supremacy, Christian Dominionism, and fascism.

The original post was about the origins of the fascistic movement of the GOP in recent history, not about whether FDR was spotless on racial issues. The point of my response was that Republicans, in service to Capitalism and White Supremacy in the 1930's plotted to overthrow FDR because FDR realized that the power of government was the greatest countermeasure to the wealthy and powerful setting up feudalism or fascism in the US.

The modern GOP beginning with Reagan, has pushed an ultra conservative ideology which lead directly to Trump, but the roots are deeper than just Reagan "starting" it or thinking it up. Reagan was a vehicle, not the originator.

[budkin]

27. Nixon started it

Reagan just implemented it

[Kid Berwyn]

29. Dulles Brothers 1953-present day.

Nazi Sympathizers.



Like Allen Dulles, John McCloy also represented on the Warren Commission.

[joetheman]

31. YEP And Americans should sacrifice nothing for anything or anybody. nt

[Xolodno]

33. Nope.

It has been in the USA for a very long time. It just went silent during WWII and immediate aftermath. But it was always still there, biding its time to regain itself. Just like its still in Germany, but hiding in the shadows.

What really enabled its growth was the economist Milton Friedman, they now had an economic ideology they could latch on to. Reagan became a spokesperson for GE and that's when he started to get interested in politics and his ideology started to shift.

In summary, Friedman and General Electric eased Fascism out of the shadows here in the USA.

[Solly Mack]

35. Fascism came to America in the late 1920's, was scarily popular in the 1930's, and is still

around, deeply embedded to the point that much of what conservatives/right-wingers define as the "American way" is actually rooted in the tenets of fascism. Once again scarily popular in the present.

Business leaders, some, from the 20's onward admired what Mussolini was doing in Italy. Think Henry Ford.

Your conservative social leaders and/or politicians admired what Hitler was doing with his brand of fascism (Nazism is fascism) in Germany and across parts of Europe. Support and admiration was given by American businesses to Hitler for Germany's seeming economic recovery but it was the social policies that garnered widespread attention among too many Americans. The blame-the-enemy (enemy defined by them) game is a social means of boosting support - Blame Communism (then), blame Socialism (now). Blame Jews then and now (globalists, elitists, George Soros, etc.). Blame the other undesirables (as they define who is and isn't desirable). Blame ideas and people by saying they attack the "real" America. Think Charles Lindberg and Father Coughlin then. Think Trump, Falwell, Graham, Fox News, OAN, Tucker Carlson, etc. now.

America's fascism grew out of both Mussolini's and Hitler's ideas and actions and went on to shape its own American version. Conservatives have been wrapping fascism in the American flag for decades. So much so that some Americans think it has always been this way - the "American way" and that it should remain that way.

Authoritarian thinking came to America long before that.

Prejudice and hate is something that, sadly, comes with humans.

Using them as weapons to further an ideology/control a population is part and parcel to authoritarianism.

Fascism is an authoritarian ideology.

And this post is terribly over-simplified because the subject is vast in terms of how we got here, at this point in time.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

36. Good post.

I agreed earlier in this thread that it started with McCarthyism in the early 50's, but you're correct that the seeds existed far earlier.

Right-wing authoritarians (RWAs) have probably existed since the dawn of humanity, unfortunately.

What supposedly makes them different from someone with a simple disdain for different people is their willingness to take action against the others. There's no "live and let live" attitude among them.

RWA was supposedly the best indicator of a Trump supporter during the 2016 GOP primaries, which isn't too surprising given his promises to "punish" their enemies in various ways.

[Solly Mack]

37. McCarthyism is a prime example of authoritarian thinking and the use of prejudice and ignorance

(fear) to control a population - both those being attacked and those who aided his efforts.

It's also very much a type of action used by fascists.

Americans at the time subdued him but the ideas, any ideas, are hard to dislodge once set.

And a technique, no matter how dangerous, for swaying people that works is going to be used repeatedly by those who rather manipulate and control than govern.

That is an excellent way of putting it - seeding. Because over the years that is what took place - the seeding of those authoritarian ideas, not too rushed, so people could accept them as normal.

Times when there seems to have been a great push toward authoritarianism, the seeds of acceptance were already in place. While some people were hearing alarm bells, others were hearing validation.