A Nightmare for Black America: Ronald Reagan's Ghost Looms Over the 2016 Republican Primaries

[sheshe2]

Posted by Chauncey DeVega

Last week’s Republican presidential primary debate was a confusing spectacle of lies and distortions. On topics ranging from immigration to the economy, as well as foreign policy, the 11 candidates on stage spun fictions from whole cloth while they repeatedly raped the truth. The Republican primaries are part of an alternate reality, one that is almost totally incomprehensible and disorienting for those people who are not part of the GOP and Right-wing media’s cult-like belief system.

By comparison, Ronald Reagan is in many ways a political demon and nightmare for Black America.

The Republican Party in the Age of Obama has fully mated white supremacy and conservatism. As such, for today’s Republican Party, more generally, and movement conservatives and the Tea Party especially, conservatism and racism is now the same thing.

Ronald Reagan is a central figure in how the Republican Party decided to abandon any pretense to sincere, substantive, racial and social equality, and to openly embrace open white supremacy.

Black and brown Americans have been subjected to vicious and thuggish police violence from before the founding of the country through to the Age of Obama. The American criminal justice system is one of the primary tools for social control and institutionalized violence against non-whites and the poor. The Black Lives Matter Movement and other civil rights and activist groups are only making visible to White America what the masses of black and brown people have always known: the police are engaged in legal murder and abuse of Black America as a matter of policy; the police killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Rekia Boyd, and so many others entombed in the black necropolis in the Age of Obama are the result of a racist and classist system working precisely as designed…they are not aberrations.

Read More http://www.chaunceydevega.com/2015/09/a-nightmare-for-black-america-ronald.html

A very good read and sadly true. During the 3 hour debate St. Ronnies name was mentioned more than 45 times.

[guillaumeb]

1. "fully mated white supremacy and conservatism" sounds like really bad porn.

Ronnie the saint is revered, but Ronnie's actual record has disappeared in a flood of revisionist history.

Excellent post.

[sheshe2]

2. "fully mated white supremacy and conservatism" sounds like really bad porn. Ha!

Revisionist history, yup, they sure like to make shit up, or deny it every happened.

Thanks guillaumeb.

[BlueIndyBlue]

3. Excellent post sheshe2.

I despise St. Ronnie with the heat of three suns. I graduated high school the year he was elected so I remember very well how his policies affected myself and those of color around me. He cut off Social Security benefits to children of retirees which meant that the money which my parent's paid into could no longer go to pay for my education.

He started the war on drugs which I think has been among the most destructive policies that has affected us. If you incarcerate the men and label them felons, then you can spiral the female heads of household into perpetual poverty. We now have a generation of men that have been disenfranchised and discouraged from participating in a society that has demonstrated that there is no place for them.

Lastly (among many other things) he destroyed the one of the most reliable avenues for people of color to advance into the middle class by busting up the unions. Many people were able to live decently on union wages. There was coalition building in many of the unions and this threat had to be squashed.

We just cannot let any of these Republican clown car riders anywhere near the White House to become St. Ronnie 4.0 (GHWB was 2.0 and GWB was 3.0).

[sheshe2]

4. Hi, BlueIndyBlue

This. They are the lost generations.

He started the war on drugs which I think has been among the most destructive policies that has affected us. If you incarcerate the men and label them felons, then you can spiral the female heads of household into perpetual poverty. We now have a generation of men that have been disenfranchised and discouraged from participating in a society that has demonstrated that there is no place for them.

Listen to this, it will make you cry, Daniel is amazing

Thanks for your post, nicely done, BIB.

[Number23]

11. This is a great post

And I love your avatar!!

[randys1]

15. NO, we cant. Reagan is tied with W for the most destructive and corrupt presidency of all time.

And yet, believe it or not, a teaparty president would make Ronnie look like a moderate.

Civil rights? Voting rights? Women's rights? Gay rights?

Forget em, all gone, in a heartbeat.

[Starry Messenger]

5. Reaganism is still alive and well, as those idiots on stage demonstrated.

It's a real fear of mine too. Racism at home, racism abroad. He embraced apartheid South Africa and thought Mandela was a terrorist, which sums him all up too. http://www.salon.com/2011/02/05/ronald_reagan_apartheid_south_africa/

[Number23]

6. Reagan made it cool for alot of folks to be OPENLY and outwardly racist

The Willie Horton ad, like you said his comments about apartheid too. He didn't even try to hide it and he made alot of people feel comfortable again being outwardly racist.

He also could have given less than a crap about gay Americans, as you can see by how seriously he took AIDS when he was president. The weakest among him were either punching bags or worthy of being completely ignored. You can find out everything you need to know about a person by simply finding out whether they supported him.

[sheshe2]

8. He screwed black people and he screwed Gays.

He let them die. He let them all die by his actions. St. Ronnie my ass.

The ghost of Ronald Reagan continues to enchant the Republican Party. His power is very great in an era when the President of the United States happens to be a black man and white conservatives have been driven to political insanity by that fact.

Yes, this put them way over the edge, yet #23, they always were.

'Political Insanity' they have become rabid and need to be put down.

[Starry Messenger]

9. "You can find out everything you need to know about a person by simply finding out whether they

supported him." It's a perfect rule in life.

Popularizing the term welfare queen, laying a wreath for a Nazi at Bitburg, opposed EVERY Civil Rights measure, thought AIDS was the final solution, was a HUAC fink, and as I found out last week, vetoed toilets for farmworkers in my state three times. PATCO. Jesus, who would allow one of these Reagan-worshipping villains to win this year.

[randys1]

16. Gave his "I am running for President speech and love states rights" in Philadephia MS for a

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_civil_rights_workers%27_murders

very special reason.


An outright racist piece of shit, he was.

[sheshe2]

7. Yes it is still alive and well, Starry.

Mandela was not the terrorist, Reagan was as are the fools on stage at the debate.

I know I should curb my swearing. Yet, FUCK THEM!

[Starry Messenger]

10. If one of them wins, I don't know what we will do.

Honestly, I don't think the country could survive more of that.

[sheshe2]

12. We will die one by one.

PoC will die, Women will die, LGBT will die. They will take our safety nets, our health care, our voting rights.

They will obliterate SS, Welfare, Medicare and Medicaid. They want us dead.

[randys1]

17. And yet, many MANY on DU think Hillary and them are the same.

Fuck them, that is who I say that to

[Jamaal510]

13. His presidency

was centered around justifying two things: self-centered behavior, and hate. He popularized the 30+ year old trickle-down scam, he successfully made his party make a drastic rightward shift economically and socially that continues to this day, he dialed up the Cold War, and he railed against so-called welfare queens and the Black Panther Party. And if I'm correct, the BPP was pretty much the one reason why he got behind gun control in the first place. It's no wonder why today's GOP idolizes him. And this is the same man who some supposed Democrats not too long ago tried to claim was more progressive than Obama.

[leftofcool]

14. Great Post!