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America is still haunted by the ghost of Ronald Reagan's corruption (www.salon.com)

submitted 1 week ago by Rapidcreek@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

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[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 77 points 1 week ago

It doesn't make sense to start at Reagan.

Reagan happened because conservatives realized people don't like conservatives.

So they invented Faux News (memo in Nixon's presidential library) so that voters would never hold Republicans accountable again, and then started running charismatic figureheads to eventually take the fall years after leaving office.

Blaming Reagan (who is undoubtedly a piece of shit) is letting the real problem off the hook.

I don't remember Reagan, but I remember GW, and it was the same thing. When we're finally rid of trump, the next will be even worse, and still taking orders from the same conservative machine that was feeding Reagan his talking points.

So hate Reagan all you want, but don't forget to hate the other people who were actually the ones in control. Because that machine is still running, it's the one behind project 2025, not trump's dumbass.

[-] someguy3@lemmy.world 47 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Reagan is the one that started defining the government as evil. He said "The scariest words you can hear is 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.' " From then on anything the government did was bad and evil by definition. He's very much the start of this major problem of "drown the government in the bathtub" people. He launched the whole wave of them. You can't negotiate with people that think that kind of thing because to them it's all bad and evil. We haven't even touched on his Reaganomics. Nixon was corrupt but at least he thought government had a role (he even started the EPA).

Yes we can blame Fox News too.

[-] Eldritch@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

John Birch society predates Regan by decades. Perhaps Regan mainstreamed it. But even that's debatable.

[-] someguy3@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

All sorts of things exist. It doesn't really matter until someone makes it mainstream.

[-] Eldritch@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Considering it was mainstream and prescient enough for that lunatic Barry Goldwater and others to address it specifically. Many decades before Reagan was President. I think it's very unlikely he did anything other than harness them. That particular Cult of stupidness had been cultivated for nearly half a century at that point.

[-] Sanctus@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago

The Heritage Foundation, thats their name.

[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago

They're not the only one

https://newrepublic.com/article/154763/familys-big-secret-hiding-plain-sight

The heritage family just influences republicans, "the family" gets both parties, even Jimmy Carter.

And both groups want the same thing.

[-] Sanctus@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

That is... haunting. We should probably do something as civilians with collective action, but their propaganda has made that really hard.

[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

Ignorance is bliss, but it doesn't solve shit.

Just mentioning that The Family isnt solely focused on republicans got me a down vote almost immediately.

Before we can fix this, we have to get people to acknowledge the problem. Otherwise we never truly win, just lose less sometimes

[-] Sanctus@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Its one of those obstacles that appears insurmountable. They have all the money, influence, and power that they could ever ask for. What are we to do?

[-] Rivalarrival 5 points 1 week ago

https://www.machinerytrader.com/listings/for-sale/komatsu/d355/construction-equipment

https://woodworkingnut.com/2015/10/30/how-to-make-a-guillotine/

[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

For now everyone still gets one vote.

It's too late to get anything going for 2024, maybe even 2028.

But at some point we really need someone outside the two parties while we still have one vote each. We can't just keep blindly voting our "team" no matter what, especially when our "team" doesn't represent us.

It's going to suck, and it's going to be turbulent. But if we don't do it, we'll keep sliding right till there's no more elections. I don't think progressives are going to be able to take over the Dem party, I think there's going to have to be an actual party split for a real solution.

I just hope people start planning more than one election ahead before it's too late.

We're fighting people that plan decades ahead. We'll never win unless we do the same.

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 week ago

we really need someone outside the two parties

I love when it comes around to this part of the cycle, right after "one party is cruel and the other is stupid" and before "but if we split the vote we could lose our right to vote".

[-] blindbunny@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago

Shawn Fain is planning a general strike in 2028.

[-] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

And then there are nefarious groups like ALEC or COR (Coalition on Revival)....

[-] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Ronnie helped set in motion so many things...including Faux "News".

[-] sudo42@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

don’t forget to hate the other people who were actually the ones in control. Because that machine is still running, it’s the one behind project 2025, not trump’s dumbass.

These words should be inscribed on a monument somewhere.

[-] kandoh@reddthat.com 35 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Let's try to make a list of where America went wrong

The Louisiana Purchase: turned the nation into an expansionist empire.
Andrew Jackson ignoring the rule of law so he could genocide the natives
Lincoln keeping Johnson as his VP while at war with the south.
Ending reconstruction early
FDR not hanging the conspirators in the business plot
Nixon using the Southern Strategy to win his election
Ford pardoning Nixon
Everything Ronald Reagan did
Ruby Ridge, Waco, and NAFTA radicalization of rural Americans
Supreme Court awards GWB the presidency
The Iraq War
Unregulated banks allowed to crash the global economy
Limited US involvement in the Arab Spring fails to capitalize on popular movement, Syrian refugee crisis sends far right into overdrive
Allowing the host of celebrity apprentice to be President
Ignoring the COVID pandemic until it's too late then not locking down hard enough.
Supporting Israeli genocide in Gaza

[-] not_woody_shaw@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago

You forgot repealing the fairness doctrine.

[-] kandoh@reddthat.com 2 points 1 week ago

Covered under #8!

[-] not_woody_shaw@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Right you are, Ken.

[-] anticolonialist@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Clinton's telecom act did more damage to public knowledge and information than the fairness doctrine

[-] sparkle@lemm.ee 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Congress passing the Taft-Hartley act and then overriding Truman's veto of it to enact laws to cripple unions (which made important union activities illegal, like solidarity strikes, jurisdictional strikes, and mass picketing) and basically completely fucked up unions, before Reagan went ahead and fucked them up even more than previously thought possible again

McCarthyism

Citizens United v. FEC

[-] phoneymouse@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

*Not jailing all politicians involved in January 6th attempted coup

[-] madeinthebackseat@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

15 could ultimately end up giving Biden the presidency, because it likely ended up killing more conservative voters.

[-] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

You missed Wilson.

Created Wilsonian doctrine that led to forever wars
Segregated the federal government.
Wrote Southern Revisionism
Fostered the second founding of the KKK
Erected a bunch of statues of traitors that specifically said to never erect statues of them.
Probably caused Lenin, and Stalin thereby causing Hitler and WWII plus a host of downstream knock-on effects such as The Cold War and the demonization of socialism and communism in the US.
Robbed us of Teddy's third and fourth terms in office.

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[-] downpunxx@fedia.io 21 points 1 week ago

Anyone not bothering enough to travel back to The Southern Strategy in 1964 as response to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 isn't seeing the complete picture or who Republicans have been for the last 60 years, what their end goals were, and how they believe Trump's MAGA is going to get them there while destroying American egalitarian secular Democracy that until now has thwarted their Christofascist dreams

[-] Nougat@fedia.io 7 points 1 week ago

Let us not forget that Republicans opposed Social Security in the early 1930s.

[-] sudo42@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

They also love to hate FDR in general.

[-] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Yep. The racist and anti-intellectual undertow goes back a long way. It is not just Ronnie Raygun (or donnie, for that matter), it's a very long tradition of this nasty stuff.

Democracy in Chains details efforts underway long before Ronnie Raygun slithered into office.

[-] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

People would do well to remember just how much Ronnie Raygun ruined this country and set us on the path to the loser that is donnie.

Even now, you'll see gaslighting from Enlightened Centrists and people on the supposed left that Iran/Contra was not really that bad, even if it is arguably far, far worse than Watergate. But Ronnie and Bush I were given a pass on it, since America was "exhausted" or some such bullshit the "liberal media" spun at the time.

Of course, the right are utterly unhinged when it comes to ronnie, possibly only surpassed by donnie in their worship.

[-] btaf45@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

People would do well to remember just how much Ronnie Raygun ruined this country and set us on the path to the loser that is donnie.

Long before this article came out I was thinking about far the GOP has come between Ronald Reagan's time and the sheer decadence and depravity of today's GOP. Then I realized that the seeds of today's GOP corruption went all the way back to Reagan. I remember Reagan defending Chief Justice Renquest's daughter from a corruption scandal at the very opening of an otherwise legitimate nationwide TV address about a crisis. Reagan himself had appointed William Renquest to be Chief Justice. Janet Renquest later went on to have a bunch of other scandals.

[-] Treczoks@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

As long as they don't fix the big mistakes Reagan did, that ghost is going to haunt you forever.

[-] Doomsider@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

What I find most surprising about this election is all the people talking shit about how old Trump or Biden is. Ronnie literally had advanced Alzheimer's for the last two years of his presidency. Full stop, his mind was gone.

The fact that our country allowed this to happen speaks volumes about what our President actually means.

[-] ZK686@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

"Only two people hate America. Those who have never been here, and those who have never left..."

[-] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Still capitalism that is to blame.

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this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2024

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