Sure. Human beings do amazing things under this kind of stress. But it also highlights the disparities.
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Nah. Not gonna put on the rose-tinted glasses and eulogize a monster.
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Exactly this. It was just an era where he had enough shame and fear not to say that part out loud.
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This will just get swept aside like everything else the hypocrite GOP once held as sacrosanct but now finds “inconvenient.”
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Reagan was the start of the post-civil rights attempt at voter suppression of the Black vote by the GOP, as well as leaning hard into the culture wars. His pretty words meant fuck all. The man was an actor, after all.
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Even during the fight over the bill which lead to this touching statement, Reagan was against full and equal voting rights. He opposed preclearance under the Civil Rights act and opposed the provision allowing for a judge to consider the totality of circumstances, preferring a standard of proof of intent to discriminate based on a protected class. VOTING RIGHTS ACT SIGNED BY REAGAN - The New York Times and a more detailed contemporaneous breakdown, pages 22-31.https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2465&context=fss_papers He then vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 87, marking the first veto of a civil rights act since 1866. The dude was basically Trump with the ability to give a coherent speech.
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I completely relate to the feeling that drives that kind of comparison. I recall, though, his seeming overuse of the code term “maintaining traditions” while stumping in Boston’s White neighborhoods in 1980. During one of those speeches (televised), one fellow in the crowd could be heard proudly yelling, “We know what you mean, Ronnie!” Early indications of the real Regan.
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From wiki on Regan re Voting (and Race and Civil Rights):
The Reagan administration was often criticized for inadequately enforcing, if not actively undermining, civil rights. In 1982, he signed a bill extending the Voting Rights Act [of 1965] for 25 years after a grass-roots lobbying and legislative campaign forced him to abandon his plan to ease that law’s restrictions. He also signed legislation establishing a federal Martin Luther King holiday, though he did so with reservations. In March 1988, he vetoed the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, but his veto was overridden by Congress.
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Taking a cue from Grover Norquist, I think the Republican party is getting about small enough to drag into the bathroom and drown in a bathtub.
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So uh…how long until Tucker Carlson starts calling Reagan a RINO?
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He just has to get up the nerve to talk about how Ronnie’s value system was compromised by (((alien values))) during his time in (((Hollywood))). He’ll get there.
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well, white conservative votes, but yeah.
Reagan was the beginning of the end of the word “liberal”— after which it became an unusable epithet. He would have been fine with the current Republican push for voter suppression. His Stephen Millers would have been feeding him the bulletpoints and he’d spit them out just as fast. (It would have been interesting how he would have dealt with a Trump, however.)
Reagan smartly put Clarence Thomas, that pioneer of civil rights, in charge of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. I see him, looking over the EEOC claims, spitefully nixing each one: “No, No, No, No, …”
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I’ll bring the tub.
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But what liquid to use? Toxic waste? Fukushima radioactive boar piss? That slurry from those lakes of pigshit? Santorum? Tough choices.
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