Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/07/07/republican-voters-against-trum.html
…
7 Likes
You mean like Reagan? Granted Reagan could give good speeches and form complete sentences and acted more polite in public, but in many ways Trump is the second coming of saint Reagan.
And from what I have heard from republican operatives I know that worked with Reagan in the Whitehouse, he was almost as big an asshole as Trump off camera. The “kindly older gentleman” thing was just an act.
I’m glad some fraction of the republican establishment are trying to reject the cancer that is Donald Trump. I just can’t stand the Reagan sycophancy especially when a lot of where we are today can be traced to the Reagan movement, and a lot of the people doing Trump’s dirty work today came out of the Reagan administration.
30 Likes
Not as slick as the Lincoln Project ads, and like them they’re four years too late. Still, if this appeal to the memory of St. Ronnie keeps some Republican Olds home on election day then I’m all for it.
21 Likes
I think as damaging as you rightly point out Reagan’s legacy is, Trump’s is and will be an order of magnitude worse. For all of Reagan’s faults (and there were far more of them than redeeming qualities), he cared at least something for this country and some if its better institutions, and was willing/able to consider himself in the larger context of the world and its history.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about: Fred Kaplan wrote in his book about nuclear arms this year about Reagan and Gorbachev’s first meeting in Geneva in 1985, where the atmosphere was extremely tense and unproductive until Reagan and Gorbachev took a walk together and sat in a cabin for a few hours talking like human beings and both trying to do right by humanity at large. It is literally impossible to imagine Trump doing something similar.
35 Likes
stirring and uniting speech by former President Ronald Reagan.
Perhaps but Reagan is perhaps worse because he created the modern roadmap for Republican corruption and American jingoism that harmed the rest of the world. As far as i’m concerned he’s partially responsible for this mess we’re in, along with the instability in the Middle East and Latin America.
Fuck Trump, but more importantly fuck Reagan. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
31 Likes
Well, Regan was an actor before he went into politics.
6 Likes
I definitely get that point, and probably don’t disagree. I just also consider Trump part of Reagan’s legacy. He created the mold and Trump fit into it. Part of that is just the natural: all politicians are influenced by their predecessors, but I think the line from Reagan to Trump is a lot stronger than, say either Bush or even Nixon. And Reagan’s legacy might be more lasting. His ratcheting up the war on drugs, his use of racist divisiveness to dismantle social safety nets, his worldwide destructive geopolitics when America’s global political power was at its peak due to the cold war, etc. are still being felt today. I am hoping – really hoping that Trump’s inability to put on a nice show in public will make it harder for his institutions to last the same way. But I really can’t say for sure.
14 Likes
Actor, then corporate spokesman, then sold out labor to management as President of SAG, and THEN in politics. In the interim, he was my dad’s commanding officer in the Army Air Corps 1st Motion Picture Unit, fighting on the front lines in Culver City, California.
9 Likes
I’m hoping this is more effective at trimming away a percent here and a percent there, than what the GOP is doing with the Kanye West “candidacy”.
I know things like this and the Lincoln Project are satisfying, but they are just a sorry testament to how far to the right the Overton window has shifted. Like, Reagan’s agenda was to destroy all regulation and social services, and Trump’s agenda is that plus lock up children in cages, and now the “moderate” thing to do will be to reduce the rate at which children are added to cages. Ugh.
11 Likes
All totally fair points, and I probably agree with much of the substance of what your saying. Where I might differ (if it’s even a difference) is that I’m not sure Trump’s legacy is going to necessarily be one of policy or even personnel, but rather the erosion of the institution of government itself. I think he has laid bare how much of our system depends on norms and customs, and how relatively easily those norms can be shredded in front of our own eyes. That, combined with what I think is probably an irreversible slide in worldwide standing that Trump accelerated by at least a generation or two, will be his most damning contribution to our history.
6 Likes
I’m positive there are Republicans who see this as an opening – America, they may believe, is longing for sensible Republican governance! Who knows…
Are they Republican Voters who are against Trump, or Voters Against Trump who are Republican? The former would seem to imply that they’ll be voting for him anyway by definition, the latter the opposite.
2 Likes
Funny how they forget their beloved jebus Reagan got involved with Oliver North on Iran Contra- palling up with authoritarians, and Oliver North heads the NRA…
If these people can’t see the irony in the history right in front of them this sure as hell isn’t going to convince them of anything
6 Likes
That’s the chilling thing about Republicans against Trump as a generic group. Are they mad at his psychopathic policies? (kinda doesn’t seem so) or that he’s saying all the loud parts SO FUCKING LOUD that it’ll be generations before they can start slipping psychopathic policies through the Senate again with everyone giving them the body snatchers finger?
8 Likes
You mean like this?
You mean like this?
6 Likes
Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/07/07/republican-voters-against-trum-2.html
…
1 Like
I mean, if it gets Reagan fanboys to vote against Trump, I’m fine with this. Ultimately we need to sort out the underlying problems that has caused the environment that we have today, but short term, let’s just get this oaf out of office and build from there.
6 Likes
Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager could confirm.
2 Likes
All of the justifiable criticisms of Reagan here miss the point entirely. The ad is not intended to glorify Reagan - he’s dead, and not running this time. This ad is intended to point out Trump’s danger to the country and the world - and it does it very effectively, especially to the old folks who voted for Reagan long ago.
5 Likes
