Republicans Confused Over Which Of Reagan’s Legacies To Embrace (and which to avoid)

There is the Reagan Myth, which conservatives and neoconservatives accept as the word of God.

Then, there is the truth, which all Republicans want buried, and for the most part, this has been successful.

But, for the coming election campaigns of 2014 and 2016, mainstream Republicans are trying to decide which of Reagan’s true legacies to embrace for their political value, and which to play-down for the same reasons.

It was Reagan that declared that government was the problem, not the solution. This sentiment was echoed by Republican candidates during the 2008 elections just after the Great Republican Recession of 2008 began. It was the GOP’s stance that, “It is not the duty of government to create jobs.”

Republicans remained adamant on this point until recently. Many GOP candidates have discovered it is now politically beneficial to go against the Reagan wisdom that “government is the problem”, and instead promise to, “use government to create jobs” as part of their campaign rhetoric.

What many of today’s conservatives, neoconservatives, and especially GOP candidates want to forget is, that due to Press Secretary James Brady’s critical wounds suffered during John Hinckley’s botched attempt to assassinate Reagan, King Ronny signed the Brady Gun Control Bill into law.

So, while the Republicans want to campaign using the Reagan Legacy, The reality is that most of that legacy can be broken down into aggrandizement, myth, or just plain lies.

It’s been nearly thirty four years since Reagan was first elected, so most politically aware Americans from that era are either dead, or getting too old to remember events accurately. History from that period has been rewritten by political opportunists, Hollywood publicists, corporate tellers-of-tall-tales, and others and so have convinced the middle aged and older Americans how worship and protection of the very rich and Big Business is the road to prosperity for all. (Of course, people of reason understand this is the opposite of truth.)

Fortunately, young voters are too far removed from the Reagan years to be impressed by his myth. Most have grown up during the time when government was either under the complete control of the GOP, or was being grid locked by G“NO"P obstructionism. Their life experience has taught them Republican policies have left their generation with expensive college degrees, and only minimum wage jobs with which to repay their student loans. These young people have experienced, first hand, the massive loss of opportunity caused by the policies spawned by Reaganomics.

Since 2008, the GOP’s antiquated policies appeal to primarily the older white conservatives/neoconservatives, or to single issue voters (you know, the pro-gun, or anti-choice, anti-minority, anti-gay, and other Christian hypocrites) that consistently vote against their own best interests when they elect Republicans and/or Teapublicans.

The Old White Men of the GOP know they are running out of victims willing to fall for the snake oil they sell as the Reagan legacy. Given this fact, the Old White Men must be very, very careful choosing which parts of that legacy to embrace, and which parts to avoid like the plague.

http://news.yahoo.com/gop-reagan-legacy-2016-224752943--election.html

 

Just as in all hagiographies the truth has become so distorted that most these folks have lost all contact with reality. Like the Bible they interpret St.Ronald to mean what they want it to mean. Maybe this will help..................http://www.theonion.com/video/zombie-reagan-raised-from-grave-to-lead-gop,14385/ .............................http://www.theonion.com/video/zombie-reagan-raised-from-grave-to-lead-gop,14385/

 

There seems no end to the hate the Left has for Reagan. One President that seems to be so popular with the Right that the Left seem determined to try and trash him so there is nothing left. It's not surprising, the Left is known to try and trash everything about the Right. They would like you to believe that everything wrong with the world today was caused by, or started by Reagan. That has always been their strategy with everything. Throw enough crap on the wall and some of it has to stick. Well Reagan was no angel. He did a lot of things that was not quite legal. But nothing he did was for personal gain. He did what he thought was right.Most of Europe understand that and he is one of the most admired of American Presidents over there. Nothing the Left will say will take that away from him or my admiration for him.

 

He is not as loathed in Europe as he once was but you are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land if you really believe he is one of the most admired. Nobody from the east under 35 remembers him and he was never liked in the west, generally speaking.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5hfYJsQAhl0

 

He was not loathed in Europe. Just because you young people don't remember, the Soviets even admired Reagan for his hard stance. Poland has not only a statue of Reagan, but also a park named after him. England also has a statue of Reagan.

 

That is because Reagan was absolutely correct and republicans only wish to get elected.

 

Most young voters today know little of history. Many don't even read about it except what Liberals write, which usually only tells half the truth

 

Well the Left's blind hatred for Reagan mostly has to do with the fact that he was what Barack Obama has utterly failed to become -- a genuine and a competent leader who was president of the entire nation and not just of his party.

This really sticks in the craw of Obama supporters because after all it was the Left (and their Mainstream Media) that intimated (and obviously most of our pro-Obama posters BELIEVED) that Barack Obama back in 2008 was an actual Political Messiah. So therefore they were utterly and fundamentally shocked when (just as real Hillary Clinton supporters and the entire Right of Center of this nation warned them it would turn out to be reality) this first term U.S. Senator with ZERO meaningful national level experience and no leadership or management history whatsoever endlessly belly flopped before the entire world while wearing big, floppy, clown shoes and a red rubber nose.

I mean let's get real here; when even 'It depends on the meaning of 'IS' and 'can't keep it in his trousers' Bill Clinton turned out to be heads and shoulders a better and more competent president and when even Jimmy 'I don't have a CLUE as to what I am doing' Carter turned out to be less inept as president than Barack Obama then the Left is inevitably going to be getting a little bit crazy whenever the issue of Ronald Reagan is raised -- a president who (very much unlike Barack) tended to actually live up to his billing a significant portion of the time that he was in office.

But what's really amusing is that the woman candidate that the FANATICAL half of the Democratic Party's pool of voters (otherwise known as Obama supporters) outright rejected as a presidential candidate is NOW the Left's only remaining hope for the presidential office in 2008. But now stop to think about that. Not only was Hillary soundly rejected by the in-the-tank-for-Obama MSM and the corrupt DNC of the day and by all those foam-at-the-brain-pan Obama supporters for the position back in 2008 (in favor of a wildly over-hyped political rock star) but collectively they even intimated that she and Bill were racists as well for ever having had the AUDACITY to run a primary campaign against their Anointed One.

So if she does run then these same bitter Obama supporting dead-ender types will somehow have to find a way of talking her candidacy up to the heavens itself while simultaneously making it look other than that their unwaveringly blind support for President Sad Sack Obama for eight straight years was something other than outright . . . stupidity personified. Sweet!

In comparison to Barack Obama and his presidency both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were genuinely great presidents. How ironic!

 

From the spokesmen of the old Soviet Union himself

It's you Liberals that are ignoring the facts. Granted the Soviets were hurting. Reagan knew that. He also knew if he hurt them bad, the Soviet Union would fall. He worked to that end to do just that. First by building up our forces. SDI and threatening to put missiles in Europe. Then he went after the Soviets main means of cash, their oil and gas. He made a deal with Saudi Arabia to sell them AWACS planes in return of dropping the price of oil to less than $15.00 a barrel, so low the Soviets didn't want to sell it. Then he sold the Soviets technology that sabotaged their gas pipeline that blew it up. He armed the Afghans with weapons like our shoulder fired anti aircraft missiles that knocked well over 100 Soviet aircraft out of the skies. Aircraft that was expensive to replace. He bled the Soviets every place he could and the Soviets themselves admitted it.

MOSCOW — He stunned the Soviet Union with his tough rhetoric, calling it an “evil empire” whose leaders gave themselves the “right to commit any crime.”

His famed “Star Wars” program drew the Soviets into a costly arms race it couldn’t afford. His 1987 declaration to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at the Berlin Wall — “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” — was the ultimate challenge of the Cold War.

Ronald Reagan’s determination to destroy communism and the Soviet Union was a hallmark of his eight-year presidency, carried out through a harsh nuclear policy toward Moscow that softened only slightly when Gorbachev came to office.

He is vividly remembered in Russia today as the force that precipitated the Soviet collapse.“Reagan bolstered the U.S. military might to ruin the Soviet economy, and he achieved his goal,” said Gennady Gerasimov, who served as top spokesman for the Soviet Foreign Ministry during the 1980s.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5145921/ns.../#.Uyxfzzbn_ct

 

In January 1982, President Ronald Reagan approved a CIA plan to sabotage the economy of the Soviet Union through covert transfers of technology that contained hidden malfunctions, including software that later triggered a huge explosion in a Siberian natural gas pipeline, according to a new memoir by a Reagan White House official.
Thomas C. Reed, a former Air Force secretary who was serving in the National Security Council at the time, describes the episode in “At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War”, to be published by Ballantine Books. Reed writes that the pipeline explosion was only one example of "cold-eyed economic warfare" against the Soviet Union that the CIA carried out under Director William Casey during the final years of the Cold War.

At the time, the United States was attempting to block Western Europe from importing Soviet natural gas. There were also signs that the Soviets were trying to steal Western technology. Then, a KGB insider revealed the specific shopping list and the CIA slipped the flawed software to the Soviets in a way they would not detect it.
"In order to disrupt the Soviet gas supply, its hard currency earnings from the West, and the internal Russian economy, the pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines and valves was programmed to go haywire, after a decent interval, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to pipeline joints and welds," Reed writes.

"The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space," he recalls, adding that US satellites picked up the explosion. Reed said that the blast occurred in the summer of 1982.
"While there were no physical casualties from the pipeline explosion, there was significant damage to the Soviet economy," he writes.

http://www.gasandoil.com/news/russia...5fb46bff86b757

 

1. Signing arms treaties with "untrustworthy" Rooskies?

2. Giving "amnesty to illegals"?

3. Re-raising taxes...after cutting them?

4. Selling arms to countries like Iran?

5. Creating larger deficits?

.....the "Holy Saint of Conservatism"???

 

Very good and can you explain why he did those things?

 

pretty much this - they GOP is not a part of conservatives anymore.
it's the last refuge of old angry guys who are afraid of change.
true conservatism died with Bush sr.
guys like Cruz and worthless jokes unfit to lick Reagan's boots.

 

Please, get off this Conservative, angry old White men. It isn't us old Conservative white men that is full of hate, it's Liberals. Find me anywhere you can find Conservatives doing anything to match these three done by Liberals.? Your just mad because we don't conform to your new found morals.

http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=621

Nearly 300 arrested on convention's first day, nine injured ...

www.mprnews.org/story/2008/09/01/rnc_day1

Sep 1, 2008 - Sep 1, 2008. Police process arrested protesters MPR Photo/Toni Randolph ... Thousands of people were on the streets, while news and police ... "This Republican National Convention, this protest means a lot to us. And it's ...


Police: 300 Occupy Wall Street protesters arrested in NYC



www.nbcnews.com/.../police-occupy-wall-street-protester...

NBCNews.com
Nov 18, 2011 - You know, the Occupy Wall Street movement had promised huge ... that resulted in injuries and scores of arrests in Lower Manhattan . ... TAIBBI: And by day the protests and sporadic arrests did continue in Portland , Oregon .

 

Judging by most of the responses in this thread, it is easy to see the Reagan Myth is still believed and defended by the diehard right-wingers. As you've shown, reality is far, far different from the myth.

Most voters under forty-years-old have lived under the disastrous legacy of Reaganomics, and during their lives have seen the middle class fall into ruin, while the one percent flourish. Their own experiences in the job market and fighting the uphill battle of growing income inequality have proven to them King Ronny’s trickle-down economics is nothing but bullsh!t. This is a truth the dwindling number of Reagan devotees refuse to accept.

Much the same as the conservatives high-jacked the Republican Party after the Theodore Roosevelt administration, the ultra-right wing extremists are leading the GOP further and further into the abyss of their Tea Party insanity. If moderate Republicans want to win in the primaries, they must become as crazy as their Tea Party opponents.

This GOP alliance with the Tea Party in Congress is shrinking the Republican Party’s voter base, limiting it to the homophobic, the intolerant religious fanatics, various organizations that hate the “gubmint”, gun rights extremists, the very rich, and Big Business. These groups are primarily old, white, greedy, and short on ethics, and have no where near the number of voters needed to win the presidency.

The RNC is trying to remake the GOP into a viable political party before 2016, so as to attract more moderates, minorities, women, and young people. But, red states’ wars on women’s reproductive rights, the rights of workers, minorities, consumers, and the environment, coupled the Congressional Republicans’ adamant refusal to compromise or stay in touch with the average Americans is making the RNC’s attempts to rebuild the Party impossible.

 

Jimmy Carter

I win!!

 

You are aware, no doubt, that Reagan was not President when the joke called Brady was signed into law on November 30, 1993, by Bill Clinton, who promptly created a bloodbath for DIMS during the '94 elections.

Reagan did favor it and was wrong to do so.

 

Sure because the drug-addicted womanizing kennedy truth that almost started a nuclear war with his recklessness is the one the democrats celebrate

 

Reagan was bad. Period.

 

There is no Reagan myth except in the eyes of Liberals that want to trash everything about the man.

.

What bull crap. If you guys remember so well when Reagan came into office you know the prime interest rate was over 21%. How many could afford to borrow with that? When he left office it was down to 10%. When he left office close to 20 million jobs were created. Unemployment went from 7.6% when he took office to 5.5% when he left office.

Your income disparity started with Carter's war on unions with deregulating the railroads, airlines and the trucking industry. It put a lot of unions and companies under. My brother was a union truck driver back then and had three of the companies he worked for go out of business. He finally changed professions.

Tea Party insanity? What to try to live within our means? Insanity is having a 11 trillion dollar debt and 25% of what government takes in goes to pay nothing but interest. Can you imagine what we could fund if we didn't have to pay out all that interest. Liberals don't worry about debt. They know they are never going to have to pay it. Just their Children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

It's shrinking only because the two sides need to join together as one to get the votes needed to win. We maybe old White men, but most of us aren't short on ethics. That's where the Left comes in. Most have no ethics. You are trying your best to divide this country against each other, by breading hate.

Get off that war on women's reproductive rights. Can you name me any reason except for saving the life of the mother, that a woman needs to have an abortion right up to the time of delivery? That is what Liberals are wanting. With birth control pills so cheap, why should we have to not only pay for them, but for a man's Viagra? If you can't afford to pay you shouldn't play. I'm not asking you to pay for my bowling or golfing.

There is no Reagan myth.

 

King Ronny championed the Brady Bill, perhaps the Reagan Myth skips over this. It is certain the right-wingers do.

 

If they avoided most parts, they will probably be safe.

 

Indeed!

 

It's myth that Reagan was responsible for that. The prime rate soared because Fed Chairman Volcker, who was appointed by Carter, slammed the brakes on the money supply to break the inflation cycle.

Total nonfarm jobs increased by 17.8 million during his term. Of those, 1.4 million were new government jobs.

Wealth distribution was within the range it had been in since the 1940s until Reagan took office and we had the "trickle down" Reagan Revolution in 1981./

It wasn't liberals who slashed tax revenues and ran up military spending.

Conservatives don't worry about debt. They know they are never going to have to pay it. Just their Children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

"Reagan proved deficits don't matter".