General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsReagan Adviser Describes Teaparty: "Yes they are really rather stupid & not very well read"
Last week at CPAC potential Republican candidates were invoking President Ronald Reagan ad-nauseam. Ed Schultz asked Bruce Bartlett, former adviser to President Ronald Reagan, how would Reagan have been treated at CPAC.
I think he probably would be booed out of the crowd, Bruce Bartlett said. If only because he gave amnesty to illegal aliens back in 1986. Nativists like Representative Steve King routinely denounce Reagan for that. They would have denounced him for raising taxes eleven times. They would be have denounced him for raising the debt limit. They would have denounced him for running budget deficits. They would have denounced him for supporting labor unions. And we are not even getting into all the Liberal things that he did as governor such as signing the most Liberal abortion law in the United States. I think this guy definitely would not be a favorite of this crowed.
Ed Schultz then asked if it is that Conservatives and CPAC attendees just do not know their history.
Well I guess they have completely forgotten about George W. Bush whom they defended to the heavens when he was in office, Bruce Bartlett said. But yes they are really rather stupid and not very well read. To them Reagan is a distant figure in history.
MORE:
http://egbertowillies.com/2015/03/03/reagan-adviser-on-tea-party-republicans-they-are-really-rather-stupid-and-not-very-well-read-video/y.
hedda_foil
(16,375 posts)DemocratSinceBirth
(99,716 posts)Johonny
(20,913 posts)pretty much every Republican prior to the 1990s would appear to be a crypto-fascists commie loving Nazi to the tea party crowd. Not because they were "liberal" but because they had a few liberal policy ideas and produced a functioning government. When raising the debt ceiling, infrastructure spending, clean air and water are liberal ideals then suddenly Nixon and Reagan look liberal. They aren't. There was a time when pretty much all voters, legislators didn't want polluted water. It makes you wonder what idiot would want polluted water and then you listen to a tea party member speak and you go "ah, that idiot."
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)I hope that guy is roasting and rotting because he got off easy for all the evil he unleashed in the world. Fuck him. Tramp the dirt down on that scumbag.
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)WTF? I must have missed those bits.
ieoeja
(9,748 posts)He switched the direction this country was moving. He became president at this country's Liberal peak. He stopped a lot of the progress, and began moving the country backward.
Teabaggers understand this. They know he only did what the political climate of the time permitted. But they also know that he started the climate change.
Of course, changing direction was entirely un-sensible of him. Sensible people know that you have to follow the crowd, not pull or push it in another direction.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)The last acts of liberalism were the signing of the Clean Water, Clean Air acts and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency under Nixon
Attempts at an Equal Rights Amendment for women passed Congress but failed to get states behind it.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,716 posts)Jimmy Carter was the most conservative running that year if you discount George Wallace's doomed campaign.
Jimmy Carter ran on everything but ideology.
Orsino
(37,428 posts)As opposed to the better read and just plan evil of Reagan's staff.
samsingh
(17,601 posts)DesertDawg
(66 posts)Ronnie is their fucking hero. I should know, I've actually been to Teabagger rallies *gag* if it were up to those idiots Reagan's face would be on Rushmore, on the dollar bill and mentioned as the 3rd head of the Christian Trinity, supplanting Christ. Teabaggers hold a Deity level reverence for the clown.
tabasco
(22,974 posts)They laugh at the people who vote for them but keep them in line with lies and propaganda about God, guns and gays.