Something kind of hit me today.

[C Moon]

The GOP did not believe Ronald Reagan. Maybe there were a few "misguided" senators and congresspersons on the right that believed the Reagan BS;
But in the past month, watching McConnell, Ryan, and other GOPutins scrambling around attempting to hide Russia's involvement in our last Presidential election (putting themselves, their power and greed before the best for the U.S.), they have finally made it obvious that Ronald Reagan was nothing more than the figure-head tool we all thought he was.
We are now seeing the TRUE GOP.

[Rhiannon12866]

1. I've been thinking about Reagan, too.

They tend to refer to Reagan as the leader of their movement, but Reagan was anything but sympathetic to Russia - the USSR at the time. His most famous quote was "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Here's the entire quote:

“General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

President Reagan didn't like the USSR - of which Putin was a part - and he certainly didn't like walls. If these blowhards knew history at all, they'd choose a more appropriate mentor...

[C Moon]

2. Yes! That's what I mean. Thanks.

BTW: Reading your post while seeing the icon of President Carter, was the best!
I heard his voice while reading your post.

[Rhiannon12866]

3. Awwww! Thank you!

I'm a lifetime admirer of Jimmy Carter. He was my candidate when I first started paying attention to these things and I've never changed my mind. In fact, the more I've learned about him, the more I realize how fortunate we were - and are - to have him. And I may be kind of channeling him these days since I was given his autobiography "A Full Life: Reflections at 90" - the audio version, read by the author himself! - which I just listened to for the second time through, play it in my car if I have to drive any distance.

And the more I hear from him - not only have I learned a lot - but the more I realize how right he was about so many things and how much I really do agree with him. His signature issue - the one he's dedicated his life to - has been human rights. Since he recorded it in 2014, he weighed in on so many issues we're discussing right now. And even at 92, he's still doing so much good in the world through the Carter Center. And he continued working on international issues for decades after he left office. He still hasn't slowed down - much - and we're lucky to still have him.

[C Moon]

4. If we had more people, politicians and presidents like Jimmy Carter

we would be living in a wonderful world.

[Rhiannon12866]

7. The other thing about him, besides being incredibly smart

Is that he does the research on absolutely everything - unlike the current occupant. He talked a great deal about his efforts to achieve peace for Israel - another of his life goals - and the Camp David Accords. Both Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin came close to walking away more than once, but the president had done his homework. He had gotten to know both men and the details of their lives and their issues. He was able to reach them on a personal level, appealed to Menachem Begin by giving him mementos of this historic peace agreement for all his grandchildren. He knew all their names...

[C Moon]

9. I think it's terriffic that you are so interested in Jimmy Carter.

Because he certainly is a great person, and more people need to discover that.

[Rhiannon12866]

12. When he was first elected, he reached out to the remaining living presidents

Which at the time were only Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He kept them informed as a gesture of respect and while Nixon eventually decided it was too much information, Gerald Ford welcomed the gesture and the two former rivals eventually became good friends. Ford was quite helpful when it came to dealing with Congress since he had spent so many years there. And Ford also became involved with the work of the Carter Center since he also had international experience. In fact, one of their last phone calls was from Ford asking Carter to deliver the eulogy at his funeral. Carter was a little taken aback, but said he'd be honored to do it if Ford would do the same honor for him.

He said that it's been so long that he received little communication from President Obama which is too bad since they do have a lot in common. And unbelievably, the president who asked for the most help and advice from him was George H W Bush! Jimmy Carter is especially good at bridging divides and reaching out..

[vlyons]

5. I have written here for a long time that the Republican party

is a vast criminal enterprise, organized to privatize profits and socialize costs. They see taxpayer money as a freebie basket of funds to channel to themselves and their cronies without paying their fair share. Many are motivated by Ayn rand's philosophy of the virtue of selfishness. So they are not the least bit embarrassed about cutting the social safety net. they don't care about good public schools and access to healthcare, because they have plenty of money to li ve the good life.

[C Moon]

6. I wholly agree. How they bluff voters into their web of deceit is a mystery.

But this past election says to me, that it's done mostly through lies, hate and cheating (the latter being the deciding factor, I think).

[vlyons]

8. RW voters vote out of habit

As the republican party has moved farther and farther right, their voters have simply followed in the wake. Plus republicans sell "freedom" from socialism and forced integration. I think those voters have deep deep envy and resentment that people of color are getting "free stuff," and equal opportunity, rather than knowing "their place" place in society as subservient.

On the west and east coasts, you see more integration of different races and ethnicities in schools, the work place, and residential neighborhoods. So people are quite used to interacting peacefully and pleasantly with people that are different. But in the heartland and the south, it's not the case so much.

Meanwhile republican politicians just keep capitalizing on fear and racism. Throw in a little prosperity Christianity that tells people that they are more loved by Jesus than anyone else, and voila! You have mass delusion.

[C Moon]

10. Man. Your in a nutshell description is great.

The only life I've known has been in Southern California, so I can't fathom the racist views some southerners have formed.

[vlyons]

13. I grew up in Texas, moved to Calif where I lived for 31 years

then retired back to Texas. I had immense reverse culture shock. First time I saw someone flying the confederate flag in their front yard, I realized that I had completely forgotten all about "that." New Texas friends commented that they would never invite a black person in their home to have dinner left me dumb-founded. I live in rural east Texas, the bible belt. My town of 4000 probably has a dozen baptist churches and that many more other fundamentalist churches. You won't see any black people working in the county court house, the registrar's office, or any of the local businesses. There's one black Fed postal clerk, and 1 black UPS driver. But all the nursing homes, of which there are many, have lots of black help at minimum wage. Lots of Ted Cruz for senate yard signs. And of course, my congressional district (TX-05) is gerrymandered. My congressman, Jeb Hensarling, is a T-party darling who works for Wall St and hasn't done a damn thing for his rural farmer and rancher constituents. It sucks.

[C Moon]

22. Jesus!

So they must have been FREAKING when Obama was elected—and twice!

[vlyons]

23. I heard my congressman, Jeb Hensarling, at a town hall say

that Barack Obama was THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER! Jeb was also present at the fateful meeting, where a bunch of ReThuglicans decided to obstruct everything that Obama wanted to do. At that time, Jeb was chair of the House Budget committee. He is now chair of the Finance committee.

[coco22]

27. I hate that Henserling..

Paul Ryan's buddy. That townhall was the beginning of my hate for Henserling the media never talks about this asshole.

[vlyons]

29. As a Buddhist, it took me a long time to get past hating him

although I haven't yet gotten past my deep aversion to him. He keeps a low profile. There were some, who lobbied to get him to be the speaker, but he declined. As Finance chair, he has a nice little gig serving Wall St. One of his top contributors is payday lenders. How corrupt and dreadful is that? The little old Baptist ladies in my district are seduced by his boyish good looks and charm. He reeks of corruption. Gets a nice cash in-flow from the NRA too.

[coco22]

30. He keeps a low profile and that is why I bring up his name..

every chance I get. I think Trump is targeting him for something in the cabinet. Saw him the other day in a photo -op the other day surrounding Trump at the whitehouse.

They said Trump wanted him for Treasury Sec. Those boyish looks have disappeared he has a lot of grey and wrinkles.

[vlyons]

31. He has much more power as Finance chair

He's not stupid. He's very smart actually. He will have a fabulous career as a Wall St lobbyist, when he retires from Congress. He probbly already has picked out his dream corner office in a downtown Dallas highrise, overlooking the Trinity River. Just blocks from all those tall Dallas bank and oil high rises.

[coco22]

32. Yes,very devious,sneaky..

[coco22]

28. Remember Limbaugh was in the mix..

at that time along with the religious right brainwashing the ignorant.(Reagan years) and Newt GingGRINCH.

[FiveGoodMen]

26. Reagan's people cozied up to the preachers

Suddenly, they had mouth-pieces all over the country (and the media) who already had a captive audience of gullible souls.

People ALREADY TRAINED to believe whatever they were told and never question.

[Whiskeytide]

24. ..."organized to ...

... privatize profits and socialize costs". That might be the best characterization I have ever heard. Well said.

[pansypoo53219]

11. the party benefitted as well. they are all traitors.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

14. I disagree with this point. I believe polling shows Republicans changed with Gingrich.

A good number of Republicans approved of Jimmy Carter his first year in office. Then the Iran Hostage Crisis. And I think the GOP began their radical shift after the Lebanon attack under Reagan.

"October 23, 1983 - 241 US service personnel -- including 220 Marines and 21 other service personnel -- are killed by a truck bomb at a Marine compound in Beirut, Lebanon. ... This was the deadliest attack against US Marines since the battle over Iwo Jima in February 1945."

Remember they pulled out. They didn't go after them. And then Libya.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103?wprov=sfla1

I think the Republican war machine attracted Neo-Conservatives owing to our dependence on middle east oil and concerns for Israel.

Then along comes Andrew Jackson Von Trump and we have what we have and everything is haywire.

[Hortensis]

15. End of the cold war required typical cons to find a new enemy

to fear and fight--strong cons always know there is at least one--but nothing "out there" was scary enough at that time.

So they turned their outsize hostility and aggression inward on Democrats. Of course, we needed considerable demonizing to make us an existential threat the size of Russia, but turns out they were more than up to the task.

What makes this era special is that they were VERY strongly assisted by the ultraconservative plutocrats who, starting a couple decades earlier and largely using "charitable" institutions as fronts, harnessed our universities and modern communications to turn the right into a giant existential threat to democracy. Which is where 1990s right-wing leaders like Gingrich come in.

At least that's my view of some of the big forces that changed the right.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

19. your point is well made.

There was also the arrival of think tanks. I suspect they came up with the vilification of Liberals via the "Democrat Party". And on and on.

But what drove them and former liberals to become NeoCons I believe was a change in focus from Vietnam to the Middle East. Remember Carter also dealt with the energy crisis via lowering the speed limits and putting solar panels on the WH. This after Nixon established the EPA. The environmental movement was huge at that time. Enter Christian Fundamentalists along with the rise of the Ayatollah and the eventual purge of Liberal Republicans.

"C-pac, The conference was founded in 1973 by the American Conservative Union and Young Americans for Freedom as a small gathering of dedicated conservatives."

[Hortensis]

20. Yes. Plutocrats formed think tanks as fronts for their agenda,

as you say, the arrival of a bunch of new ones, plus refunding/remissioning of some existing.

The alliance of neocons with the religious right certainly supports your thinking. Neocons would always prefer to fight enemies than make friends, as someone said, and where better to find battles that must be joined than through religion?

As near as I have been able to tell, though, virtually no neocons were former liberals, which requires an open-mindedness and acceptance of the ideas of others, and specifically a relative lack of aggression for its own sake. Carter's, bless him, exemplified a liberal response to problems.

Most neocons were naturally farther left to begin with, the type of illiberal critics for whom intolerance and search for extreme answers are normal, who eventually moved militarily farther "left" so to speak to join with their right-wing ideological cousins, including the religious right. You can still see their origins in attitudes where they split with the hard right on social policy.

Some neocons perhaps would have started as conservatives, of course, as indicated by the tie you make to the sort of young conservatives who joined new, cooler organizational offshoots of their parents' hard-core John Birch Society, etc.

I'm hopeful that the political disasters threatening our nation are prompting more research into personality in politics, although it will tend to draw (still) attempts at repression. I used to think education was key above all, that it would save us, but that ignorance, at least, has been blasted.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

25. Wolfowitz joined the civil rights March on Washington.

I believe one reason the term "neo" is there is because these were people who did not previously align with conservatism.

[Hortensis]

33. Military, econ, and social are all different facets. Neocons

are primarily very similar to the hard right militarily. But, as I said, not socially. That's an indicator of those who came from somewhere on the radical/extremist left originally--but who are NOT and almost always never were liberals.

I am a proud liberal and am no more going to accept the typical insult of having to "own" left-wing extremists/cum right-wing extremists/cum neocons as my own than I'm going to accept the self-serving trumpster lie that liberals were really the pro-slavery people.

We have to understand what liberalism is, and is not, if we are to save the nation for which we stand, which is based on a heritage of liberal principles. That's why we're under such harsh attack. Liberalism's enemies are out to destroy government of, by and for the people, the principle of equality of all men, and OUR power to use OUR government to make OUR lives better.

[Hortensis]

16. Read Jane Mayer and others about the rise of what you

are talking about, C Moon, for some very, very interesting stories.

The Koch brothers and a bunch of other ultraconservatives like them set out in the 1970s to radically change American culture and political thinking, to change US, and of course our governmental systems, and have been working on this mammoth task, with finally quite a bit of success, for over 40 years now.

Mayer's latest book alone has a LOT of names of those who've poured vast fortunes into this subversion. Interestingly, only a small portion has ever been devoted to actually placing their people in office. Most is invested more behind the scenes, such as in media, universities and think tanks providing "information" and employees to business and government.

[Nay]

17. Yes, they started by buying up outlets that could help them change the culture

in the US first -- then they worked on getting pubs in office. And they started small -- dogcatcher here, radio station there, then think tanks feeding RW 'facts' to everyone. They had a long-range plan, lots of money, and it worked.

[Hortensis]

18. Lewis Powell, who was rewarded with a SCOTUS seat,

drafted up the "Powell Memorandum" that still today provides a structure for much of the planning to subvert the values of our founders and move instead to those of ultraconservatives who could never build a great nation, only a repressive one that serves the good of a relative few.

[BumRushDaShow]

21. No - when they started, many DID did "believe" in him

But what has happened over the past 30+ years is that the party changed and eventually the teabaggers took over - many of whom represented fringe groups that Raygun and both Bushes courted but summarily ignored once they were in office.

With the election of Obama, to them, enough was enough. Remember how many "moderates" (i.e., Raygun-types) got "primaried"?

The difference here is that their natural tendency is to lockstep no matter who is there at the top and even today, most of them still follow Raygun's "11th Commandment" -

“Thou shalt not speak ill of any Republican.”