I Thought Reagan Was Nuts
Benedict Donald said, "Hold my beer. Watch this."
Rake the forests. Nuke the hurricanes. Arm teachers. Buy Greenland. Stare at an eclipse. Water bomb a cathedral. Suggest ingesting a disinfectant. Doctor a weather map with a sharpie. Hype an unvetted drug. Tear gas peaceful protestors. Ignore Russian bounties on American soldiers. Incite riots. Encourage insurrection. Claim victory. Lose. Refuse to concede.
Part of the legacy of our 45th best president.
I could start further back.
Lie about the crowds at your inauguration. Ban Muslims right off the bat. Hire swamp creatures. Make no effort to drain the swamp. Tweet around the clock. Push a dignitary aside like a schoolyard bully. Pick fights with NATO allies via phone calls. Blab about national security with Russian envoys in private. Skip daily briefings. Insist your daily briefings be in picture format only with your name prominently used on every page. Play golf, tweet and hold rallies more often than tend to the country’s business.
Speak on unsecured cell phones about national security while in crowds at a club with members who are regular citizens and some who are Chinese spies. Never offer public condolences without prodding. Never offer assistance to states who did not express their fealty to him. Skip White House Correspondents’ fetes because you are too much of a snowflake to handle being roasted.
Get banned from funerals. Even funerals of members of your own party. Deny immigrant kids toothbrushes and toothpaste. Argue in court for the right to withhold these sanitary items. Separate them from their families. Deport their parents. Keep the kids locked up in prisons with cages. Lose track of where their parents are, who the child’s parents are.
Suck up to dictators. Prevent any conversations with said dictators from being written down. Lock up phone conversations to leaders in a vault meant only for top secret data. Refuse to release paperwork requested by Congress. Refuse to allow certain persons to speak before Congress. ‘Threaten tweet’ while government employees testify before Congress.
Rag on Gold Star families. Refuse to attend veteran memorial due to unpleasantly damp conditions. Say you don’t like soldiers who get captured. Your spawn says the sacrifice your family had to make to become the First Family was essentially equal to the sacrifice those who fought and died for America had to make.
The litany of this man’s unsanctimonious behaviors is exhaustive and, even with short hand, I cannot capture them in a thousand word essay. Let’s just say, I could go on. (Check out Amy Siskind’s The Weekly List if you want a more full and complete accounting.)
I thought Reagan was nuts.
I mean, before he became governor of California, he was best known for Borax (not Borat) hand soap commercials which aired on a show called Death Valley Days and a 1951 movie where he costarred with a chimpanzee - Bedtime for Bonzo. He was an otherwise forgettable actor.
Here are some classic Reagan quotes:
"All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk."
"Facts are stupid things."
"My fellow Americans. I'm pleased to announce that I've signed legislation outlawing the Soviet Union. We begin bombing in five minutes." - joking during a mike check before his Saturday radio broadcast.
"A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane and smells like Cheetah."
"The state of California has no business subsidizing intellectual curiosity." -responding to student protests on college campuses during his tenure as California governor.
And my personal favorite. . .
“Trees cause more pollution than automobiles.”
To be fair, I cherry-picked these quotes. For the most part, Ronald Reagan could be pretty witty in a crotchety, conservative grandfatherly sort of way. He certainly had a charisma our current lame-duck miscreant, who intends to drag out the 2020 election until he pays off most of his debts, could never match.
But Reagan ushered in, or hurried along, the era of “trickle-down” economics that George H.W. Bush, who opposed him during the primaries in 1980, called “voodoo” economics. We’ve been paying the price ever since.
Goldwater led to Nixon led to Reagan led to Newt Gingrich led to George W led to the Tea Party led to a reality television star and someone who wrote none of his best-selling books. A charlatan par excellence. As someone pointed out to me the other day - once again - it will be left to a Democrat to lift the country back up except, this time, the hole is pretty darn deep.
This is political devolution.
But, do you know how we were lucky? We were lucky that the authoritarian this time around came to us wearing his autocratic inclinations on his sleeves. The next iteration might be far harder to discern.
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AAR Nancy Enz Lill has suggested the documentary about dance on Netflix called Move. The trailer says, “My mother tongue is movement.” I’m still plowing through a couple of other things but she gives it a hearty two thumbs up.
Also, Francesca Fiorentini explains “socialism” better than I ever could. For the record, I read just the other day that Florida right-wing senator Marco Rubio embraces something called “Common good” capitalism. Maybe there IS hope after all.