When I can stand it, I watch the Republican Presidential candidate debates.  Amongst other things, I find it curious how they all mention Ronald Reagan, compare themselves to Reagan, hell, sometimes they seem to imply that they ARE Reagan, reincarnated, or at least that they channel his spirit.  Since they make it clear how indebted the party is to him, let’s examine the real Reagan a bit.

            Until he ran for the governorship of California, most of us knew of him as a cowboy in the movies.  We might have recalled that he had been head of the actors’ guild.  I have no problems with any of that, in fact it would seem that he was a hard worker, and quite successful. 

            Politics is another matter.  In the 1960’s, Reagan opposed both the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.  He called the voting bill “humiliating to the South”.  He ran for governor of California partly on a platform calling for the repeal of California’s fair housing laws.  He said publicly that “If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house, he has a right to do so.”  If you doubt that this is more like the real Reagan, consider this:  When he ran for president in 1980, he began with a states’ rights speech at a county fair near Philadelphia . . . Mississippi, the place where three civil rights’ workers were famously murdered.

            In between rants about fighting communism and cutting taxes, he added remarks about “welfare queens” driving their Cadillacs to pick up their welfare checks.  If you think he ever changed his racist views, I submit not.  For one thing, while he was president, he said, in referring to South Africa, that apartheid wasn’t so bad. 

            Reagan and his handlers did do something right, though, as least for Republicans – they captured the white vote in the South.  Southerners “got the message” when he spoke in Philadelphia, no one had to tell them why Reagan was there.  The white voter backlash over civil rights, voting rights, and the integration of their schools grew from Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954 and culminated in flipping the South from Democrat to Republican for Reagan in 1980.  Lyndon Johnson had predicted when he signed the Civil Rights Act that he would turn the South to the Republicans for the next thirty years.

            Reagan’s victory in 1980 began what lasts to today as the Conservative Republican Party.  What else did he, and those who channel him, stand for?  Let’s see.  He tried to reduce social security but could not.  George Bush restarted this attack on that part of the New Deal but was also denied.  Reagan was vehemently anti-union, as well as anti-labor.  He made James Watt his Secretary of the Interior, a man who hated those trying to protect the environment, and who quadrupled the area of public land open to coal mining.

            As much as he hated welfare or any help for the poor, he loved corporate welfare.  Cutting taxes is the right-wing rallying cry still today . . . but it is cuts mostly for the wealthy, those who live off dividends and interest, and corporations.  He tripled the national debt and didn’t care who will have to pay it back (our Constitution, recall, requires that our government not default on its bonds, worth remembering if you think like Reaganites do that “deficits don’t matter”). 

            He loved to quote what he called the most frightening nine words in English, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”  He implied that we are all on our own, that the federal government has no role in helping anyone, children included.  Examine our government’s reaction to Katrina, as one example, of this attitude remaining today.  Or better yet, listen to the Republican candidates support the “drown government in the bathtub” theories all the while dispensing insider contracts worth billions to their friends, and passing tax breaks as well, including for companies that take American jobs overseas.  The Military-Industrial Complex of Ike’s warning is alive today and you will get stuck with the bill.

            People often refer to Reagan’s economic policies as “trickle-down economics,” or “Reaganomics.”  In short, this means giving more money to the wealthy, and hoping that they invest in some way that results in more jobs and more earnings for the working class, and then they can therefore pay more taxes back.  It does not, of course, account for wealthy people investing overseas, holding gold, or being selfish.  Just give the Conservative wealthy more money and trust them to do something that benefits you.  Right.  And I have some prime Florida real estate to sell you, too.

            Like most Conservatives, Reagan was opposed to any regulation of business or industry, including energy companies.  As a symbolic, but telling gesture, he had the solar panels that Jimmy Carter put up on the roof of the White House torn down.  No damn silly effort to save energy or look for energy alternatives for him, by God.  The negative effects of “free trade” and deregulation on the working folks meant nothing to him or his ilk. 

            One thing he did accomplish was to lead the effort to de-regulate the banking industry.  As the banking thieves stole billions, Reagan looked the other way, and the taxpayers had to kick in billions to make up some of the losses.  Those of us in Arizona can recall that both our United States Senators, John McCain and Dennis DeConcini, being part of the Keating Five and trying to protect our local swindler from Lincoln Savings and Loan.  As a Democrat, DeConcini knew the game was up and did not run for re-election.  As a war hero, McCain survived and is a presidential candidate.  I love that picture of him when he took his family to vacation at Charlie Keatings’ Bahama estate, laughing and drinking with the Reagan-era “banker.”  It tells you all you need to know.

            RR liked to talk tough about communism, even though anyone in the know knew their world was falling apart and that we had already won the “arms race.”  Reagan, like all Republicans since, talked about patriotism and had countless flags as backdrops.  During WWII however, he stayed in Hollywood making movies and documentaries.  Maybe that’s where “W” got the idea that his lack of service would not hurt him if just talked around it.

            Finally there is that curious affair known as “Iran-Contra.”  At the end of it, Reagan said something like, “My heart says I didn’t do it, but my brain says I might have.”  And Republicans let him off the hook.  Well, gee, all we are talking about is a president defying the laws Congress wrote, selling missiles to Iran, a declared enemy of the United States, and using the money to fund the Contras, again against the law.  The Nicaraguan Contras, amongst other things, had death squads and killed democratically elected officials, as well as some nuns, after they were raped, naturally.  While this would seem to be an impeachable offense, there is likely a lot more.

            When Carter and Reagan faced off in 1980, Iran held U.S. hostages.  If you remember this, you recall that a military mission to save them failed when some helicopters crashed in Iran.  But do you also recall that on the very day that Reagan was sworn in, the hostages were released, and put on a plane for the United States, making Reagan look like some sort of hero?  Iran was so afraid of Reagan that they let them go right away, the story went; except for that deal to send Tow missiles to Iran, that is.  And a CIA operative named North who got caught and then paraded around in his Marine uniform so you would think he was a hero.  And, of course, bribe money here and there.

            The Vice-president back then was George Bush.  Even though George was the former director of the CIA, he proclaimed he knew nothing about Iran-Contra.  “Where was George?” was the question.  Of course, Bush had previously said that when he was head of the CIA he never met Manuel Noriega, until the proof of one of their three meetings surfaced and he altered his story.

And Reagan said he could not remember giving arms to Iran . . . except that he might have done it.  His implied medical problems were enough excuse for many Americans. But I like what right-winger Paul Harvey calls “the rest of the story.”

            While unproven to some (like the Conservatives’ claim about evolution) I like the story that during the Carter-Reagan campaign, Reagan sent William Casey to Europe where he met with an Iranian official in secret.  Casey asked the Iranians to keep the hostages all through the election, to make Carter look bad.  After Reagan was in, they would get some really cool weapons.  Casey’s reward was the Directorship of the CIA.

            Reagan was also president when a terrorist in Lebanon drove a truck loaded with explosives into a Marine barracks and killed over 200 of our Marines.  Oddly enough by today’s tough-talking Republican standards, Reagan cut and ran.  Yes, he actually realized Lebanon was a mess and no place for us.  This is one lesson W seems to have ignored from Reagan.  But no Republican candidate talks about this or would dare say RR cut and ran.

            But Reagan was known as “The Great Communicator.”  After years of pretending on television, he gave effective speeches.  He paused at the right times.  He gave Jimmy Carter dirty looks during their debates.  He told Mr. Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”  It was fine theater, but it was theater.  But he was good at it.  He managed to convince many folks who work for an hourly wage that organized labor was a bad thing; better to let those at the top decide what kind of salaries or benefits you need.   

Just like today’s reincarnations of him, who hem and haw about illegal immigration or gay marriage or try to be more Christian than the other guys, it was all a distraction from the real man, and the real issues.  And that is where today’s Republicans are just like Reagan – they, too, want you to concentrate on style, not substance.  They want you to like the way they talk and ignore what they are really doing to you and the country.  And they have gotten good at it. 

Supported by several well-funded think tanks, like the National Enterprise Institute, they come up with distractive, divisive, emotionally charged argument after argument, all the while with their hands on your wallet and their admen trying to convince your kids to join the army to fight for big oil (they leave that part out), and you to support tax breaks for the wealthy.  They attack every New Deal program that helps people and try to convince you that it is unpatriotic to help people.  In this, they are the party of Ronald Reagan. 

When I first heard, years ago, that there was a movement to honor Ronald Reagan with a statue or building named after him in every single county in the country, I thought surely it must have been April Fool’s Day.  Not only was it not April first, many of these same followers thought Reagan should be on Mount Rushmore, right up there with Lincoln.  To that I say to Ronald Reagan’s ghost, “Mr. Reagan, you’re no Abraham Lincoln.”