Ronald Reagan's Daughter: My Father 'Would Be So Appalled'

[mrsukyankee]

Ronald Reagan's Daughter: My Father 'Would Be So Appalled' At Today's GOP Presidential Candidates

If you're a Republican, Ronald Reagan is pretty much the closest thing to God on earth. Saint Reagan has, sadly, like the Bible, been cherry picked and used for nefarious purposes (see: Sarah Palin,) but nevertheless, the Gipper's legacy is strong.

So when Patti Davis, the daughter of Ronald and Nancy Reagan and an avowed liberal says her father, the 40th President of the United States of America, would be "appalled" with today's Republican presidential candidates, and with the GOP in general, we on the left would hope conservatives would listen.

Sadly, they will not, but we can broadcast her message loud and clear, and we should.

Telling Michelangelo Signorile, Editor-at-Large of Huffington Post Gay Voices today that today's Republican presidential candidates "are so not like him," Davis was asked how she felt about Senator Ted Cruz "often positively invoking her father’s name on the campaign trail and during debates."

“It may be this week he’s doing it more than the others," Davis told Signorile. "But they all kind of do it. But yet, they are so not like him. My father would be so appalled at what’s going on. He would be so appalled at these candidates. I don’t think he would be a Republican. And if another Ronald Reagan came along right now, I don’t think the Republican Party would accept him."

Signorile reports that "Davis said her father, who was shot in an attempted assassination by John Hinkley Jr. in 1981, would not be able to imagine today’s gun violence. Davis also noted that in stark contrast to current GOP presidential candidates and most Republican leaders, her mother, Nancy Reagan, was 'very happy' about the Supreme Court’s historic decision on marriage equality."

[dirtyred]

I've been saying this for years. Nice to hear a Reagan say it.

[jillboston]

Patti Davis must have forgotten who her father was and the ugliness he started vis a vis race.

Kicking off his campaign in Philadelphia Mississippi for starters and giving us the mythical welfare queen (hint, she wasn't a white woman even though the vast majority of people receiving welfare are white).

Hand me what you're smoking Patti - I could use some. The brilliant Bob Herbert sets the record straight.

www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/opinion/13herbert.html?_r=0


Let’s set the record straight on Ronald Reagan’s campaign kickoff in 1980.




Early one morning in the late spring of 1964, Dr. Carolyn Goodman, her husband, Robert, and their 17-year-old son, David, said goodbye to David’s brother, Andrew, who was 20.



They hugged in the family’s apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and Andrew left. He was on his way to the racial hell of Mississippi to join in the effort to encourage local blacks to register and vote.



It was a dangerous mission, and Andrew’s parents were reluctant to let him go. But the family had always believed strongly in equal rights and the benefits of social activism. “I didn’t have the right,” Dr. Goodman would tell me many years later, “to tell him not to go.”



After a brief stopover in Ohio, Andrew traveled to the town of Philadelphia in Neshoba County, Mississippi, a vicious white-supremacist stronghold. Just days earlier, members of the Ku Klux Klan had firebombed a black church in the county and had beaten terrified worshipers.



Photo



Bob Herbert

Andrew would not survive very long. On June 21, one day after his arrival, he and fellow activists Michael Schwerner and James Chaney disappeared. Their bodies wouldn’t be found until August. All had been murdered, shot to death by whites enraged at the very idea of people trying to secure the rights of African-Americans.



The murders were among the most notorious in American history. They constituted Neshoba County’s primary claim to fame when Reagan won the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 1980. The case was still a festering sore at that time. Some of the conspirators were still being protected by the local community. And white supremacy was still the order of the day.



That was the atmosphere and that was the place that Reagan chose as the first stop in his general election campaign. The campaign debuted at the Neshoba County Fair in front of a white and, at times, raucous crowd of perhaps 10,000, chanting: “We want Reagan! We want Reagan!”



Reagan was the first presidential candidate ever to appear at the fair, and he knew exactly what he was doing when he told that crowd, “I believe in states’ rights.”



Reagan apologists have every right to be ashamed of that appearance by their hero, but they have no right to change the meaning of it, which was unmistakable. Commentators have been trying of late to put this appearance by Reagan into a racially benign context.



That won’t wash. Reagan may have been blessed with a Hollywood smile and an avuncular delivery, but he was elbow deep in the same old race-baiting Southern strategy of Goldwater and Nixon.



Everybody watching the 1980 campaign knew what Reagan was signaling at the fair. Whites and blacks, Democrats and Republicans — they all knew. The news media knew. The race haters and the people appalled by racial hatred knew. And Reagan knew.



He was tapping out the code. It was understood that when politicians started chirping about “states’ rights” to white people in places like Neshoba County they were saying that when it comes down to you and the blacks, we’re with you.



Advertisement



Continue reading the main story

Advertisement



Continue reading the main story



And Reagan meant it. He was opposed to the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was the same year that Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney were slaughtered. As president, he actually tried to weaken the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He opposed a national holiday for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He tried to get rid of the federal ban on tax exemptions for private schools that practiced racial discrimination. And in 1988, he vetoed a bill to expand the reach of federal civil rights legislation.



Congress overrode the veto.



Reagan also vetoed the imposition of sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa. Congress overrode that veto, too.



Throughout his career, Reagan was wrong, insensitive and mean-spirited on civil rights and other issues important to black people. There is no way for the scribes of today to clean up that dismal record.



To see Reagan’s appearance at the Neshoba County Fair in its proper context, it has to be placed between the murders of the civil rights workers that preceded it and the acknowledgment by the Republican strategist Lee Atwater that the use of code words like “states’ rights” in place of blatantly bigoted rhetoric was crucial to the success of the G.O.P.’s Southern strategy. That acknowledgment came in the very first year of the Reagan presidency.



Ronald Reagan was an absolute master at the use of symbolism. It was one of the primary keys to his political success.



The suggestion that the Gipper didn’t know exactly what message he was telegraphing in Neshoba County in 1980 is woefully wrong-headed. Wishful thinking would be the kindest way to characterize it.

[mrsukyankee]

Thanks all - I figured someone could come in and argue with this. I found it utterly interesting that his daughter would think this. I do feel that the Republican party has gone even further down the path but it definitely was still there back in the day.

[jeaniebueller]

Honestly, reagan's economic policies are also what led us to the economic meltdown of 2008, on top of his welfare queen nonsense, and his awful handling of the aids crisi, so I could give a shit what he would think.

[asdfjkl]

Dec 24, 2015 8:37:03 GMT -5 @bunnybean said:

Oh? How are they not like him? How are they not like the man who got the evangelicals into the party? Or the man who funded the fucking Contras?

asdfjkl , you should get in here!

Hey Reagan, you built this!

[asdfjkl]

Dec 24, 2015 9:20:44 GMT -5 @dontcallmeshirley1 said:

Hmmm...I dunno about this. Isn't this the president who pushed trickle down economics, slashed social programs, and ignored the AIDS crisis?

He may have been a legitimately nicer person than many of the current R front runners, but it's really not hard to be a more decent person than Trump or Cruz.

He's also responsible for Bratz dolls.

iammalcolmx

[jillboston]

Dec 24, 2015 9:52:44 GMT -5 mrsukyankee said:

Thanks all - I figured someone could come in and argue with this. I found it utterly interesting that his daughter would think this. I do feel that the Republican party has gone even further down the path but it definitely was still there back in the day.

Patti Davis is..... interesting... 

[tacosforlife]

WELFARE QUEENS, MOTHERFUCKER.

[cookiemdough]

I do think the tax policy has been warped over the years. The focus has been on tax cuts seemingly because that is what Reagan did, however the rates were wildly different than where they are now. So I don't get the notion that further tax cuts will stimulate the economy.

I got nothing but agreement on the welfare queen stuff. He was no Donald trump in his delivery, but race politics was definitely present.

[sfy]

I don't know that Reagan wouldn't be welcome today, but I do agree with her that he was more moderate than what the average Republican seems to want right now (per the numbers). When I think about today's Republican, I conjure up a very different image, ideologically speaking, than I have of the 80s Republican. On the other hand, who knows how much of what Reagan thought was being tempered because of the environment back then. Immigration wasn't on the forefront, we were 5 minutes past the black power movement, politicians weren't getting much pushback from the LGBTQ community. Who knows who Reagan might have been or would have said in a different climate? The welfare queen trope says plenty to me.

[loira]

Hm, Reagan did used to be a democrat and often liked to use that to his advantage in a "the democratic party changed and I had to switch" kind of way, but it's more likely that he was always republican and just didn't realise it until later.

Disclaimer: I am not American so all my info about this dude comes from my H, who published an interesting article on myth and memory of the Reagan legacy.

[forreals]

Dec 25, 2015 19:13:37 GMT -5 @kirkette said:

Dec 24, 2015 12:34:01 GMT -5 @bunnybean said:

I mean, I guess at least he tried to pass gun control? So maybe in some sense, this modern party is to the right of Reagan.

The modern party is way right of Reagan. That's part of the problem with  present day GOP. 

I agree. I am by no stretch of the imagination a fan of Reagan, but I do not think he would be a viable candidate in today's GOP because he would be considered not right enough.
Did folks here watch Alpha House? I am reminded of an episode in which a Reagan impersonator was saying some quotes at some GOP luncheon or something. He got booed and maybe people threw things at him?

[Mrs.Rad888]

Has "State's rights" always meant basically whites before blacks/minorities? As far back as I can remember that's been a rallying cry for Republicans.

[asdfjkl]

Dec 25, 2015 23:00:08 GMT -5 Mrs.Rad888 said:

Has "State's rights" always meant basically whites before blacks/minorities? As far back as I can remember that's been a rallying cry for Republicans.

Yes and no.  During the drafting of the Constitution, there was A LOT of discussion about how much power to invest the Feds with.  And Madison and Hamilton and... who else, Jefferson argued extensively about that.  So our country was founded on this tension between a powerful (organized and effective) federal government, and the fear of overreach of that government. 

But the rallying cry of "states rahts" is tied to the Civil War and the Theory of the Lost Cause.  So, this idea that the Civil War wasn't really about slavery; it was about the south fighting for the democracy - for the rights of the individual over the powerful federal overreach.  But the south never had a chance (tear) because the feds coopted the strength and resources of the North to subdue the South and win the war, but at the loss of the individual rights of the entire union. 

[asdfjkl]

Dec 25, 2015 19:13:37 GMT -5 @kirkette said:

Dec 24, 2015 12:34:01 GMT -5 @bunnybean said:

I mean, I guess at least he tried to pass gun control? So maybe in some sense, this modern party is to the right of Reagan.

The modern party is way right of Reagan. That's part of the problem with  present day GOP. 

It's to the right of Reagan only based on a path cleared by Reagan.  He was its architect.  

[heyjude]

He passed an amnesty plan largely benefiting millions of undocumented Mexicans. He can be criticized on his own right for many things but I'd say he is pretty different than today's GOP.

[Velar Fricative]

Dec 26, 2015 11:16:14 GMT -5 heyjude said:

He passed an amnesty plan largely benefiting millions of undocumented Mexicans. He can be criticized on his own right for many things but I'd say he is pretty different than today's GOP.

Somewhat related, but this post made me wonder about whether politicians of yesteryear were far more likely to not pigeonhole themselves within one very small political box. Like, Reagan was an R but it wasn't a big deal for him to stray at times, whereas if he passed an amnesty plan it would not be...good for him in today's GOP. Same goes for Clinton. I want to say yes but wonder if my perspective as someone who was only born in the early 80s and thus hasn't been into the political process for decades and decades means I just see things that way even if it's really not the case.

[heyjude]

Many Latinos today have fond feelings for Regan because of the amenesty plan even where they have very negative feelings for the GOP establishment. You can argue that the downfall of the the modern GOP is directly related to their relationship with the Latino community. In this respect I really don't think you can put Reagan in the same category as today's GOP, where the front runner calls all Mexicans rapists and criminals. It is a far cry. Hell its a far cry from Bush II.

[iammalcolmx]

Dec 26, 2015 13:44:05 GMT -5 @kirkette said:

Dec 26, 2015 10:06:11 GMT -5 asdfjkl said:

It's to the right of Reagan only based on a path cleared by Reagan.  He was its architect.  

Look, I don't want the man canonized for sainthood, or anything. We're honestly, never going to see eye to eye on this topic. Just like I doubt we'd see eye to eye on JFK and LBJ. So, please save me another good old the evils of Ronald Regan attorney style wall of text. We've heard it so many times. It usually reeks of the "We know what's best for you people" liberal white perspective, and it fails to take into consideration other perspectives. 


So, let's agree to disagree, and move on. 

Chile! You ain't fuckimg around no mo! 

[Michelle]

You know that little form called an I9 that you complete to get a new job? You have to present one document from list A or one from lost B AND one from List C ? iE a passport OR A DL and SS card?

That form went into effect as a result of IRCA which went into effect in late 1986. It requires businesses to start ensuring workers were authorized to work. And it gave amnesty and a path to citizenship to the illegal immigrants that lived in the U.S. at the time. That is why a lot of current GOP are against amnesty , because they say it was done by Reagan and we have the problem once again. So some propose amnesty that grants only green cards, not citizenship, if you are here illegally. you only get citizenship if you go through the 20 yr process.

[asdfjkl]

Dec 26, 2015 13:44:05 GMT -5 @kirkette said:

Dec 26, 2015 10:06:11 GMT -5 asdfjkl said:

It's to the right of Reagan only based on a path cleared by Reagan.  He was its architect.  

Look, I don't want the man canonized for sainthood, or anything. We're honestly, never going to see eye to eye on this topic. Just like I doubt we'd see eye to eye on JFK and LBJ. So, please save me another good old the evils of Ronald Regan attorney style wall of text. We've heard it so many times. It usually reeks of the "We know what's best for you people" liberal white perspective, and it fails to take into consideration other perspectives. 


So, let's agree to disagree, and move on. 

If these two sentences are your idea of a wall of text, you need to read more.  But by all means, feel free to expound on the numerous generosities Reagan bestowed upon people of color.  You can start with the HUD scandal and the welfare queen myth.  

I'll agree to disagree, but you can take that little condescending temper tantrum and shove right up in your christmas stocking.

[asdfjkl]

Dec 26, 2015 21:35:44 GMT -5 @kirkette said:

Dec 26, 2015 15:48:47 GMT -5 iammalcolmx said:

Chile! You ain't fuckimg around no mo! 

Well it's almost 2016, so I've been waiting to say somethings for years! 
Just like some others who keep being "othered" all across the boards, I can't wait no mo. Otherwise we'll just keep having the same circular discussions with the same circular perspectives. How the hell is that progressive? How will that make America a better place?

You understand that this makes no damn sense at all.  The board skewing left is not "othering."  Othering is recasting an individual or a group of individuals with characteristics that are disvalued or that almost all of society abhors.  Like when the GOP kept suggesting that Obama was a muslim, socialist, foreigner.  That's othering.  Pointing out that the GOP does shit like that is not othering.  It's just true.

And spare me your pre-2016 festivus.  The whopping post-a-day I've made over the past year has not merited your "I can't take it anymore" histrionics.