Pour one out for sunny, Reaganesque Republicanism.
The latest blow came this week, when Tim Scott, the second of two candidates with a future-focused, relentlessly positive message and a smiling disposition, dropped out of the GOP presidential primary. He was preceded to the exits by his fellow happy warrior Mike Pence. Both capitulated to an electorate more interested in candidates eager to violate Ronald Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment — thou shall not speak ill of any fellow Republican — shredding each other to make a point.
The last of their kind amid a field of slash-and-burn culture warriors and angry brawlers — candidates willing to call their political enemies “scum” and “vermin” — Pence and Scott had bet that there was a silent majority of Republican primary voters who wanted a return to an optimistic, whistle-while-you-work-the-base standard bearer.
Regardless, he was the face and name of the administration. Some say he was a useful idiot, others say he was a two-faced mastermind. It doesn’t matter, because the things done in his name under his watch set America on a path of self-implosion. He doesn’t get a pass for being too stupid to stop it.
Reagan administration v Reagan, Reagan shit his pants and fought a wall, his administration did the actual presiding.
Ok, sure. Who cares? Does it make any functional difference? I never knew the man. I don’t know anyone who knew the man. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you didn’t know him either.
The man and the administration are one, as far as any citizen is concerned. Reagan was a shitty president. He was a shitty person. His wife was a shitty person. The policies his administration pursued were bad for America, and his leadership encouraged the worst of humanity.
Nobody is just one thing, though, and nobody does it all by themselves. Reagan might have been a stupid puppet, or he might have been the diabolical master. Either way, fuck him and fuck his administration. It makes absolutely no difference either way.
I do know the Reagan family by chance but I held that belief out to that as well.
No, they aren’t. This is how they escaped conviction for the whole Oliver North thing. Add yes we’re in agreement it was a shitty administration.
Correct.
I heard Nancy was quite the cocksucker… In a good way.