Apotheosis And Reckoning

.@riley_rogerson took a shot at a story I've been hoping to see someone write: How the generation of Ronald Reagan have turned into simpering apologists for Putin (my word choice, not hers).https://t.co/NZuE8Eh8iG

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) February 19, 2024

I haven’t read the article, but I’ll take a stab at the thesis. Reaganism is a direct line to MAGA, starting with the absolute worship of Reagan. The Democrats never pushed that for FDR or Truman. JFK was idolized in death, never in office. LBJ still doesn’t get the credit he deserves, but even I won’t put him up for sainthood.

The other legacy of St. Ronnie is the racism. Reagan introduced “welfare queens” into the national political lexicon, and Cadillacs became a symbol of black people living on the taxpayers’ money, in their “welfare Cadillacs.” No Republican denounced it as racism, just as no Republican seems to remember the corruption of Iran/Contra, or the corruption of the pardon power Poppy Bush used to pardon himself out of Iran/Contra, albeit indirectly.

I also remember Reykjavik.

So, yeah, the difference I see between Reagan and Trump is one of degree, not kind. And the major figures I see between the two are Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who were in Reagan’s administration before they were in W.’s, greasing the skids of the imperial presidency Liz Cheney now fears because the “wrong person” had the power; and Newt Gingrich, who taught the Freedom Caucus and House MAGA all they think they know.

Donald Trump is not the aberration and corruption of Reagan’s legacy; he’s the apotheosis of it.

And both of them are a product of the entertainment industry, that most people get most of what they imagine they know from entertainment is certainly a common thread that unites them. I was from an Irish Catholic family with a large contingent in Eastern Massachusetts and none of us was that far gone on JFK or his brothers, for that matter.

I see the same thing in comments about legal matters. Either lawyers play to the cameras, or non-lawyers spout ignorant nonsense on cable or Twitter, and everyone worries about how something “looks.” Except no one cares when the verdict comes down. OJ is still not guilty, though we all think he is.

The only opinion that matters in law is the court’s opinion.