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(34,170 posts)began with Reagan. Before him, the religious nutbags/Dominionists were a convenient, reliable subset of their voters who were given no real power. That all changed when Reagan legitimized assholes like Falwell & the "Moral Majority," giving them real political clout. It's been downhill ever since.
CrispyQ
(36,225 posts)They've been cultivating the racists for decades. Then under Reagan they took the zealots under their wing. Now they're embracing the loons, & are losing control of their party. The Republican Party is now the party of racists, zealots, & loons. I'd laugh if it weren't so tragic for the country.
an image of the GOP's regression:
localroger
(3,605 posts)He had previously played the role of Governor of California, so he had experience, but he was the first actor who clearly was fronting for a committee of business people to play the President. When the Alzheimer's started to become noticeable toward the end of his first term it wasn't much of a handicap, because it didn't affect his ability to make rapport with his audience and for the most part he could still recite his lines believably. Reagan was the first President who much of the population could easily tell was neither capable of doing nor expected to do his supposed job. And he was so useful that the people fronting him just brazenly rode it out when he did flub it (protip: don't use the word "paradigm" in a speech). Nowadays the fact that a politician is an obvious useful idiot isn't the handicap it once might have been, because we've been acclimated to it.
That this would happen was predicted in the form of the Reagan, W, and Trump-like character Berzelius Windrip in Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here -- in 1935.
pazzyanne
(6,518 posts)When Reagan ran for president on the republican ticket, my grand father said, "I won't vote to put a &%#%$ actor for president!" He left the republican party taking most of his family with him. He joined He cast his vote for a Democrat and joined the Democratic party the following year.
Last edited Thu Feb 25, 2021, 03:31 PM - Edit history (2)
Reagan also kick-started the wholesale destruction of the labor movement and the push towards deregulation of many industries - none more so illustrated recently than the Texas energy disaster.
Of course, major POS's like Newt Gingrich helped that cause along significantly.
The Right used Falwell and his dupes by embracing the abortion issue and cloaking themselves as the "moral party".
Similarly, they adopted "law and order", an old Nixon trick, as their mantra, turning the Police against the people, a situation that is totally out of control these days (see January 6th perpetrators).
They established themselves as the "strong" ones and loaded up an already bloated military-industrial complex. Yet, many of them never served and the ones that did, with few exceptions, did so out of the line of fire. Nowadays, they still use the military for their props and still scare Americans into pouring massive amounts of money into "modernizing" and "restoring readiness". Meanwhile, our infrastructure is stuck in the 1950's, our education system is operating off of poverty level funding, and we still have a poorly funded national heath care system. But those Stealth bombers sure look great over the damn Super Bowl don't they?
The fact is, the republican party abandoned the concepts of governance in favor of cultism - and that's all they have left now. Trump was exposed as the lazy pretender he always was, incapable of managing anything other than his own self-image to anyone stupid enough to believe him. The others that are still in our government, again with few exceptions, are also incapable of managing, directing, or even participating in governance. They exist only as ideologues with an empty, bankrupt ideology.
So now, all that's left are the ruins - both of their party and our government and country.
The republican party has duped this country. Its' only achievement, as it were, is the dumbing down of America.
Oldem
(833 posts)I'd add that in the process of all you explained, we've become an oligarchy. The constant attempt to suppress voting rights is merely an attempt to maintain the power of those who are in the pockets of the big bosses, corporations, and interest groups. We live in a country that's governed--at least when repugs are in power--by the few, not the many.
movingviolation
(310 posts)I weep for humanity.
c-rational
(2,581 posts)PatrickforB
(14,516 posts)laid out the whole plan for corporate domination of our republic, and of course the snake Reagan killed the old Fairness Doctrine - and we desperately need a new 21st century Fairness Doctrine.
Ferrets are Cool
(21,059 posts)Evolve Dammit
(16,632 posts)PatSeg
(46,794 posts)turned politics into entertainment and in the process, they attracted sideshow barkers and snake oil salesmen. Very few serious politicians could get through a republican presidential primary after Eisenhower. The base wasn't interested in policy or competence, they voted for personality and unrealistic promises.
marieo1
(1,402 posts)Catbyte.................I agree 100%, It all started with Reagan.
Claire Oh Nette
(2,636 posts)Those who listened to the Nixon-Kennedy debate say that Nixon won. Those who watched the Nixon-Kennedy debate say Kennedy won.
I wasn't born yet, so I can't say from experience. What I can say is that the advent of televised debates and televised congressional proceedings had led to visual politics--comms over legislation, style over substance, image is everything.
When the news divisions had to turn a profit, too, everything became about ratings. Ratings determine cost of advertising. Viewers drive ratings. Pay attention to which companies advertise. They subsidize the networks for our viewing enjoyment. No, so we become brand aware and consume what they sell.
The GOP lost on school segregation and looked for another issue to keep the rubes riled up. Atwater realized the conservative values preached on Sundays might deliver at the polls. THey got into bed with Falwell and the other televangelists and the churches. Why, abortion, that's the ticket. We'll go after abortion. In the 80s. Ten+ years after Roe v. Wade. Nothing drives white souls to the polls like defense of innocence they're not responsible for.
Oh, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, tRump* Zero action on abortion in 24 years, most of which with majorities in Congress.
Hmm. Ooh, teh Gay. But the courts ruled in favor of marriage equality. Never mind that "marriage" is a civil partnership, and economic partnership. No Church license? you're still married. No State license? You can't get married.
Now, they go after the minuscule % of trans-girls or trans-women who are competitive in athletics. Again, a very small subset of a very small subset to begin with. I golf. A Lot. Know what we say to the trans-woman who won the Senior Womens Amateur Golf Tournament in these parts?
Champion.
Takes a whole lot more that dangly bits or lack there of to play championship level scratch golf.
SMaller and smaller groups to demonize. Sadly, more vocal demonization, and more brazen bigotry and violence ahead, until we squash them all at the ballot box.
FailureToCommunicate
(13,989 posts)politics (the little that there still was).
Ended by FCC commission vote 4-0 in 1987:
Sitting commissioners at the time of the vote were:[30][31]
Dennis R. Patrick, Chairman, Republican
(Named an FCC commissioner by Ronald Reagan in 1983)
Mimi Weyforth Dawson, Republican
(Named an FCC commissioner by Ronald Reagan in 1986)
Patricia Diaz Dennis, Democrat
(Named an FCC commissioner by Ronald Reagan in 1986)
James H. Quello, Democrat
(Named an FCC commissioner by Richard M. Nixon in 1974)
"The FCC vote was opposed by members of Congress who said the FCC had tried to "flout the will of Congress" and the decision was "wrongheaded, misguided and illogical.".[29] The decision drew political fire, and cooperation with Congress was one issue.[32] In June 1987, Congress attempted to preempt the FCC decision and codify the Fairness Doctrine,[33] but the legislation was vetoed by President Ronald Reagan. Another attempt to revive the doctrine in 1991 was stopped when President George H.W. Bush threatened another veto."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine
Butterflylady
(3,523 posts)I, to my everlasting regret, voted the first time for Reagan. Soon after the Iran debacle began to evolve and saw the repug party as the party of liars.
catbyte
(34,170 posts)Nixon's Southern Strategy set the stage, but if you look at income inequality, things really began to diverge in the early 1980s and the religious nut jobs began to dominate the conversation.
speak easy
(9,100 posts)Ron Johnson / Louie Gohmert on other hand ...
Polybius
(15,238 posts)He knows what he's doing, that makes him even more dangerous.
certainot
(9,090 posts)and memory is not intelligence
Polybius
(15,238 posts)I did hear he was the best student in his Harvard class though. His professor said "Cruz was off-the-charts brilliant."
stopdiggin
(11,092 posts)Law is an area where rote memory (or any type of memory hooks or tricks) does not earn you the title 'brilliant.' It just doesn't. It's about inferences and drawing connections, architectures and construction ... All things that would be generally ascribed to intelligence. I think if people at Harvard were impressed, there was probably good reason.
Sorry -- Ted Cruz is an odious human being -- but regarding him as an ordinary putz (Gaetz, Gohmert, Jordon, Boebert ..) is a mistake.
certainot
(9,090 posts)stopdiggin
(11,092 posts)I don't think that's what gets you 'points' in law. Creative thinking, drawing things together, more the ticket. In my opinion anyway.
(could see where you could perhaps flatter and schmooze your way past a particular individual -- but not a whole school)
Law school grads? Care to weigh in?
certainot
(9,090 posts)allow global warming.
i imagine though he could go a llong way with little creativity, remembering precedent and examples and combinations
and if he was a brilliant lawyer he might still be a $2000/hr lawyer.....
betsuni
(25,126 posts)luvtheGWN
(1,336 posts)An ability to recite facts (and, in law, cases) does not mean brilliance; it just means an amazing memory.
And some professors are easily fooled by this.
Cruz is the nastiest piece of work. To think his mother could have had an abortion legally.......
catrose
(5,047 posts)With those of us with functioning brain cells, I mean.
Klaralven
(7,510 posts)LymphocyteLover
(5,601 posts)and elected by deluded voters
certainot
(9,090 posts)efhmc
(14,709 posts)Evolve Dammit
(16,632 posts)efhmc
(14,709 posts)mezame
(295 posts)Deliberate. Planned. Promoted (see 1776 doc). The sway that Texas has had over what goes into schoolbooks. And so on.
And now bearing fruit that only the willfully ignorant will eat.
dutch777
(2,871 posts)Backseat Driver
(4,336 posts)without a determined notion to serve ALL people to accomplish their potential. Your meme may, unfortunately, also be a mythology Americans have come to believe and take for granted that those so elevated are the best and brightest.
Kaleva
(36,146 posts)I don't think Native Americans, blacks, gays and other minorities can rattle off many names of past politicians they would think were the best and brightest.
LiberalLovinLug
(14,153 posts)I imagine there is one the RW uses where its Nancy, Hillary, and Obama on the bottom.
Memes are fun I guess, but I don't think they ever change minds
amb123
(1,576 posts)Government IS the problem."
- Ronald Reagan
berni_mccoy
(23,018 posts)They locked it in with Citizens United.
Auggie
(31,060 posts)Not really a dumbing down but a slick use of social psychology to turn groups against each other.
Initech
(99,913 posts)That has devolved the conservatives from the best and brightest into people who pride themselves on being ignorant, belligerent assholes who trust conspiracy theories over actual news.
Evolve Dammit
(16,632 posts)Roc2020
(1,603 posts)rusting out of rural America and racism as a scape goat for blame. That's why the GOP is who they are today.
sandensea
(21,528 posts)They don't want statesmen - or even competent officials. That means rules and regulations.
They want puppets - the more compromised, the better (to keep'em in line if need be).
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)comparing them with the very worst rabid RW extremists elect that they all left politics.
Could that be it?
JT45242
(2,173 posts)Falwell had a lot of sway in the Nixon and Ford admins. The threat of him attacking the Republican party if the Viking space craft looked for microbial life on Mars was why it was scrapped from the original designs.
Ray Bruns
(4,023 posts)That is who we remember because they were the candle in the night. If you want to see realpolitik, watch the movie Lincoln.
Turin_C3PO
(13,649 posts)there were a lot of idiotic reps in the 19th century. But it does seem to be celebrated more now.
Moostache
(9,895 posts)There is simply put, way more coverage and constant access to the day-by-day and hour-by-hour behavior of politicians and some of them have discovered that the "old way" (calling donors and lining up support from wealthy benefactors) is inefficient in today's world of Facebook-ensnared morons who get their news from the same place that they get their latest gossip and sneak a peek at pictures of their ex- and his/her could-have-been-us family. It is the equivalent to taking a large bowel movement in your kitchen. Society is sick and our politics reflects that back at us.
The politics of personal destruction began in earnest with Clinton and the fledgling internet (AOL.com on dial-up anyone?)...the electronic bulletin boards and chat rooms of the late 90's gave way to much more multimedia enabled platforms today and much like advertising in general, it swamped rational thought in favor of the least common denominator. People have granted license to the maxim that everyone actually IS entitled to their own 'facts', as long as they are willing to lie to your face and proclaim ANYTHING imaginable is actually a "sincerely held" belief.
This nation is lost in the wilderness. Its not a question of ideas battling for the direction of the country any longer...its a frat party gone wrong and everyone is in the same car hurtling along the PCH at 30 mph over the limit and a constant fight between sober people and drunks to grab the wheel. When only 50% of the occupants of the metaphorical car WANT to survive or CARE if others survive, the prognosis is bleak.
The path out of the dark?
1) Stop giving undue deference to religious nonsense of ALL stripes.
Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus and any flavor of the week in-between or outside of them should be handled the way you handle an 18 year old who insists that Santa Claus is real or a Flat-Earther who wants to "prove" to you that the Universe is really a plane and the world has ends.
2) Call people out of their lies and NEVER let up.
Trump was so effective because he was allowed to lie from day one and no one ever held him truly accountable for his BS. In a sane world or country not destined for "shit-hole" status, no one would have let Trump's original lies stand - his "you won't believe what I'm hearing about Obama's birth certificate" was already DECADES into a life of public lying at every turn...even as far back as "John Barron" calling into radio shows to brag about Donald Trump's imaginary love life in 1984-85. But he is merely to apex predator of the liars jungle. There are millions of them throughout the country - truth and honor used to mean something. Not any longer for at least 45% of the country...
3) When stupid people continue to bray like donkeys to grab attention - IGNORE THEM!
The fact that I know who Gohmert, Jordan, Taylor-Greene, King and more even are IS the problem. These non-serious people are allowed to pretend they are actually he polar opposite of reality...enough! Fires die when they are denied fuel, no matter how hot they burn. Even a star will collapse without fuel to maintain the nuclear chain reaction at its core. Stop reading their names, stop saying their names out loud (or better yet, announce them ONLY as 'the crazy person from ' from now on. Yes, these morons are nearly universally from one side of the 'debate'...but we have to stop pretending that a food fight is the same as a policy disagreement.
We cannot reach the dryland of sanity and rationality by staying in the cess pool fighting with the pigs for the better slop...to quote the 1983 film "Wargames" - the only winning move is not to play. So flip the game board, stand up from the table, turn off the TV and ignore the stupid, the insane and the intentionally phony.
And if (or when) that fails too, kiss goodbye the one-time 'last, best hope for self-rule and humanity' and embrace the horror or detach and observe it from a distance. Either way, we have 41 years worth of wasted time and repeated efforts from Reagan to Trump that clearly show what the outcome is when the Republican anarchists gain power and control. Next time they win, it will be under the flag of a more disciplined and better prepared version of the orange menace, and then it really is "Game Over Man...its game over!"
Caliman73
(11,693 posts)It has attracted all sorts. Andrew Jackson was NOT an intellectual giant. He was a racist bully who caused one of the worst economic crises in US history by trying to shut down the National Bank. Calvin Coolidge and Warren Harding were also pretty worthless.
What has changed in my opinion, is that while politics has always attracted good and bad, there seems to be an almost "industrial" nature to the "grift" now. We have one party, the Democratic Party, that produces decent to great leaders, and some who are dirty or get dirty (I.E. Blagojevich trying to sell President Obama's Senate seat, or Marion Barry smoking crack). We have the other party that in modern times (since Eisenhower) has given us nothing by crap.
I personally think that it is the ideology. I have said it before, but conservatism is an ethically bankrupt ideology. It is based on the same thought process that supported absolute monarchy, except that as the Kings and Queens fell out of favor, conservatives believe that the "great Capitalists" should be in charge, as they are "obviously blessed by god" and deserve our deference.
Republicans will elect whoever they think will get them toward their goal of having a unitary executive who enforces the "natural social and economic order". They do not care about governing. They care about ruling.
Sympthsical
(8,935 posts)Mass media simply make us far more aware of the flaws. You'd also think the world is the worst it's ever been and it's all going to total shit. Pre-Covid, we were the most peaceful and prosperous we've ever been in all history.
But the End is nigh and everyone is stupid.
I'm surprised more people haven't figured this out yet.
relayerbob
(6,508 posts)Plus, people like to only see the good in the tings from the past ... assuming they aren't myths in the first place
Maurice Morizovich
(20 posts)And now, we live amongst the Funhouse Mirrors of Zuckerberg's World.
BarbD
(1,191 posts)in how the world turns today. In the olden days, if one wanted to pretend to be someone else, or promote something crazy, there were natural limitations of how many people could be reached. Now, from the comfort of my recliner, I can promote all kinds of nonsense and pass myself off as a brilliant, charismatic, tall, thin, gorgeous blond.
JHB
(37,128 posts)It always relied on off-the-books demagoguery to draw enough numbers to do anything more than grouse in their gin and tonics. It was inevitable that they'd lose control of the hellbeast they raised.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,145 posts)LaMouffette
(2,012 posts)that candidates must meet before running for political office. I mean, for president, you have to be 35 years old, a natural born citizen, and a resident of the US for 14 years. That's IT!
It took until George W. Bush for greedy dimwits to figure out that any old dumb ass could be president. Thanks to his example, we have untold numbers of unqualified people running for office. And the voting public, at least the right-wing, votes for them not despite their lack of intelligence or education, but BECAUSE of it. The lesser educated vote for the ill-educated because they seem to be regular folks, just like themselves.
I seriously think that the Constitution should be amended to make the barrier to entry a lot more stringent, at LEAST for the presidency.
For starters:
Every presidential candidate must undergo a Top Secret security clearance investigation, even before they are allowed to run in the primary election. Just the thought of being investigated would frighten off many would-be candidates. They know what they've been doing!
Every presidential candidate must submit 10 years of tax returns before the primary election. Again, that would weed out a lot of people who would rather not have their taxes scrutinized (hmm, who might that be???).
Every presidential candidate must take a one-year "So You Want to Be the President" college-level course to learn about the structure of the US federal government, the Constitution, foreign relations, ethics, US and world geography, and US history. The candidate must pass with a 3.0 average AND take a final exam and pass that exam with a 3.0 average. No exceptions. Even a Constitutional lawyer like President Obama would have to take this course. Every candidate MUST take this course to prove her or his commitment to this endeavor. This requirement would weed out candidates throwing their hats in the ring just as a "lark" (again, who might that be???).
Every presidential candidate must perform a minimum of one year community service and get written letters of recommendation from at least three supervisors during the course of that service.
Every presidential candidate must do an internship and "shadow" a senator or representative at the state or federal level for at least six months to get an idea of the responsibilities involved in governing.
So there.
Any teacher in the US can tell you of all the hurdles they had negotiate in order to earn a teaching certificate. It takes education, hard work, and commitment to be a teacher. The same should be true for the highest elected office in the nation.
patphil
(6,029 posts)Raine
(30,540 posts)and after 🤑 that's the attraction. It's not the call to serve the American people.
Martin68
(22,671 posts)Blue Owl
(49,913 posts)RANDYWILDMAN
(2,644 posts)7wo7rees
(5,128 posts)And their front group Americans for Prosperity, ALEC and their take over of Tea Party ...
Koch brothers dad I think helped found the John Birch Society.
Also intentional dumbing down of what was/is taught in schools.
Ms 7wo7rees
DFW
(54,051 posts)It also attracts fast-talking, street-smart hucksters, outright con artists, greedy opportunists, gangsters, and sadists who conceal their desires behind façades of "law and order" respectability.
twodogsbarking
(9,300 posts)He says intelligence is overrated. Maybe he is just humoring me.
bullimiami
(13,041 posts)i could just as easily put 3 pictures of dunderheads from history and 3 brilliant modern pols and posit "finally we are done with dolts"
both would be inaccurate.
Ress1
(325 posts)When you see government as being ignorant and not needed, why would you care if the people you elect need to be competent and moral?