do today's Republicans not understand?
Ronald Reagan was a terrible President, whose karma still infects every part of our governance, from his racist Southern Strategy and theocratic Religious Right pandering to our gerrymandered, benighted, obstructionist Congress, by way of the multiple disasters and Constitutional failures of Iran-Contra. Not the least of his diseased legacy was bringing Dick Cheney to even greater prominence as the apostle of the Imperial Presidency, and thus (with the connivance of a Supreme Court packed with Reagan and Bush I ideologues who have no business being judges at all) stumbling into 9/11, and creating disasters in Afghanistan and Iraq, including ISIS.
We do not need to beat the greasy spot on the pavement where that dead horse used to lie any further in this Diary. But Reagan's legacy was not all evil. He was at one time a flaming FDR Liberal, and even at his worst he was quite serious about arms negotiations and treaties with the Soviet Union. He also signed the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
But that is not the St. Ronnie that Republicans think they remember. Let us review further, below the Great Orange Satanic cloud of forgetting.
A Brief History Lesson
Ronald Reagan was an FDR Liberal, growing up as a Democrat, and voting for Roosevelt four times, starting in 1932. He was still a flaming anti-corporate Liberal during the Truman administration, as the following radio broadcast of one of his campaign speeches makes plain.
However, Reagan was strongly anti-nuclear at the time, and fought with his studio about their refusal to allow him to say so publicly.
Then he married Nancy in 1952. He voted for Eisenhower in 1952, and formally became a Republican in 1962, endorsing Goldwater in 1964, after which it was all downhill. His support for racists and opposition to Civil Rights legislation, Medicare, and the Great Society in general are all well documented. For example, he said in California that
if an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house, it is his right to do so.
Longley, Kyle.
Deconstructing Reagan: conservative mythology and America's fortieth president, M.E. Sharpe, 2007
Reagan and Gorbachev held four summit meetings, with nuclear arms reduction an essential part of their negotiations. They signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty at the White House in 1987, eliminating an entire class of nuclear weapons, and then went on to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START I, which progressed to a signing in 1991 under the elder Bush, and full force in 1994 under Clinton. START I removed 80% of nuclear weapons from Cold War stockpiles, and of course we have reduced them further since the end of the Cold War.
Reagan himself quoted Gorbachev, saying in announcing the INF treaty that Trust, but verify was an old Russian maxim.
Доверяй, но проверяй (Doveryai, no proveryai)
It turns out that the USSR was not in full compliance with START I throughout, although their deficiencies were apparently minor, and were not publicized. There are those who claim that we should not have entered into the treaty for that reason. But then the US was not in full compliance with that and many other treaties at the time. Nevertheless, drastic cuts were made and verified by various technical means, including satellite reconnaissance and inspections, with a great many people in both countries fully on board, including enough of the US Senate to adopt the treaty in the first place.
They don't make Republicans like that any more.
The Iran 47 (and more)
47 out of 54 Republican Senators signed an unutterably stupid letter to the Iranian Foreign Minister a few days ago claiming the authority to pull out of any deal that Obama makes with Iran, and are receiving a torrent of abuse over it even from other Republicans. The New York Daily News called them TRAITORS all the way across the front page. I don't even want to enumerate how many ways the letter was stupid. I want to keep my focus on just the one.
The seven Republican Senators who did not sign have mostly come out with statements saying that they agree with the signers about the goal of stopping the deal because it will necessarily be so bad, but not with their tactics. Sen. Bob Corker is angry that they stepped on his toes as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He wants the TV machines in his hearing room when he gets to shoot the deal down.
The Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, as it turns out, has a Ph. D. in International Law and Policy from the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado. He absolutely schooled our Republican Senators in his quite measured and fairly polite reply.
Iran: GOP letter on nuclear negotiations a "propaganda ploy"
Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas also signed onto the letter.
My Opening Question
What do they not understand? That's easy.
- Republicans do not understand trust. They do not trust reality; Democrats of any kind (minorities, women, LGBTs, the President, etc.); furriners of any kind (especially Iranians) except of course Netanyahu and sometimes Putin); each other; the Constitution; God; or even the Free Markets that they profess such devotion to.
- Republicans do not understand verification. That would require them to deal in facts.
- Republicans do not understand what the word "but" means. It's all or nothing with them. No context, no conditions.
- You are either with us or against us, and that's the end of it. When George W. Bush said that Iraq, Iran, and North Korea formed an Axis of Evil, he was saying that a secular Sunni-dominated state, a Shi'a Muslim theocracy, and the most Stalinist country on Earth ever were actual allies. Well, Iran bought weapons from North Korea during the Iran-Iraq war, but apart from that they all loathed each other. Remember, Iran bought weapons from the US in Iran-Contra. And Halliburton still does business in Iran through a subsidiary with "headquarters" in the Cayman Islands.
Snarkout
If you follow the Republicans' logic out, Iran could maybe get out from under sanctions if the Iranians renounced Islam in favor of Fundamentalist Christianity, adopted 100% Biblical law including [sic] the US Constitution, and elected a 100% Republican government. Except that there are no 100% Republicans. There are the 1% and the Tea Parties and all of the other factions, each of whom loathes most of the others. So even if Iran were to install a government of RWNJ Christian Republicans, our Republicans would declare them all to be RINOs and vote to redouble the sanctions. Besides, they would still be furriners. Nuke 'em all.