This All Started with Reagan?

Before Trump, many thought that Nixon was our worst president. Nixon lied strategically about starting a war that destroyed the idyllic country of Cambodia. He sabotaged the peace deal to end the U.S. war in Vietnam when Johnson was president. He used the IRS, FBI and CIA against people he didn’t like. He lied to cover up a series of illegal break-ins done on his behalf.

In contrast, Reagan used a different strategy. He lied every time he spoke. It was no longer news that he lied, and the important lies were buried in a heap of smaller lies. Sounds like Trump?

Reagan told us that trees and vegetation were the real source of air pollution and that trains were no more energy efficient than cars. His lies were very specific. If he said that vegetation causes 93% of the problem, could that be a lie? Yes.

He didn’t just lie. He fabricated. He talked of a woman in Chicago who had 80 aliases and collected $150,000 in public assistance. There was no such person.

He told Israeli Prime Minister Shamir that he was at the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps. Reagan never left Hollywood during WWII. He repeated the lie to Nazi hunter Wiesenthal.

60 Minutes showed how Reagan often confused movie scenes with reality. For Reagan, if a good story helped him achieve his aims, truth was irrelevant.

Reagan became obsessed with “Communism” in Central America, as if any liberal reforms were “Communism.” He funded death squads and dictators, leading directly to the recent border crisis.

He illegally sold weapons to the Islamist dictators in Iran, then used that money to fund his Central America death squads and dictators. He also looked the other way as these terrorists ran drugs into the U.S.

Nixon damaged trust in government and committed serious crimes. But there were public hearings. His own party was ready to impeach him. He was forced to resign in disgrace. Meaning there was accountability.

Reagan proved to be a bigger threat to our democracy: He got away with major lawbreaking and showed there would be no accountability. There is a direct line from his lawlessness to Trump’s current vandalism of our entire government.

Nixon was a Big Government Republican like Eisenhower, believing it provided essential public services. Reagan had one primary mission: to destroy all government public services. He recorded a statement for the AMA that Medicare was “Communism.”

Trump’s first term left government services alone and even expanded them during COVID. But now he is going full Reagan.

Reagan was the first president who was a media personality, not a qualified public servant. He pioneered self-promotion. His team aimed to name something after him in every U.S. county.

The Reagan administration is still the winner when it comes to criminal indictments. 33 indictments and 27 convictions. He pardoned the worst criminals acting on his behalf. Setting the stage for Trump to do the same.

Trump fired all the watchdog inspector generals. Why not? Reagan did the same thing.

What about Trump’s racism? Reagan started his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi – where civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964. Reagan spoke of “states’ rights.” In the South, that meant the “right” to persecute Blacks.

When Reagan was California governor, Patty Hearst’s kidnappers – the Symbionese Liberation Army – demanded food distribution to the poor. Reagan said, “It’s too bad we can’t have an epidemic of botulism.”

What about Trump’s calls for violence against his opponents? When students protested at UCSB Reagan said, “If it is necessary to have a bloodbath, let’s have it.”

Reagan went on TV claiming to be holding a report from the Alameda County District Attorney’s office about an orgy that took place in the Harmon Gym at Berkeley. Chancellor Clark Kerr tried to get the report. It didn’t exist. The event had never happened.

Remember Trump’s botched pullout from Afghanistan that was blamed on Biden? Reagan did it first in Lebanon after 241 troops died in a suicide bombing at the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. 

Perhaps we need to understand this history to be sure we never allow it to happen again?