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By today’s standards he seems mild. Even Obama praised him. Along with Lincoln, Republicans trot Ronald Reagan out every time Democrats praise the communication wizardry of Obama, Clinton, or Kennedy,
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By today’s standards he seems mild. Even Obama praised him. Along with Lincoln, Republicans trot Ronald Reagan out every time Democrats praise the communication wizardry of Obama, Clinton, or Kennedy, or the stalwart composition of FDR or integrity of Truman. In reality, Reagan was an impenetrable facade of congeniality who was quite hostile to civil rights.
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Reagan's extensive use of dog-whistle racism, which consisted of subtly coded messages, received insufficient media coverage at the time and has largely been disregarded in contemporary narratives. One group of people he continually harangued were people on public assistance, who he unilaterally relegated to “leech“ status.
While Governor of California, Reagan repeatedly targeted social service programs and “throwing the welfare bums out.”
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In 1976, Reagan sought the GOP nomination against the incumbent Gerald Ford. Reagan's campaign was on the ropes until the primaries hit the Southern states, where he won his first key victory in NC. Throughout the South that spring and summer, Reagan portrayed himself as Goldwater's heir while criticizing Ford as a captive of Eastern establishment Republicans fixated on forced integration.
Reagan lost the nomination to Ford in 1976.
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But when the former CA governor ran for President again in 1980, he began his campaign in Philadelphia, MS., where 3 civil rights workers were brutally killed by white supremacists. It was at that sore spot on the racial map that Reagan revived talk about states' rights & curbing the power of the federal government.
In front of a predominantly white audience numbering in the tens of thousands, Reagan proclaimed, "I believe in states' rights".
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So much to be angry about where Reagan is concerned.
What angers me the most, as a child during his Presidency, living in a rural farm community, we were taught that he was the greatest world leader ever.
Much like right wing media has gaslit the MAGA folks, back then we too were gaslit. It wasn't until my college years that I fully understood the truth, and it still angers me that so many were fed lies for so long.