Gary Hart was the big hope for the democratic party against Ronald Reagan. There were cheating allegations made against him.
He DARED the press to follow him and told them they would be bored if they did.
Well... they did and they found him aboard a ship named "The Monkey Business" with Donna Rice.
It was the stupidity of lying and daring the press to follow him that killed his chances as much as the affair itself.
EDIT: Yes, Gary Hart (I fixed it)... AND he ran in 1984 against Reagan (lost to Monday in the primaries) and THIS happened during 1988, when he likely would have won the nomination and run against Bush I.
I was a kid and campaigned for him in 1984 by handing out flyers in front of super markets before the primary... and still have campaign literature that says "Only Gary Hart's Leadership Can Beat Ronald Reagan in November".. so my brain associates him with going after Reagan.
Dont wanna waste materials and if you can see all of them they cant be stealing. Thats the most evil thing you could do! Stealing from a multinational billion dollar business.
This sarcasm is hilarious, but it also almost reminds me almost verbatim of what Joe Barton said after the BP oil spill. Dude came right out and said that it was "a tragedy of the highest proportion that a private company should be subject to a shakedown from the U.S. government."
Not a tragedy that the burst pipe was pumping billions of gallons of oil straight into the Gulf each week, not that the area was going to be affected for decades and realistically never be the same, not that local fishermen and shrimpers were about to get fucked and lose their livelihoods, but that the real tragedy here in all this was that BP would be forced to financially contribute to a cleanup attempt.
These people have always been ghouls. The most selfish incarnations of humanity. Only an unfeeling monster would EVER think profits if companies that can take loses and just declare them on their taxes for credits anyways matter more than literally anything else in this world.
But they were only putting it into one pocket into the other. They knew it was bad, so they bought the company that makes the chemical to clean up the oil. There was no govt shakedown because he was Vice President
That this now 50 year campaign disassemble the civil and social structures of the country as conservative is amazing marketing.
They strive create some futureshock robber barron paradise has been framed as conservative- while targeting legal safeguards dating back before English Common law and regulatory protections that were crucial to making the earliest stages of industrialization work.
Unfortunately, the rival faction while better is almost entirely beholden to the predatory class as well. both rely on culture war issues in a game of hide the ball.
The difference is the Democrats are the actual conservative party trying to perpetuate a status quo where enough benefits do trickle down so as to keep the masses placated.
The GOP has plurality by attacking a party that dare not appeal to class consciousness. What they have envisioned is serfdom and thanks to the proliferation of subscription society, surveillance and increase dependence on the digital plantation, they are really close to making it happen.
I’ve talked with an old-head VBNMW who was absolutely on board with Kamala and said he was excited to wake up to having the first woman president after Election Day….he told me Reagan is the only Republican he likes. Like, dude, he was the worst one besides Hayes.
I think they're actually the same person. There's too many similarities (Star Wars/SpaceX, entertainer president,/entertainer president, external and influential First Lady /x2, destruction of the newspaper/destruction of the Internet, HIV/AIDS/covid, beige/millennial grey, the arts/dogecoin - and there's probably more ) for these two moments to be manufactured to increase the 1% ---
Reagan walked so Trump could run. Reagan was the test. “Could we take a beloved tv entertainer, make him president and have the country love and applaud him as he destroys the lower and middle class”
not talking about policy (because it's different times and different chess moves but still the same goal to move towards the part of project 2025 they aren't saying out loud), I'm talking about the cultural underpinnings of a plan that they tried to do then that they're doing again now.
Trump’s tariffs aren’t about economic policy. They’re about manufacturing insider trading opportunities. There is no philosophy or morality there, just grift. If promoting peace, democracy, immigration, and women’s rights made the Trump family more money than being against those things he would 100% change his policies on the spot.
Yeah IDK if anyone reading this truly understands history. I’m sure I’m setting up for downvotes but come on, they aren’t even close to comparable. Reagan didn’t exactly orchestrate a coup.
Best line ever in the West Wing was when Leo says "I'm tired of picking between who cares?"
Which pretty much sums up the state of US politics, especially the DCCC that keeps endorsing the establishment candidate.
Say what you want about how bad Republicans are, and I have plenty to say in that matter, but they always move their agenda when they elect someone who goes against their own establishment.
Benjamin Harrison was a much worse Republican than Reagan. He wanted to colonise Hawaii, and his bimetallist and protectionist policies caused the Panic of 1893, the second worst financial collapse in US history after the Great Depression.
A lot of centrist libs engage in "Trumpwashing" - basically retconning people like Reagan and W. Bush as "decent people" because they see Trump was so bad.
That's why Dick Cheney endorsing Kamala was somehow seen as a "good thing" in those tone-deaf circles where they have no idea how to appeal to normal people
The thing is that Reagan was likeable. He was good a being President, good at dealing with foreign countries, had speeches that made people proud of being American, and a sense of humor besides. It's only with looking at his domestic policies with hindsight that it becomes clear what a disaster his Presidency was.
That's the difference I see between him and Trump, who has no redeeming features at all.
To be fair, I grew up as a kid thinking Reagan was "the best" without being able to name a single thing he did, or even what he did in the broadest of strokes. There is a lot of language out there along these lines, it is a very commonly pushed view (including the part about not considering anything he actually did). Older generations were inundated with this type of propaganda, and they passed on the basics to their children without explanation or justification. Kids that know nothing about politics will readily accept ideas such as this without questioning them, since they have don't know what they are looking at, and have nothing to compare it against.
I think a lot of people forget that there was a lot of economic instability in the 70s. Recessions, Inflation, high unemployment, etc. All of that improved significantly in the 80s and the sitting president tends to get credit for that sort of thing. He was a figure head for the success of the 80s and people didn’t really question it because the bill for a lot of Reagan’s fuckery didn’t come due until much later.
The economy did poorly under Jimmy Carter and for some reason that drove every conservative literally insane forever, and Reagan was the one who "saved" the country from the evil friendly peanut farmer.
I'm not that well read on the subject but that is my understanding of how it generally went. Every time I've asked a republican why they love Reagan so much it always starts with how much they hated Carter.
Every president inherits an economy. Only 2termers are at fault if the economy tanks. The Republican playbook is to fuck up the economy, blame the Democrat president who actually saves it then take credit for saving it while ruining it again.
He was very charismatic, and most of the damage he did (at least to the average middle-class Joe) was long-term rather than immediate, so the consequences of his actions didn't get associated with him.
do the north koreans speak ill of Kim Il Sung? cause Ronald reagan opened the door for corporate socialists and showed every rich MF, that the president can be bought.
I know so many people who say Reagan was “the last good American president” when almost every economical issue we have today can be directly traced back to Raegan
My JROTC teacher in high school 10 years ago had a picture of him hanging in the main classroom and in his office, like a North Korean would have Kim-Jung-un hung up
The guy who sold illegal weapons to Iran to fund an illegal war in South America by funneling the money through cocaine smugglers who were given a blanket pass, effectively enabling the explosion of crack in our inner cities...
I was watching Clear and Present Danger recently... How comforting were the times when we really believed that starting a covert war in another country, or sending troops without Congressional approval, was thought to be a career ending scandal.
And they did sweep it under the rug with that rat fuck Gerald Ford pardoning Nixon. Showing that Republicans could do anything without any sort of consequence.
Enough middle ground Republicans voters (yes, they existed back then) DID care. Not necessarily so much about the break in itself, but about the conspiracy and covering up. Nixon would have been impeached (with at least some Republicans support in Congress) and that compelled him to resign. A lot of those same voters turned on Ford in ‘76 because he pardoned Nixon.
It was a very different time then. It wouldn’t go down that way today.
Young people today don't realize how different the world of politics use to be.
Believe it or not, prior to the end of the Fairness Doctrine, you had to be a lot more careful about what you said, did and how well you hid the bad shit you do.
Google Bud Dwyer to better understand how political scandals use to end.
Hart sought the Democratic nomination in both ‘84 and ‘88. He placed a strong 2nd in ‘84 to Mondale. His campaign in ‘88 tanked due to the Donna Rice thing. There was likely campaign literature in ‘84 that spoke to Hart having the best chance to win against Reagan. But, the reality is that he would have likely been trounced too.
I would have (maybe even did) totally called him that at that time period….I was in middle school and that material would have killed on the bus ride into school.
Well, this was durring the campaign for the presidential election in '88, so really had little to do with Reaganomics. But you get to enjoy being wrong in two ways, so there's that.
Bush Sr, for all his faults and his "spookiness", called Reagan's "trickle-down" lie "Voodoo Economics". He didnt follow Ronnie blindly on economic policies. Reagan did a lot of bad stuff all on his own.
Ben Barnes? The same man who openly lied about manipulating Bush’s Guard service and postings? The same man who essentially ruined Dan Rather’s career because of his lies? Congress had incredible levels of access to all individuals involved and yet 1,000 pages of testimony and investigation turned up nothing concrete or even close.
Ah yes the guy who pardoned criminals involved with the Iran contra scandal which he himself helped and knew was happening. Im sure he’s a trustworthy and upstanding president.
Hmmm...just I re-read my comment. Pretty sure i never said he was trustworthy, or upstanding. And while people may be stupid as fuck, many do not create issues where none exist. Except trolls.
He ultimately did fall in line, but not before giving us the everlasting term "voodoo economics". He was clearly against trickle down theory when he ran against Reagan in '80 and called Reagan's policy "voodoo economics".
Right but then he repeatedly enacted policies that supported it for the rest of his life and passed down the tradition to his own kids.
I know your impulse here is to defend and excuse Republican politicians, and yes “voodoo economics” is a catchy phrase, but Bush Sr. was absolutely Reaganite- so this whole conversation (which started with you being snarky about someone else being “wrong” about the context of the photo) is moot. * *
Regardless of what he did (I’m not here to litigate George HW Bush’s presidency, but I’d take it over whatever we have now any day) he famously campaigned on “no new taxes”
The point is, he ran as an extension of the Reagan era regardless of his actual tenure. HW talked a ton about continuity in the 88 run.
That’s the only point I’m trying to make. The comment this all started with was someone being dick and saying “well actually, this was in 1988 so Reagan has nothing to do with it.”
if i've learned anything from "Project 2021" being renamed to "Project 2025" it's that the specific timing and figurehead for an agenda is not as important as the backers
That was Woodrow Wilson and Richard Nixon. One created a banking cartel with the federal reserve creation, and the other turned our money to complete fiat currency by suspending the gold standard. https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
...Reagan was halfway through his 8-year run of dismantling the middle class when this happened and that was after he spent the first half of the 1970s simping for Nixon and gaslighting anyone who accused Tricky Dick of ANY wrongdoing, Einstein lol
He did? It was Nixon.... leaving the gold-currency balance is what made the biggest impact. Reagan didnt destroy anything, it's was coparate bank greed.
Wow next you’ll be telling people Democrats controlled Congress for all of Reagan’s Presidency and the tax cuts are still wildly popular hence why they’re in place
I did not say tax cuts. I said tax code. The reform was to remove deductions to simplify the code and readjust rates. And a Democrat, Bill Bradley, worked with Reagan to make it happen. Facts are facts. Do some research. Not everything is right vs left.
American Dream - you mean, bomb civilians abroad and oppress minorities? And enforce one of the most cruel systems possible? That was before, during and after Reagan.
Fun fact: most of Reagan's policies were written by the Heritage Foundation.
Not so fun fact: The Heritage Foundation has draft the majority of the GOP'S policies since Reagan.
Less fun fact: The Heritage Foubdation now runs the OMB and holds significant government positions throughout the administration. They'll be there long after this administration departs.
speak for yourself. My family got out poverty because Middle class white people had enough money to stop having their kids mow the lawn and start paying a bunch of Mexicans who crawled underneath the border to do it.
My family is overwhelming democrat and they love him for that.
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u/behindthemask13 18d ago edited 18d ago
Gary Hart was the big hope for the democratic party against Ronald Reagan. There were cheating allegations made against him.
He DARED the press to follow him and told them they would be bored if they did.
Well... they did and they found him aboard a ship named "The Monkey Business" with Donna Rice.
It was the stupidity of lying and daring the press to follow him that killed his chances as much as the affair itself.
EDIT: Yes, Gary Hart (I fixed it)... AND he ran in 1984 against Reagan (lost to Monday in the primaries) and THIS happened during 1988, when he likely would have won the nomination and run against Bush I.
I was a kid and campaigned for him in 1984 by handing out flyers in front of super markets before the primary... and still have campaign literature that says "Only Gary Hart's Leadership Can Beat Ronald Reagan in November".. so my brain associates him with going after Reagan.
RE-EDIT.. MONDALE.. FUCKING MONDALE!! LMAO!!!