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Andrew Ordover's avatar

I'm sure all three are in the mix, but I tend to favor the "It was all a lie" argument. I look at the Reagan speech you linked to, but then I remember "Welfare Queens," and I remember him launching his campaign in the town where Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner were murdered. Which was the "real" Reagan? I think probably the man who spoke to the NAACP. I think the old guard really believed in the principles and policies they advanced--but I suspect they didn't trust their own voters to understand, to agree, or to care, any more than modern Republicans do (most of whom seem NOT to believe in those principles anymore, or anything, at all, except gaining and holding power). I think the decades of believing in something complex, but not strongly enough or with enough faith in their own followers to do the hard work of persuasion, has led too many people to take the easy road of grievance-pandering, until there is now nothing left BUT grievance. The people who pandered to grievance because they felt they had to, have now given way to the people who pander to grievance because they love it.

How and why might I be wrong? Because I'm looking in from the outside--because I wasn't raised among Republicans or Conservatives--because while I do my best to make and hold onto friends whose views aren't exactly like mine, there's a difference between a conversation here and there and a deeply embedded community.

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Mar 16, 2023
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Tracey Henley's avatar

The horrible racist who, as a college bball player, brought his Black teammates home to stay with him when they were refused lodging while on the road. This incident has been reported by several RR biographers, who mark it as both typical of RR and odd, given his later behavior as GOP party leader.

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Tim schmitz's avatar

Reagan was from northern IL

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Vickie's avatar

Slight correction: Eureka is not in Southern Illinois but is smack dab in the rural IL which is closer to Appalachia than the South. You are correct in how racist it was and is. My mother told me of several instances of KKK ‘funerals’ in towns around IL before I was born.

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