Thank you for the timeline. I make these points every time LIBERAL DEMOCRATS try to rehabilitate Reagan. Reagan started his nasty politics in California and just got better at rallying the many Americans who are racists and hate women. Republicans have always been bad for American prosperity and bad for Human Rights. In my life-time it began with Nixon, but Hoover wasn't good for America either.
Reagan had his own "Project 2025" from The Federalist Society and completed 60% of it. He hated the college students who were advocating on college campuses and started the process of raising college costs and encouraging huge student debt, closed all the community mental health clinics sending those getting services out on the streets and starting a huge increase in homeless population, taxed social security...long long list.
I actually mentioned two men with similar names in my post: Donald Regan (no “a”) was Ronald Reagan’s economic adviser and campaign adviser for fundraising.
Historians need to stop rehabbing him the most, as he’s generally where a lot of our issues began imo in this nation: he’s far too high up in their estimation, likely because most of them are white college educated at the moment- Reagan is going to fall quite a bit as nonwhite college educated Historians enter in to weigh in as will LBGTQ+ college educated Historians do so imo in time.
To me, the real tipping point was when Donald Regan and Donald Rumsfeld found Jude Wanniski, Milton Friedman, and Arthur Laffer and tasked them to create a rationale for supply-side economics to counter the decades of Democratic Party success using Keynesian principles to stimulate demand. This became Ronald Reagan's economic platform, which was dubbed supply side economics. It has rippled economic ruin on America's middle class ever since then.
Regan and his neo-con buddies hated Keynesian economics because it gave Democrats consistent wins at the voting booth, but also because it included a commitment to a very progressive system of taxation that saw the very wealthy paying as much as 91% on marginal incomes at the highest levels, where people like Don Regan did most of his business. The successful marketing of the ridiculous notion of supply-side economics is largely responsible for the dramatic concentration of wealth and power in the top one percent of the economic pyramid since Reagan's election.
So, here we are today, with a hollowed-out, economically distressed middle class, a growing pool of permanently poor citizens and the control of our government in the hands of the very people who used the supply-side hustle to buy our government, enrich themselves and subjugate the rest of us.
Mark, I have taken the liberty of using your list to emphasize how R's have won on messaging, language, and campaign and electoral strategies. I fear anti MAGA groups and leaders have not learned, as further dramatized in this last campaign cycle.
Looking at this timeline of Republican actions, there are few examples of successful Democratic pushback.
1. Contra (1986-1992): Despite the scandal's severity, Democrats failed to prosecute or hold officials accountable, and Bush Sr.'s pardons effectively ended the consequences.
2. Bush v. Gore (2000): While Democrats challenged legally, they failed to effectively counter the "Brooks Brothers Riot" or mount an aggressive public response to the Supreme Court intervention.
Iraq War (2003): Though some Democrats opposed it, they failed to effectively challenge the WMD narrative or build strong public opposition before the invasion.
3. Merrick Garland blockade (2016): Democrats were ineffective in generating public pressure or finding procedural counters to McConnell's unprecedented obstruction.
4. Trump's first impeachment: While Democrats impeached Trump, they didn't effectively communicate the Ukraine extortion story to the public or pressure GOP senators.
The pattern suggests Democrats often pursued institutional and legal responses rather than mounting aggressive public messaging campaigns or using hardball political tactics. When they did push back, it was often measured and process-focused to counter Republican actions.
In baseball, you have 3 strikes and you are out. In politics, D leaders have been given at least 4 swings and misses. The race for DNC chair can use this history to determine which candidates are the best.
Great list and people should reread 2000-2009 before getting all misty eyed over Dubya and Dick.
2 things I never forgot, Reagan saying he didn't care if "someone in South Succotash" was unemployed (I was looking for a job at the time) and Republicans sending the tea party to riot at the healthcare town halls.
How did you miss the Newt Gingrich/Bob Livingston/Denny Hastert speaker mess after their pompous pontificating about Clinton's indiscretion with Monica Lewinsky?
I remember every one of those fucking incidents. I am a Democrat, but what I can’t get over is the fecklessness of the Democrats. We voted them in to be on the front line for these incidents, but they were mostly AWOL. The corporate Democrats might just as well be the old Republican Party. In my 73 years, I would never have believed that I could live out my life in a fucking fascist country.
Pretty good, but I have to say -- and I say this as someone who votes blue, no matter who -- this list could be very closely mirrored by one titled "A half-century of spineless Democrats." Maybe not every last item, especially the earlier ones, but overwhelmingly most, especially the later ones.
"Democrats have a terrible habit, during moments of right-wing backlash, of voting for Republican legislation that they don’t seem to truly believe in and eventually live to regret.
The most glaring example is the 2002 resolution authorizing military force against Iraq, passed amid the explosion of jingoist groupthink that dominated American politics after the Sept. 11 attacks. [...]
Another shameful episode was the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages."
I'm not saying The Algorithm is reading my Substack comments, but I'm not not saying it, either.
Latest ad on my FB timeline begins: "In Joseph O’Neill’s first essay in our pages, he warned readers that “the Republican Party enjoyed a mystifying presumption of legitimacy,” contrasted with “the curious timidity of Democrats.” In that instance, he was describing the 2000 presidential election fiasco in Florida, but he has made clear in his subsequent writing to what extent that dynamic has dogged American politics ever since."
Great summary. I think you missed a few big ones, though:
(1) During the 2000 Bush v. Gore election campaign, I was watching Gore giving a campaign speech on TV when what looked like a black and white TV test pattern appeared on the screen, superimposed on Gore while speaking--only it wasn't a real test pattern, because the circle had three big letters across it: R A T. The next day, I watched a clip of then Texas House Rep Dick Amey (R) speaking, and he used the words, "I think I smell a rat." Coincidence? I don't think so. There was a tiny article deep in the newspaper at the time saying that Republicans had apologized to the Democrats for the TV test pattern image, calling it "an accident," and the Democrats, of course, had accepted the apology. Nothing further was heard about it.
(2) One night last summer (August, I think), Rachel Maddow, on MSNBC, showed multiple clips of Trump speaking at campaign events in different venues with different audiences, and over and over he said he didn't need any more votes, that he didn't need the people in the audience to vote because he already had enough votes. Words like "You don't need to vote. I have all the votes I need." (may not be exact words) He was very proud and cavalier--telling people who were potential voters that he didn't need their votes while at a campaign event at which he should be doing the opposite, asking FOR their votes. He even said, "I'm not supposed to be saying this" in at least one of the clips. Now, what reason would a presidential candidate in the middle of a campaign have to be telling audiences at such events not to bother to vote for him? There is only one way to make sense of such statements on Trump's part. He is like a child who, when told a big secret and asked to keep it, feels special. There is no one who needs to feel special more than Donald Trump. And he just can't help himself, he has to let the cat out of the bag at least enough to show how special he is. He just has to. I believe that secret was that something had been done to throw the election in his favor. I don't believe he won fairly. I just think the Republicans did a darn good job of covering it up. And nobody has pursued it because there is a belief that it's more important to maintain a smooth election process, to supposedly preserve our democracy and show the Democrats as being responsible and respectful, in contrast to Trump and MAGA in the 2020 election. Investigating what was behind this frankly bizarre campaign behavior by Trump would have been disruptive, and the powers-that-be wanted to avoid such disruption even if it meant burying potential truth. We'll never know. It appears the video clips and Maddow's clear suspicions about what they seemed to reveal have also been squelched. And this is preserving American democracy?
Thank you for precisely bullet pointing every single lawless act of the "law and order party." I remember all of this, firstly because my Mom (R.I.P) voted for Jimmy Carter (R.I.P). We have midterm in 2027, my city is burning right now and GOP fascists are lying like cheap area rugs, abhorrent and unacceptable. Vote out every last Republican. They want to make America colonial, white and heteronormative, this is 2025, NOT 1825 so We Are Never Going Back!
Horrible terrible hideous behavior. I guess America has always been shamefully embarrassingly inexplicably stupid.
Thank you for the timeline. I make these points every time LIBERAL DEMOCRATS try to rehabilitate Reagan. Reagan started his nasty politics in California and just got better at rallying the many Americans who are racists and hate women. Republicans have always been bad for American prosperity and bad for Human Rights. In my life-time it began with Nixon, but Hoover wasn't good for America either.
Reagan had his own "Project 2025" from The Federalist Society and completed 60% of it. He hated the college students who were advocating on college campuses and started the process of raising college costs and encouraging huge student debt, closed all the community mental health clinics sending those getting services out on the streets and starting a huge increase in homeless population, taxed social security...long long list.
Name is spelled Reagan.
I actually mentioned two men with similar names in my post: Donald Regan (no “a”) was Ronald Reagan’s economic adviser and campaign adviser for fundraising.
I know. Geez
Just a typo - 72 with arthritis & it happens.
Liberal Democrats are harder on Jimmy Carter than either Ronald Reagan or Georgia H.W. Bush.
Historians need to stop rehabbing him the most, as he’s generally where a lot of our issues began imo in this nation: he’s far too high up in their estimation, likely because most of them are white college educated at the moment- Reagan is going to fall quite a bit as nonwhite college educated Historians enter in to weigh in as will LBGTQ+ college educated Historians do so imo in time.
You should have started a little earlier. In 1968, Nixon campaigned on his "secret plan" to end the War in Vietnam. At the same time, he and other Republicans ratfcked the Paris Peace Talks. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/yes-nixon-scuttled-the-vietnam-peace-talks-107623/
US involvement in the war continued for another five years at the cost of an additional 20,000 American lives.
The sainthood of Regan among Republicans tells us everything we need to know about them.
All of this without concerted, united, loud, unstinting, effective opposition gave us trump.
The Democratic Party, and many major journalists, are corporately controlled.
To me, the real tipping point was when Donald Regan and Donald Rumsfeld found Jude Wanniski, Milton Friedman, and Arthur Laffer and tasked them to create a rationale for supply-side economics to counter the decades of Democratic Party success using Keynesian principles to stimulate demand. This became Ronald Reagan's economic platform, which was dubbed supply side economics. It has rippled economic ruin on America's middle class ever since then.
Regan and his neo-con buddies hated Keynesian economics because it gave Democrats consistent wins at the voting booth, but also because it included a commitment to a very progressive system of taxation that saw the very wealthy paying as much as 91% on marginal incomes at the highest levels, where people like Don Regan did most of his business. The successful marketing of the ridiculous notion of supply-side economics is largely responsible for the dramatic concentration of wealth and power in the top one percent of the economic pyramid since Reagan's election.
So, here we are today, with a hollowed-out, economically distressed middle class, a growing pool of permanently poor citizens and the control of our government in the hands of the very people who used the supply-side hustle to buy our government, enrich themselves and subjugate the rest of us.
Mark, I have taken the liberty of using your list to emphasize how R's have won on messaging, language, and campaign and electoral strategies. I fear anti MAGA groups and leaders have not learned, as further dramatized in this last campaign cycle.
Looking at this timeline of Republican actions, there are few examples of successful Democratic pushback.
1. Contra (1986-1992): Despite the scandal's severity, Democrats failed to prosecute or hold officials accountable, and Bush Sr.'s pardons effectively ended the consequences.
2. Bush v. Gore (2000): While Democrats challenged legally, they failed to effectively counter the "Brooks Brothers Riot" or mount an aggressive public response to the Supreme Court intervention.
Iraq War (2003): Though some Democrats opposed it, they failed to effectively challenge the WMD narrative or build strong public opposition before the invasion.
3. Merrick Garland blockade (2016): Democrats were ineffective in generating public pressure or finding procedural counters to McConnell's unprecedented obstruction.
4. Trump's first impeachment: While Democrats impeached Trump, they didn't effectively communicate the Ukraine extortion story to the public or pressure GOP senators.
The pattern suggests Democrats often pursued institutional and legal responses rather than mounting aggressive public messaging campaigns or using hardball political tactics. When they did push back, it was often measured and process-focused to counter Republican actions.
In baseball, you have 3 strikes and you are out. In politics, D leaders have been given at least 4 swings and misses. The race for DNC chair can use this history to determine which candidates are the best.
Great list and people should reread 2000-2009 before getting all misty eyed over Dubya and Dick.
2 things I never forgot, Reagan saying he didn't care if "someone in South Succotash" was unemployed (I was looking for a job at the time) and Republicans sending the tea party to riot at the healthcare town halls.
How did you miss the Newt Gingrich/Bob Livingston/Denny Hastert speaker mess after their pompous pontificating about Clinton's indiscretion with Monica Lewinsky?
I remember every one of those fucking incidents. I am a Democrat, but what I can’t get over is the fecklessness of the Democrats. We voted them in to be on the front line for these incidents, but they were mostly AWOL. The corporate Democrats might just as well be the old Republican Party. In my 73 years, I would never have believed that I could live out my life in a fucking fascist country.
Pretty good, but I have to say -- and I say this as someone who votes blue, no matter who -- this list could be very closely mirrored by one titled "A half-century of spineless Democrats." Maybe not every last item, especially the earlier ones, but overwhelmingly most, especially the later ones.
And this just in, from Michelle Goldberg:
"Democrats have a terrible habit, during moments of right-wing backlash, of voting for Republican legislation that they don’t seem to truly believe in and eventually live to regret.
The most glaring example is the 2002 resolution authorizing military force against Iraq, passed amid the explosion of jingoist groupthink that dominated American politics after the Sept. 11 attacks. [...]
Another shameful episode was the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages."
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/opinion/democrats-laken-riley-act.html
I'm not saying The Algorithm is reading my Substack comments, but I'm not not saying it, either.
Latest ad on my FB timeline begins: "In Joseph O’Neill’s first essay in our pages, he warned readers that “the Republican Party enjoyed a mystifying presumption of legitimacy,” contrasted with “the curious timidity of Democrats.” In that instance, he was describing the 2000 presidential election fiasco in Florida, but he has made clear in his subsequent writing to what extent that dynamic has dogged American politics ever since."
Great summary. I think you missed a few big ones, though:
(1) During the 2000 Bush v. Gore election campaign, I was watching Gore giving a campaign speech on TV when what looked like a black and white TV test pattern appeared on the screen, superimposed on Gore while speaking--only it wasn't a real test pattern, because the circle had three big letters across it: R A T. The next day, I watched a clip of then Texas House Rep Dick Amey (R) speaking, and he used the words, "I think I smell a rat." Coincidence? I don't think so. There was a tiny article deep in the newspaper at the time saying that Republicans had apologized to the Democrats for the TV test pattern image, calling it "an accident," and the Democrats, of course, had accepted the apology. Nothing further was heard about it.
(2) One night last summer (August, I think), Rachel Maddow, on MSNBC, showed multiple clips of Trump speaking at campaign events in different venues with different audiences, and over and over he said he didn't need any more votes, that he didn't need the people in the audience to vote because he already had enough votes. Words like "You don't need to vote. I have all the votes I need." (may not be exact words) He was very proud and cavalier--telling people who were potential voters that he didn't need their votes while at a campaign event at which he should be doing the opposite, asking FOR their votes. He even said, "I'm not supposed to be saying this" in at least one of the clips. Now, what reason would a presidential candidate in the middle of a campaign have to be telling audiences at such events not to bother to vote for him? There is only one way to make sense of such statements on Trump's part. He is like a child who, when told a big secret and asked to keep it, feels special. There is no one who needs to feel special more than Donald Trump. And he just can't help himself, he has to let the cat out of the bag at least enough to show how special he is. He just has to. I believe that secret was that something had been done to throw the election in his favor. I don't believe he won fairly. I just think the Republicans did a darn good job of covering it up. And nobody has pursued it because there is a belief that it's more important to maintain a smooth election process, to supposedly preserve our democracy and show the Democrats as being responsible and respectful, in contrast to Trump and MAGA in the 2020 election. Investigating what was behind this frankly bizarre campaign behavior by Trump would have been disruptive, and the powers-that-be wanted to avoid such disruption even if it meant burying potential truth. We'll never know. It appears the video clips and Maddow's clear suspicions about what they seemed to reveal have also been squelched. And this is preserving American democracy?
Why should we expect anything different when the one American value that matters is the accumulation of wealth by any means whatsoever?
We need fundamental change. It has to begin with the realization that education and healthcare are birthrights, not commodities for sale.
What a mess. And they keep getting elected on fiscal integrity and family values.
Bonzo wasn’t just the better actor of the two, he was the smarter. Always having to remind Reagan of his lines.
Thank you for precisely bullet pointing every single lawless act of the "law and order party." I remember all of this, firstly because my Mom (R.I.P) voted for Jimmy Carter (R.I.P). We have midterm in 2027, my city is burning right now and GOP fascists are lying like cheap area rugs, abhorrent and unacceptable. Vote out every last Republican. They want to make America colonial, white and heteronormative, this is 2025, NOT 1825 so We Are Never Going Back!