Rick Perlstein’s 2020 bestseller Reaganland is a must read for many reasons. First and foremost this 900 or so pages book reads like a novel. Perlstein is that great a storyteller. He covers the rise of the right wing in our nation, focusing from Jimmy Carter’s 1976-1980 presidency to Ronald Reagan’s nomination in 1980. As one reads on it is apparent that Donald Trump copied more than just Reagan’s Make America Great Again campaign slogan. Amazing how after almost 50 years nothing has really changed in Amerika. This writer never realized, for instance, that the 1980 Republican platform almost took on making abortion illegal … period. The candid and somewhat humorous point here is that before the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court ruling in 1973, a woman who had the money and connections could get a private abortion. It was just that the lower income women in our nation most likely did not have the sources or the financial resources to have it done. Roe leveled that field.
Carter’s administration behaved much like most of the Democratic presidencies to follow him. Translated: sucking up to Wall Street and the War Cabal to the detriment to working stiffs. If you wanted progressive politics, then get on HG Well’s time machine and go back to FDR’s presidency. Clinton and Obama, and now Biden could not cut the cord from the Military Industrial Empire. Factoring out the indigent, which Democrats always bandage a bit, the Two Parties remain closer than ever. In the 1950s, one third of private sector workers belonged to unions. Since that time it has declined to the 6.3 % it was as of 2023. Sadly, the Democrats, whenever in power, did squat to strengthen that. What both parties have done is to continue to increase military spending to the kazoo. Thus, phony wars like Korea, Vietnam, Iraq 1 and 2 and Afghanistan just took away the safety net and gave it to the War Economy.
Having said all of this, I sadly saw so many of my working stiff fellow citizens either not voting at all or pulling the lever for Trump and his reactionaries. I voted for and stood by the utterly flawed Democrats and watched their ship sink. Clinton’s support for the Welfare Reform Bill and Telecommunications Act, Obama’s life support for the Subprime bandit banks and insurance companies, and Biden’s handouts of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to Israel and Ukraine, while working stiffs get stiffed. So, beginning in January of 2025 Welcome to Reaganland 2!