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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Ronald Reagan Speaks from the Grave: Don’t Cut and Run

Ronald Reagan Speaks from the Grave: Don’t Cut and Run

by WaterGirl|  April 3, 202410:35 pm| 48 Comments

This post is in: Elections 2024, Open Threads, Politics

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I found this in an open tab in my browser.  It’s really good.

If the video influences people, this might turn out to be the only decent thing Reagan ever did, albeit indirectly.

And this is fun to think about!

Under 11th Circuit rules, if Jack Smith petitions for mandamus to order Judge Cannon to rule on Trump’s Presidential Records Act motion before trial, the Judge becomes a “respondent” to the request & the appeals court can order that she file a response defending her behavior.

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) April 3, 2024

Open thread.

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Previous Post: « Interesting Read: “What Happened to QAnon?”
Next Post: Late Night Open Thread: Our Hearts Will Go On »

Reader Interactions

48Comments

  1. 1.

    Melancholy Jaques

    April 3, 2024 at 10:48 pm

    I hated Reagan and what he did to our federal government and to American politics.

    That said, he was not wrong about everything.

  2. 2.

    Sister Golden Bear

    April 3, 2024 at 10:49 pm

    I’m sure the Federalist Society will be more than happy to help her write a response.

  3. 3.

    Scout211

    April 3, 2024 at 10:51 pm

    Reagan was a horrible governor and an equally horrible president but man, he could deliver a speech. His acting “talent” didn’t go to waste, I guess.

  4. 4.

    WaterGirl

    April 3, 2024 at 10:52 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear: But can they actually come up with ways to justify the stuff she’s doing without it sounding as lame as “my dog ate my homework” or “my grandma died”?

  5. 5.

    stinger

    April 3, 2024 at 10:52 pm

    Margaret <ptui> Thatcher<ptui>, murderer of Bobby Sands.

  6. 6.

    hueyplong

    April 3, 2024 at 10:52 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear: Happily, coming up with these schemes is easier than defending them. I’d look forward to seeing their submission.

  7. 7.

    WaterGirl

    April 3, 2024 at 10:53 pm

    Do you guys not think this is a powerful ad?  I think it’s really powerful and could reach the people who like to think of themselves as “independent”.  And maybe some Reagan republicans that are still out there and horrified by MAGA.  Both of them!

    I hate Reagan with the bcky!est of them.  I can remember saying it would take 20 years to undo all the terrible things he put in place.  Just 20 years?  We should have been so lucky!

  8. 8.

    WaterGirl

    April 3, 2024 at 10:55 pm

    @hueyplong: Yeah, that’s where I’m at, too.  How do you defend the indefensible?

  9. 9.

    WaterGirl

    April 3, 2024 at 10:57 pm

    Unrelated to this post, if anyone wanted to donate to NV and hasn’t donated yet, we still have $25 left on the current angel match.  Once that $25 comes in, our angel can add another $1,000 to the thermometer!

    And another angel match can begin before I head for bed. :-)

  10. 10.

    Melancholy Jaques

    April 3, 2024 at 10:57 pm

    @Scout211:

    Tear Down This Wall was a great speech. So was the Challenger speech.

  11. 11.

    Scout211

    April 3, 2024 at 10:58 pm

    @WaterGirl: I thought it was a powerful ad when someone linked to it in the comments recently but I am not sure an online ad has a wide enough exposure to change people’s minds.

    Maybe VoteVets should make a TikTok. LOL.

  12. 12.

    Lyrebird

    April 3, 2024 at 10:59 pm

    Thanks WG!  I was so glad to see this ad when it came up in a comment thread.

    I *still* hate Reagan, was never a fan, but I *love* this ad, because I think it has a chance of reaching people who’d never listen to me anyhow.

    And the fascist menace in a golf cart?  Well, he has taught me something else to appreciate about Reagan: he loved his wife and respected her.  If we can set aside Trump’s threats to me, mine, and yours just for a sec, he is such a sad sack.  A sad sack who deserves to see justice served, absolutely.  But what am I saying about Reagan?  When he became too affected by his decline, his wife took care of him.  His family and friends shielded him – they didn’t wind him up and send him in front of the cameras to get one more tax cut,  one more dig at Black people…

    I know I have no sense of proportion sometimes.  But between these two former presidents, both of whom experienced mental decline in their later years, you can see many differences… including the worth of having a caring spouse.

     

    ETA:
    @WaterGirl:

      if it seems like I’m repeating your point… I didn’t see it while I was typing. You’re fast!

  13. 13.

    hueyplong

    April 3, 2024 at 10:59 pm

    @WaterGirl: Apparently, you do it by delaying and distracting, funding the process through the entirety of Rube America.

  14. 14.

    Melancholy Jaques

    April 3, 2024 at 11:00 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    I like it. I only wonder what impact Reagan has anymore. But then I wonder what impact anything has on our low info voters.

  15. 15.

    WaterGirl

    April 3, 2024 at 11:00 pm

    @Scout211: You make a good point.  However.  Maybe the folks that would watch a TV ad that looks like it’s about Reagan are exactly the kind of old school Republicans we would like to reach?

    Just a thought.

    On TikTok, they wouldn’t know who Reagan was. :-)

  16. 16.

    stinger

    April 3, 2024 at 11:04 pm

    He’s dead. Good. And that is a good ad.

  17. 17.

    WaterGirl

    April 3, 2024 at 11:04 pm

    @hueyplong: I love this from the tweet though:

    Under 11th Circuit rules, if Jack Smith petitions for mandamus to order Judge Cannon to rule on Trump’s Presidential Records Act motion before trial, the Judge becomes a “respondent” to the request & the appeals court can order that she file a response defending her behavior.

    That makes me so happy.  She will have to file the response and she can’t just sit on it like some bird waiting for the bird babies to hatch.  As she is trying to do with everything else.

    Haughty judge becomes a respondent.  I will go to bed happy the day that happens.

  18. 18.

    Citizen Alan

    April 3, 2024 at 11:07 pm

    @WaterGirl: 20 years might have worked if we’d gotten it. Instead, we got 8 years of Clinton, followed by 8 years of Shrub that knocked us even further down the hole. Then 8 years of Obama followed by 4 years of Trump shitting on the whole country.

  19. 19.

    hueyplong

    April 3, 2024 at 11:07 pm

    @WaterGirl: Yes. The Federalist Society would almost certainly ghost write it, and I hope they’d struggle with the task.

  20. 20.

    West of the Rockies

    April 3, 2024 at 11:09 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    Run that ad on TV stations during reruns of Golden Girls and Matlock.  

    It’s a powerful ad for a certain demographic

    Hell,  Seinfeld and Friends, too.

  21. 21.

    piratedan

    April 3, 2024 at 11:14 pm

    I look at that ad and know that it wasn’t meant for me, it was meant for the squishy independents and GOP ranks that still have some adherence to their old school values.  In that respect, I thought the ad did what it should do, make those that are wavering in rejecting the wannabe dictator make that leap and find the basis and reasoning to do so.

  22. 22.

    SpaceUnit

    April 3, 2024 at 11:15 pm

    The current GOP would throw Reagan into the nearest active volcano.

     

    And Reagan sucked.

  23. 23.

    Another Scott

    April 3, 2024 at 11:20 pm

    I’m not the audience for the ad.

    I see it’s from June 6, 1984. 40 years ago. Anyone younger than about 50 is not going to have much of a memory of him or the times.

    The last person drafted in the USA was in June 1973. Nearly 51 years ago. Military service is no longer something that’s expected or regarded as something extremely common (“thank you for your service” wasn’t necessary, because just about everyone’s family contributed in some way).

    Anyone who is a TIFG supporter already knows that he thought – and said – that anyone who served in the military is a loooser. He loves strongmen and wants to be one. He loves russia (“you think our country is so innocent?”). He invited VVP to take over Ukraine and any NATO country that doesn’t give TIFG what he wants. A Reagan speech from 40 years ago isn’t going to move the needle with them (if they were persuadable by rhetoric like that, they wouldn’t have voted for TIFG in the first place).

    They’re good and important words, well delivered. But I honestly don’t think that the ad is going to move the needle very much.

    I would like to be wrong.

    Forward!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  24. 24.

    WaterGirl

    April 3, 2024 at 11:25 pm

    @West of the Rockies: Great idea!

  25. 25.

    WaterGirl

    April 3, 2024 at 11:26 pm

    @piratedan: Compare and contrast: Reagan and Trump.

  26. 26.

    Jackie

    April 3, 2024 at 11:26 pm

    @Melancholy Jaques: I recall when Biden repeated Reagan’s words at the SOTU and the GQPers BOOED. That’s as far gone as they’ve shifted away from the “traditional GOP party.”

  27. 27.

    TaMara

    April 3, 2024 at 11:28 pm

    @WaterGirl: I think it’s extremely powerful. And I hate Reagan. But you have to come at the other side with information that can reach them*. You know, not some liberal, feel-good, do-good, woke stuff (eye roll here).

    I think this one is hard to dismiss and for some folks could be enough to say, I can’t vote for the vile container of putrid bile.

    *ETA: See Karl Rove’s comments today. (gagging emoji here)

  28. 28.

    WaterGirl

    April 3, 2024 at 11:29 pm

    Heading for bed.  This is an open thread, so talk about whatever you want!

  29. 29.

    NotMax

    April 3, 2024 at 11:37 pm

    Shining a spotlight on Reagan serves no purpose.

  30. 30.

    Martin

    April 3, 2024 at 11:38 pm

    Republicans don’t care about Reagan any more. Liz Cheney and George Will and Mike Pence are traitors.

    It’s a good ad, but it won’t reach the audience it needs to. It’s designed to shame people who are proud they can’t be shamed.

  31. 31.

    Redshift

    April 3, 2024 at 11:38 pm

    @WaterGirl: And I believe I recall hearing that the Eleventh Circuit is known for being conservative, but I’m the sense of sticking to established precedents and procedures, not partisan conservatives. I’m sure the FedSoc types have some plans for this scam, but hopefully it’ll be a tough sell.

  32. 32.

    RaflW

    April 3, 2024 at 11:41 pm

    I have no idea how online ads get targeted, what platforms people see them. If the Reagan ad gets voters calling members of Congress, and that somehow gets the attention of our phone-it-in press, then maybe something can happen with that g.d. discharge petition?

    It seems a stretch, but that’s not the ads fault. It’s our shitty, unresponsive Republican party’s fault.

  33. 33.

    Another Scott

    April 3, 2024 at 11:42 pm

    Where’s Baud??

    DW.com – Bavarian police go pantless in uniform protest.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  34. 34.

    piratedan

    April 3, 2024 at 11:44 pm

    @WaterGirl: Reagan still had to deal with a press corp that wasn’t totally snowed by his public persona, as evidenced by Iran-Contra.  He was the epitome of a NPR (nice polite republican) and was given more latitude after surviving an assassination attempt, so that provided him cover to break unions, allowed him to engage in coded racism and ignore those icky gay people with AIDS.

    So he picked his targets well in that we know better now as our society has changed.

    Trump is a dumpster fire.  He’s thriving in an environment when most of the information is controlled thru various narratives that are mostly controlled by his allies.  He’s had Faux News fertilizing the ground (along with AM Radio) for three to four decades as a political greenhouse for American Theocracy.

     

    Would Reagan have done some of the shit that Trump has done?  I’m not sure that he could of as there was no cultural backlash in full effect at that time.  Would he?  I think it depends a bit on Nancy Reagan and I believe she was a bit too woo-woo to fully embrace the Theocratic Christianity that had yet to become a true political wielder of power.

  35. 35.

    Hoppie

    April 3, 2024 at 11:47 pm

    @Another Scott: Every quarter degree the needle moves is useful, and the moves accumulate.  I am hopeful, if not yet certain.

  36. 36.

    Librarian

    April 3, 2024 at 11:56 pm

    The Pointe du Hoc speech was written by Peggy Noonan.

  37. 37.

    wjca

    April 4, 2024 at 12:11 am

    @piratedan: Would Reagan have done some of the shit that Trump has done?

    Some, perhaps.  But he would never have characterized members of the military who were wounded in action as “Losers”.  And anyone who even hinted at, let alone suggested, such a thing would have been fired on the spot.

    I never voted for him.  Not for Governor.  Not for President.  But compared to TIFG he was (as today’s RWNJs think) a flaming liberal.

  38. 38.

    Rusty

    April 4, 2024 at 2:13 am

    The Fedalist Society won’t be writing Cannon’s response if it ever comes to this.  That would be such a clear case of bias by the judge that it would get her kicked off the case and even admonished by the circuit court.  It will have to he her own work.  That said, she is supposedly a bright lawyer (just completely lacking in judgement), so it will likely be well written but like a law review article with a crazy point of view.  The circuit court won’t be impressed.

  39. 39.

    hueyplong

    April 4, 2024 at 5:26 am

    @Rusty: Dude, they wouldn’t sign it. I’m over the idea that they have integrity.

  40. 40.

    gene108

    April 4, 2024 at 6:06 am

    @piratedan:

    him to engage in coded racism and ignore those icky gay people with AIDS.

    So he picked his targets well

    I was a kid in the 1980’s, but from what I recall, Reagan very much stayed within the mainstream views on most social issues.

    A bit more on the conservative and traditional side, but still within what was considered acceptable in polite society.

    ***********

    The 11th Circuit can compel Judge Cannon to rule if Smith files a writ of mandamus, but will they? The court system seems designed to protect the wealthy, the well connected, and the powerful.

    Cannon just seems to be a tad bit more coddling to the powerful than any other courts handling cases involving Trump.

    There’s no sense of urgency, anywhere in the judiciary, that Trump tried to overthrow the government and he’s running for President again, and could win.

    I seriously doubt the 11th Circuit will do anything quickly enough to speed up the documents case enough to matter, if they act at all.

  41. 41.

    linnen

    April 4, 2024 at 7:35 am

    Reagan’s ‘shiny city on a hill’  was a gated community.

    @piratedan, re: Reagan and the Press,

    Iran-Contra, like Watergate, came out despite the press, not because of them.  Hertsgaard’s “On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency” lays out how the press, with its Beltway Pundits, kowtowed to Reagan administration.

  42. 42.

    Barry

    April 4, 2024 at 8:07 am

    @WaterGirl: would you please post the link?

  43. 43.

    Gvg

    April 4, 2024 at 8:29 am

    @Another Scott: People are different. I think any national campaign that uses just one angle will fail. IMO Biden should try a lot of different targeting for many small groups of people. We usually say demographics, but it’s smaller than that and has to do with peoples personal values, histories and also where they get their information.

    There is going to have to be a multi pronged media testing. Pretty much every election the tech and info sources have changed from the last time. That is going to make it complicated every time.

    Money is going to be really important when the landscape and therefore the best messaging strategy changes between every election. I bet even the campaign polling is more difficult than it used to be.

  44. 44.

    brantl

    April 4, 2024 at 8:36 am

    @Scout211:  Ronny was great at delivering vague generalities, as though he was shivering with the drama of his own voice, nothing more. He lied with every breath, when he knew what he was talking about, and the only thing that saved him from lying more, was that he was demented, and didn’t know if it was true, or not.

  45. 45.

    WaterGirl

    April 4, 2024 at 10:03 am

    @TaMara: Hopefully it will be a wake-up call for anyone who hasn’t gone full MAGA.

    Hopefully this will hold a mirror up to Trump so Rs and Independents can see how far their party has fallen.  And maybe stay home, even if they can’t bring themselves to vote for Biden.

  46. 46.

    WaterGirl

    April 4, 2024 at 10:04 am

    @brantl: Back then, I used to say the when Reagan opened his mouth, somehow Republicans heard inspirational music playing in the background, and it didn’t matter what he said.

    Hero worship.

  47. 47.

    strange visitor (from another planet)

    April 4, 2024 at 1:37 pm

    i know this is a TOTALLY dead thread, but so here’s the thing: (and i fucking HATE the gop for a) not KNOWING anything and b) just vomiting out propaganda at the drop of a hat) “cutting and running” is a naval term from the age of sail. it involves getting your sheets into the wind while chopping moorings and getting to battle stations. it’s about getting into a combat posture, not FLEEING from a FIGHT…

    and yet, now that’s how the term is used.

  48. 48.

    Paul in KY

    April 4, 2024 at 1:54 pm

    @Scout211: He was a great ‘genial old man’ actor.  The fucker!!!

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