re: #119 HappyWarrior

A lot of it really begins with Reagan IMO. That’s when you started seeing the decline in wages in line with executive pay. The GOP IMO goes in a much better direction if they nominate H.W. Bush in 1980 and not Reagan. HW had flaws obviously but I think he was his own man. I don’t feel so generous towards Reagan who I think was the smiling face ofthe beginning of the emss we’ve found ourselves in.

The Republicans used to be a fairly normal center-right big business party. Then we had civil rights legislation passed in the 1960s, with nontrivial bipartisan support and opposition in Congress.

After that, senior Republicans realized that if they could get people to vote Republican to express their bigotry and resentment, they would never again have to make those implausible arguments that tax cuts for the rich were good for everyone. They could often get enough votes by just showing up with the (R) next to their names.

This is the path that was taken, and it has inevitably led to hate radio, Faux News, Trump, his deplorable supporters, and the pack of GOP hyenas currently shitting in Congress. These trends were well underway in 1980, but it does seem fair to identify that as the last chance for the GOP to have taken a different path. The ‘success’ of Reagan is what conclusively ended that possibility.

Trump is such a clown that he may get removed from office, but he really is just a symptom of much larger problems.