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How Comedians Figured Out the Trick to Covering Trump [VIDEO]

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ckkatz1/28/2019 4:07:28 pm PST

From last thread, regarding Happy’s thoughtful question on how Reagan went from a Democrat to a Goldwater Republican. And SageHen’s excellent response.

re: #328 sagehen

nah…

it’s that in 1954 he signed an 8-year contract with Westinghouse. Besides hosting GE Theater on TV, he also spent 3 months a year touring the country with Westinghouse and GE execs, and they worked on him hard.
historynewsnetwork.org

This!

To expand on SageHen’s post…

Reagan, as MC of the General Electric Theater on television, was the reality star of his time. Additionally, he got additional air time as GE spokesman.

As noted in the article, Reagan was hired by, and worked closely with Lemuel Boulware, GE’s vice president. Boulware spent his career working to overturn the New Deal.

Boulware led anti-labor movement efforts at GE and effectively shut down unions. (“Boulwarism”) Boulware ensured that all management down to supervisors recieved National Review, Foundation for Economic Education, and similar reading materials, including John Flynn’s book “The Road Ahead” which portrayed the New Deal as leading to totalitarianism and slavery. He encouraged GE management to hold home reading and study groups on this material. He also had GE sponsor required courses for GE employees on free market economics using specially written textbooks.

Studying how Reagan went from a Grade ‘B’ actor to a Conservative President requires an understanding of Lemuel Boulware and the movement he fronted.