{"id":10723,"date":"2008-01-17T13:19:27","date_gmt":"2008-01-17T19:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=10723"},"modified":"2008-01-17T13:19:27","modified_gmt":"2008-01-17T19:19:27","slug":"obama-unleashes-wave-of-reagan-derangement-syndrome-karl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=10723","title":{"rendered":"Obama unleashes wave of Reagan Derangement Syndrome [Karl]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sen. Barack Obama, in\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0an interview<\/a> with the Reno Gazette-Journal’s editorial board, expressed some admiration for Ronald Reagan, arguing that\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0Reagan\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0changed the direction of America in a way the “incremental” politics of Bill Clinton failed to do.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 These remarks set off a wave<\/a> of Reagan Derangement Syndrome in the Leftosphere.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 One exception is Matt Yglesias<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Obama is pretty unambiguously claiming that much as Reagan was a friendly, popular face of a much more conservative governing agenda than the country had seen before, he thinks he can be the friendly, popular face of a much more liberal governing agenda than the country has seen before.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The reason Yglesias doesn’t get it is that he must not be afflicted with RDS (or at least not a full-blown case), a malady that interferes with the ability to understand abstract thought and metaphor.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 RDS also impairs the ability to understand history whenever the victim hears the name “Reagan.”\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yglesias links to Matt Stoller’s rant<\/a> at OpenLeft, which exhibits the basic core of RDS:<\/p>\n

It is extremely disturbing to hear, not that Obama admires Reagan, but why he does so.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Reagan was not a sunny optimist pushing dynamic entrepreneurship, but a savvy politician using a civil rights backlash<\/a> to catapult conservatives to power.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Lots of people don’t agree with this, of course, since it doesn’t fit a coherent narrative of GOP ascendancy.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

But if you think, as Obama does, that Reagan’s rise to power was premised on a sunny optimism in contrast to an out of control government and a society rife with liberal excess, then you don’t understand the conservative movement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Stoller’s\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0sole supporting link is to an op-ed by NYT columnist Paul Krugman.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Those not afflicted with RDS will quickly recognize that relying on Paul Krugman for historical analysis may be a sign of mental lapse matched only by relying on Paul Krugman for economic analysis.<\/p>\n

Krugman’s thesis springs from the fact that Reagan gave a speech including his support for state’s rights at the Neshoba Country Fair, just outside the Mississippi town where three civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964.<\/p>\n

RDS sufferers like Stoller fail to note that Krugman’s thesis was debunked<\/a> by Reagan biographer Lou Cannon, who wrote a response to Krugman showing that the\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0Neshoba speech was not an effective symbolic appeal to white voters, but a political misstep that cost him support.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 At the Washington Monthly, Kevin Drum<\/a> notes that:<\/p>\n

(a) Reagan talked about states’ rights routinely in a non-racial context, (b) Mississippi at the time was seen as a swing state that Jimmy Carter had only barely won in 1976, and (c) the Neshoba event wasn’t orignally planned to be the kickoff for his campaign. His original intent was to kick off the campaign with a speech to the Urban League, but his advisors were afraid of the symbolism of doing that first and following it with Neshoba.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As a kicker, Drum notes that in 1988, Gov. Michael S. Dukakis spoke at the same Neshoba County Fair, at a time when he was trying to attract both white conservatives and blacks in the South.<\/p>\n

As for Stoller’s RDS-inspired claim that Reagan’s rise to power was not<\/em> premised on a sunny optimism in contrast to an out of control government and a society rife with liberal excess, it might be useful to start with the New York Times<\/a> coverage of the 1980 election results:<\/p>\n

Ronald Wilson Reagan, riding a tide of economic discontent against Jimmy Carter and promising ”to put America back to work again,” was elected the nation’s 40th President yesterday with a sweep of surprising victories in the East, South and the crucial battlegrounds of the Middle West.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

A New York Times\/CBS News poll of more than 10,000 voters as they left the polls indicated that the predominant motivation among voters was the conviction that it was time for a change. The biggest issue in their minds was the nation’s economy, especially inflation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or consider historian Arthur Schlessinger’s NYT op-ed, published the following day:<\/p>\n

The long national nightmare is over, and we may speculate now about what the election really means. The basic maxim of democracy should always be: turn the rascals out. When people have been entrusted with power and make a botch of it, their options should be dropped.<\/p>\n

Jimmy Carter’s Presidency was a manifest failure. It presented no vision, communicated no sense of direction, was wayward and negligent in foreign policy and left the domestic economy worse off than it had been four years earlier. Even its good intentions were compromised by an odious moralizing tone. For the voters to reward incoherence, incompetence, and sanctimony by re-election would have betrayed the obligations of democracy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed, \u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0the establishment media echoed certain themes throughout Reagan’s presidency.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 For example, in 1985, TIME magazine<\/a> reported:<\/p>\n

Having shrugged off a major operation for colon cancer, Ronald Reagan seems to have earned a new wave of public sympathy and support through his patented optimism.<\/em><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

There was a striking discrepancy between Reagan’s personal popularity and his perceived ability to solve specific problems. A whopping three-fourths of those polled said they had “only a little confidence” or “none at all” that he could reduce the deficit. Only one in four had “a lot of confidence” that he could. The figures were similar when people were asked about Reagan’s ability to reform the tax code or negotiate arms-control agreements with the Soviets.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 (Emphasis added.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the 1980s, the establishment media frequently asserted that Reagan’s popularity was\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0due to his sunny optimism\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0and did not extend to his agenda.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Krugman and his nutroots followers are now trying to change the liberal spin by 180 degrees.<\/p>\n

Jane Hamsher<\/a>\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0displayed an even more advanced case of RDS\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0at FireDog Lake.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 She cites the Neshoba speech (incorrectly seeting it in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the town where the civil rights workers were killed), but cannot stop herself:<\/p>\n

One of his first acts was to fire 11,000 air traffic controllers in 1981 — one of the most devastating union busting moves of the past century. And his vision of deregulation didn’t free the country up for entrepreneurship, it opened it up for the wholesale thievery of the savings & loan crisis.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Those not afflicted will recall that the PATCO strike<\/a> violated federal law and the no-strike clause in the union’s own contract.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Moreover:<\/p>\n

Reagan stressed that he derived no satisfaction from sacking the controllers. \u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0He pointed out that he was the first president to be a lifetime member of the AFL-CIO. \u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0And he was aware that PATCO had been one of the few unions to support his presidential bid. \u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0“I supported unions and the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively,” he wrote in his memoirs, ” but no president could tolerate an illegal strike by Federal employees.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As for deregulation and the S&L crisis, RDS has clearly wiped out Hamsher’s ability to recall that this\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0deregulation began\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0with a Carter Administration initiative<\/a> that: eliminated many of the distinctions among different types of depository institutions and ultimately removed the\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0interest rate ceiling on deposit accounts; expanded\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0the authority\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0of federal S&Ls to make\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0acquisition, development and\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0construction loans;\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0and lifted the cap on\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0deposit insurance limit\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0to $100,000 from $40,000.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 It has also impaired her ability to understand that the initiative was seen as necessary at the time, due to decades of bad economic policies from Johnson through Carter.<\/p>\n

RDS has also impaired the ability of these left-leaning folk to apply their cherished principle of “fake, but accurate.”<\/a>\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Even assuming for the sake of argument that Krugman and his nutroots acolytes got history correct, they cannot by their own thesis claim that the election of Reagan did not mark a national turn rightward.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Income taxes were slashed, the Soviet Union was vigorously opposed, etc.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Nor can they plausibly deny that the Democrats suffered mightily under Bill Clinton<\/a>:<\/p>\n

When the President was elected in 1992, the Democrats had fifty-seven senators; now they have forty-five. They controlled Congress, with a House majority of 266; now they have a minority of 211. They held twenty-eight governorships and a majority of state legislatures; now Democrats have seventeen governors and a minority of the state assemblies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Any political realignment that occurred on Bill Clinton’s watch was toward the GOP.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 His legacy ultimately included deficit reduction, welfare reform, free trade agreements, a capital gains tax cut and class-action litigation reform.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 It took a dozen years and an unpopular war in Iraq to reverse the Democratic Party’s fortunes.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Obama’s comments did not merely trigger a wave of RDS.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Perhaps they also triggered a wave of Clinton Denial Syndrome.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong><\/em>\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Michelle Malkin<\/a> looks at scientific evidence of Bush Derangement Syndrome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Barack Obama, in\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal’s editorial board, expressed some admiration for Ronald Reagan, arguing that\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0Reagan\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0changed the direction of America in a way the “incremental” politics of Bill Clinton failed to do.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 These remarks set off a wave of Reagan Derangement Syndrome in the Leftosphere.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 One exception is Matt Yglesias: Obama is pretty unambiguously claiming that much as Reagan was a friendly, popular face of a much<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":636,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/636"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}