Obama: "I understood his appeal... Reagan spoke to America's longing for order"

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=68

I don't like this coming from a presidential candidate one bit. Sounds authoritarian to me. The last part softens it a little, but I still don't like it.

he'd ask you for another basket of bread and a refill on his Scotch & Soda.

What a maroon.

I mean, seriously.....fucking Ronald Reagan is the President who once mistook his cabinet secretary for an inner-city mayor:


http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940CE1DD1038F93AA25755C0A967948260

How much more law and order do we need? We don't have any more civil liberties left.

Exactly. One thing Ronnie Raygun did, and I cna't believe Obama dosn't know the history of this -- was appeal to white America's dislike of busing, dislike of Affirmative Action and the disgust at cities because of white flight.

Raygun took advantage of the backlash against the civil rights movement, the women's rights movement and the gay rights movement. He pandered to those backward looking fucktards amongst us who think any kind of change away from all the power and money in the country being concentrated in rich old white men hands is the end of the world.

Raygun was a racist. He was a horrible evil man responsible for genocide in Central and South America.

He was a traitor with the crap he pulled during the Iranian Hostage Crises and a criminal because of Iran Contra.

Ronnie Raygun was the worst thing to happen to this country in a long time. GWB is the direct result of Ronnie Raygun.

How Obama can say these things is way beyond me.

and we lost the WH for 12 years.

Obama wants them back. He can't get them back by bashing their patron saint, no matter how much he deserves it.

In a perfect world, Obama could explain everything you stated in your post in a 30-second soundbyte, and magically erase a quarter-century of the "Saint Ronnie" narrative from the public's brain in one fell swoop, and bring back all the Ray-gun Democrats that way.

In a related story, a flock of monkeys just flew out of my butt; details at 11.

However, it is just amazingly crass, patronizing and to someone who remembers those years, disgusting.

I never felt like I had a clue as to where Obama's coming from. Now I know.

I think I'll go take a shower now.

But it's the state of our politics thanks to decades of right wing framing and wingnut hate-radio.
I do not like that Obama is doing it, but it might just work. :puke:.

As for Reagan's order - Iran Contra, S&L scandals, the most administrations members indicted for scandals..but yeah, this is some quote! it seems it's not just election strategy it's being admired.

leaving office. He got one million dollars to tell the Japanese corporate biggies that Americans were lazy workers.

:puke:

Very scary.

I like Obama and think he's a decent fellow, but in this political climate his thoughts on recent history involving Reagan and the GOP are a bit frightening (or perhaps naive).

And, yes, that means you!

Obama was not agreeing with Reagan. He was understanding Reagan's appeal. HUGE chasm of difference.

I think if we can't come to grip with things like this, we will continue to lose presidential elections. Carter and Mondale were swell Democrats. Reagan was underestimated, and we paid the price.

match with you since its been blown over the top already, however my opinion still stands and I believe Obama is incredibly naive and its troubling. How he can even declare that the country was ready for Reagan (and we all know in a historical context what that means) is baffling. In fact, his quote doesn't even make sense to me:

"I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what is different is the times. I do think that, for example, the 1980 election was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. They felt like with all the excesses of the 60s and the 70s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think he tapped into what people were already feeling. Which is we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing." quote from Huffington Post - but its also found all over DU today.

Did Reagan really tap into a feeling of optimism, clarity, dynamism and entrepreneurship? Perhaps for supporters of Reagan and Republicans but certainly not for Democrats. As Bob Fritikas said best in one of his many articles, "The problem with the great communicator was the content of his messages. Reagan was a paid shill of the plutocrats, who used his charm and acting skills to hawk, like soap, mean spirited social policies and sell a fantasy version of the American Dream to common folk that trusted him."

Now, you indicate that democrats underestimated Reagan and that is a complete and separate issue which is a good discussion to have but that is not what Obama is saying nor indicating in his complete quote (which I'm sure you could find on the numerous threads on the subject). I will continue to keep my eye on Obama until I see more substance from him I will see him as inexperienced and a pushover.

and everyone who was alive at the time, probably including his Mother and Grandparents.

Nixon got us started with this secrecy and complete Presidential power that Raygun and the Shrub have expanded upon.

Obama needs to return to Columbia and take a few history courses.

I think that Obama liked Reagan a lot more than many people here on DU did, especially those of us who were in the work force then.

It is a lot easier to say nice things about people that you don't hate. Or to whose proponents you wish to pander.

Unless you are trying to appeal to "Reagan Democrats", right?

:puke:

Go ahead...I'm waiting...

isn't it obvious that Obama is pandering to "Reagan Democrats", assuring them and hinting "not to worry...I may be black, but I champion what your hero, Ron Reagan, stood for"

Disgusting.

And no, when read in context its clear that isn't what Obama is doing. In no way does he say he will champion what Reagan stood for. Never.

that was meant in a pejorative way?

Stop twisting my melon, man.

Obama was writing in his book about recent political history and how we got where we are today. However evil Reagan was, he obviously did inspire some people or he wouldn't have gotten elected twice. Admitting a historical fact doesn't mean Obama agrees with what Reagan did in office. The entire chapter of Obama's book in full if you don't believe me.

It also blows me away that people would choose to ignore that Reagan was an extremely popular president. I guess it is classified as "see no evil" or something like that. Reagan did get many working class Democrats to vote for him. It should be painfully obvious that we need these voters back. Lashing out at them is not going to work....

Again, where did Obama say he agreed with Reagan? Nowhere. He just pointed out the obvious. Something the "see no evil, hear no evil" group, with their hands over their eyes and ears, choose to ignore....

One example from pages 156-157

"The conservative revolution Reagan helped usher in gained traction because Reagan's central insight--that the liberal welfare state had grown complacent and overly bureaucratic, with Democratic policy makers more obsessed with slicing the economic pie than with growing he pie--contained a good deal of truth."

wtf is he talking about?

Wouldn't it be nice if the trains ran on time too?

Some people dream of order, while others dream of harmony. I reside in the second group.

Are we in the historical revisionism business? We hated Reagan so that means everyone did?

Get out of the bubble, people. I remember the day after the 1984 election, a classmate at my Massachusetts-based university was stunned; she asked, "Who voted for Reagan?!" I said, sadly, "Practically everyone."

I don't see anything wrong or inaccurate in what Obama is saying here.

One thing we don't want is a President with a messy desk. Let's have the moderators at the debate ask them about how messy their desks are.

.

he's a disaster - he'll be more of bush - bringing in republicans - bet the first one he brings in will be Joe Lieberman who he says "was his mentor" and who he campaigned for when Lieberman became a so called independent

apparently he taught you well Barry.

I told you , you all dont know who obama really is. The mask is slipping.

the other hand, I think he's scarier than Hillary

Order is a very loaded word. I actually have a 1972 campaign pin that I grabbed after the fact with pictures of Nixon and Agnew with the words "Law & Order" beneath the photos. Of course neither one finished out his term of office.

The phrase that bothers me more is: "So long as we rediscover the traditional values of hard work, patriotism, personal responsibility, optimism, and faith."

Rediscover? That part does sound like something right out of the conservative playbook, and they always blame Democrats for America losing those values.

Researchers help define what makes a political conservative

BERKELEY – Politically conservative agendas may range from supporting the Vietnam War to upholding traditional moral and religious values to opposing welfare. But are there consistent underlying motivations?

Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of conservatism report that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include:

Fear and aggression
Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
Uncertainty avoidance
Need for cognitive closure
Terror management
snip---
The avoidance of uncertainty, for example, as well as the striving for certainty, are particularly tied to one key dimension of conservative thought - the resistance to change or hanging onto the status quo, they said.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/07/22_politics.shtml

This is what HRC fears.

It's something that has no part in her "reality".

It's not a arena where she can compete.

I mean really, this was not my reality of Reagan. I grew up under Reagan, high school was Reagan and I was an angry young girl, it was about the bullshit Government and Reagan and how I saw that adults around me had been sold something that didn't exist. Our Country is still recovering from Reagan.

Reagan died the same day we had my daughter's first birthday, my uncle sat and cried while he watched tv while others celebrated (very liberal friends). I wasn't celebrating, but I wasn't heart broken. Reagan was a better actor than Bush II will ever be and that's why it was bought.

The streets are clean in Switzerland and they don't have Reagan, my God this is dense.