• ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
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    3 months ago

    I’m calling the DNC technique of wrapping Reaganomics in a friendly identity politics outer shell “woke-washing” because of how similar it is to “green-washing”.

    Some More News did a segment on how Regan forced the Democrat Party to go further right in order to achieve power. Same thing happened in the UK after Thatcher. The Labour Party swung right to get votes.

    I don’t have the data however I would imagine, that after the the conservative 80s, a lot left wing parties moved to the right to capture votes.

    Also Regan elevated Jerry Falwall and the Christian Religious Right.

    Coverage naturally gravitated toward Lynchburg, Virginia, preacher Jerry Falwell, who had supported Anita Bryant’s 1977 anti-gay-rights crusade, and Virginia Beach television mogul Pat Robertson, who was involved with the Washington for Jesus rally of April 1980 (scheduled to coincide with the anniversary of the first landing at Jamestown).

    Falwell, head of the Moral Majority (another nod to Nixon), was more eager to enter the political arena. He thus became the first anointed spokesperson of what was then commonly called the “Religious New Right.”

    During the 1980 campaign, Ronald Reagan and the evangelical conservatives engaged in a very public courting ritual. Evangelicals had entertained possible GOP alternatives to Carter since at least 1979. Options abounded— ranging from right-wing purist Philip Crane of Illinois to early front-runner John Connally of Texas—but Reagan, long a darling of conservatives in general, was an especially compelling choice. By the time Moral Majority executive director Robert Billings signed on as a Reagan campaign adviser, the deal was pretty much sealed.

    Truly Regan was a piece of shit.