,
9 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
1. Watching this January 1980 interview with Reagan inspired a few thoughts. First, note how breezily he discusses the idea that we should have threatened to nuke North Vietnam. Ronnie Raygun his critics called him. For good reason. via @YouTube
@YouTube 2. The North Vietnam bomb comment occurs at 11:20.
3. Another point, especially for those of you too young to remember Reagan--he was generally considered (even by many who voted for him) as not the sharpest tool in the shed. But OMG, listen to this interview and then watch a Trump clip.
4. Reagan sounds like a freaking rocket scientist compared to GWB, who sounds like a rocket scientist compared to Trump. This dumbing down of political discourse has been pretty one-sided...I don't discern a drop off from Carter to Clinton to Obama.
5. Another observation. I'm the last person to sing the praises of Wm F Buckley, but note the extent to which he actually pushes Reagan on some of these questions. Buckley was about as friendly an audience Reagan could've had, but this far from a Hannity/Trump interview.
6. Check out Reagan's answer to the "what would you do if unemployment shot up" question at 27:00. It is almost identical to Trump's economic message. a) that can't happen because I'd be president. b) but if did happen, I'd cut taxes and regulations, which I'd be doing anyway.
7. It's the supply side, anti-regulation economics combined with the abortion issue that strike me as the most salient continuities from the Gipper to the Grabber. Also, note how much Reagan liked to talk about American steel and what he's going to do to save that industry.
8. One last element of note from this 1980 interview. At several points Buckley glories in conservative victimology--"of course Reagan will be mischaracterized and treated unfairly by the media and the establishment." Folks, that's not what happened. If anything, the opposite.
9. But the echoes with Trump's complaints about his supposedly unfair treatment at the hands of the press are hard to miss. Self-pitying victimology has long been a central feature of conservative politics, even in 1980 on the dawn of its great triumph.
