Thread by @PnictogenHorses

@RonaldReagan, the racɪst and profoundly *disgusting* figurehead President, whom the @GOP installed in 1980 through an act of treason intended to humiliate Pres. Carter, taught his nation a lot of very bad habits.

"worst President" sticks fairly firmly to Ronald Reagan.

~Mona

among the worst of the habits which @RonaldReagan taught American politics was the appallingly hypocritical and destructive habit of pretending that "government" was an enemy force—it was always absurd, because Reagan and the @GOP were running the government.

~Mona

but when the @GOP—through their mouthpiece @RonaldReagan, who was a third-rate actor going senile but was still lucid enough to be rehearsed and scripted into delivering speeches full of reactionary diatribe—said "government" they meant something rather specific.

~Mona

in general, they meant any function of government which *aided* the American people, rather than limiting their freedom or punishing them in some way.

every American #conservative loves "government"—that is to say, they love police and prisons and prosecutors and judges.

~Mona

these are all functions of government, but they were not included in the doublethinkful, deceitful way in which @RonaldReagan and his @GOP script-writers (like Pat Buchanan and @Peggynoonannyc) used "government".

the GOP never hated "government", only its power to *help*.

~Mona

right-wing propagandists, both the older fashioned ones like @DouthatNYT and the newer more openly fascɪstic ones like @MattWalshBlog, have come up with a whole catalogue of false virtues that (in their view) the U.S. government ought to force upon all its citizens.

~Mona

we were commanded to practice "personal responsibility"—nobody noticed that the @GOP and @RonaldReagan were telling us, openly, that they were pushing off the responsibilities of leadership onto the people.

it was bad to ask for government help, because of "dependence".

~Mona

college education was made very expensive—one of @RonaldReagan's many crimes, as Governor of California, was destroying its system of public colleges and universities, which are now practically as expensive as any private school—so that education could be called "elitist".

~Mona

after all, the @GOP politicians and pundits, almost all of them anyway, are college graduates—the #conservative punditocracy runs on social privileges, and one of the best forms of privilege is a prestigious degree. in calling college "elitist", they describe themselves.

~Mona

@RonaldReagan told us all that we shouldn't ever trust "the government"—that was a confession, because the @GOP was in charge. they filled as many government jobs as possible with true Reaganite believers—and with thieves. the Reagan administration was legendarily corrupt.

~Mona

and here's the thing: they must have surely learned, from experience, that incompetent and chaotic organization is *better for #business*.

#capitalism, I conjecture, optimizes for dysfunction—because then people can *make a profit* on selling workarounds to obstacles.

~Mona

look at the way @elonmusk mishandled @Twitter: he scarcely wanted it, he was stuck with it, he *broke* #Twitter, and now he's attempting to pretend that it was already broken.

believe it or not—this is #capitalism working as intended. it would be *profitable*.

~Mona

I suspect there's some "vulture capitalist" calculus going on here: @elonmusk probably has #business partners who are keen on buying up all of the personal information that @Twitter has collected on its vast userbase. #Twitter may well be worth more to a buyer *in pieces*.

~Mona

in which case, the health and safety of the @Twitter community is no longer anything that @elonmusk and his unseen business partners *need* to worry about! we're fungible now, if Mr. #ElonMusk has in fact decided that we're worth more as mere "data".

~Mona

this is the secret to the "success" that the 1980s and the antic, appalling regime of @RonaldReagan's @GOP brought to the United States: "success" not in #science or #technology (certainly not the #arts) but in #business and #finance, through cheap tricks and manipulation.

~Mona

the @RonaldReagan administration didn't *invent* this sort of organized capitalist thievery, but he and the @GOP announced that they were *friendly* to any corporate thief who thought that they could make a profit out of selling workarounds to a dysfunctional government.

~Mona

it was a simple scheme: @RonaldReagan and the @GOP *broke* things, then they pitched us on the idea that only corporations could save us from the governmental dysfunction _they deliberately caused_. they were creating *opportunities for profit*, at the people's expense.

~Mona

they're still doing it, of course. @GOP politicians try to destroy public schooling so they can grab the money to give to "charter schools" run by friendly corporate partners. @elonmusk stays in business because he's grabbing at government contracts, grants, and subsidies.

~Mona

permit me to suspect that @GOP politicians are now colluding with @elonmusk, @bariweiss, @mtaibbi, and the rest of the #ElonMusk clown show. #conservative politicians and pundits love trashing things they didn't build and don't like, and @Twitter is one of those things.

~Mona

that's what #conservatism is, when all is said and done: it's the politics of *destruction*.

it's refusing change and growth. it's refusing to atone for crimes. it's rejection of all that is noble and hopeful in humanity and gleeful embrace of the murderous and the cruel.

~Mona

@RonaldReagan was a symbol of gleeful cruelty and murder—murder with a grin and a "wry quip", carried out by a cop's bullet or from an USAF bomb.

the @GOP has given us the politics of Death.

and yet...they pretend to care about life everlasting.

it's a LIE.

~Mona Drafter

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