Thread by @PnictogenHorses

it is difficult to talk about Western or American #conservatism these days—or #liberalism or #centrism for that matter. these meanings of all these terms, and dozens of other political terms, have been rendered deliberately confusing and multivariate.

so has #politics.

(1/x)

especially since the days of @RonaldReagan's catastrophic figurehead presidency, especially, "politics" have been made into a dirty word—something nobody is supposed to talk about too much in polite conversation, or during reviews of games or books or movies or anything.

(2/x)

probably this process was well underway by the time the @GOP and @Peggynoonannyc succeeded in propping up their cowboy-actor mannequin, @RonaldReagan, behind a podium and programmed him to spout neo-fascıst blather about "crime" and "the evil empire" and other such trash.

(3/x)

the presidency of @RonaldReagan was uniquely offensive—George W. Bush and @realDonaldTrump, repulsive as they both were, were in a sense mere echoes of the Reaganite implosion—although Bush massacred at least as many human beings as did Lyndon Johnson and Mr. @dick_nixon.

(4/x)

it was not possible, by any reasonable means, to "agree to disagree" about @RonaldReagan. the man was noticeably, demonstrably unfit for leadership. he was very obviously staged and manipulated, though American #journalism and @TheDemocrats tried not to draw notice.

(5/x)

(I wonder if @mtaibbi and @jbarro and the other tenth-rate Hunter Thompson imitators quite remember that Thompson despised Reagan. and the Bushes.)

what's more, @RonaldReagan brought about an orgy of corruption and embezzlement of public money. his friends were criminals.

(6/x)

and so, like any guilty man who wants to distract attention away from his own crimes, @RonaldReagan (the mouthpiece for the @GOP, who hatched the criminal conspiracy with Iran that put Reagan in power in 1980), Reagan and his scriptwriters bleated "crime", over and over.

(7/x)

abruptly, the only valid American hero was now a thug with a gun, issued uniform and weapons by a U.S. government. (@GKCdaily would approve; #GKChesterton would have been horrified.)

neo-fascısm, rule by personality cult, police-statism—@RonaldReagan made them all "cool".

(8/x)

the @GOP (with loyal assistance from @TheDemocrats, completely cowed and broken by Republican treachery) openly embraced rule by mere force. like Mussolini bombing Corfu and Abyssinia, @RonaldReagan adopted an aggressive foreign policy, full of pomp and cheap victories.

(9/x)

of course, it's American right-wing gospel—and American *liberal* gospel, as well—that @RonaldReagan, a third-rate actor going soft in the brain, reading scripts from a teleprompter, was some acme of American democratic republicanism. a Great President™. a pinnacle.

(10/x)

a "shining city on a hill". it was a lie. @RonaldReagan represented not a victory for American civil government, not even a defeat or a corruption, but a *collapse*.

the @GOP imploded the American republic, when they did the crimes that put Reagan into office.

(11/x)

some people noticed that after @RonaldReagan, American democracy was dead and rotting.

popular culture noticed it; goths noticed it; countless perceptive and insightful and artistic persons, not to mention America's marginalized, noticed that Reagan killed the nation.

(12/x)

it was *impossible* for rational persons to discuss @RonaldReagan, because his mere presence on the world stage was a such an embarrassment—a grotesque disruption and distortion of civil government, which the @GOP and the Reaganite cult set about to destroy.

(13/x)

it became *forbidden* to discuss the grotesqueries of Reagan and Republican misrule—it was now "just politics", and something you should "agree to disagree" about, from that moment on.

the @GOP methodically destroyed political language, to clear the way for Reagan.

(14/x)

it became *necessary* from then on for American right-wing (and then "independent" and "moderate" and "centrist" and "classical liberal" persons, not to mention many "liberals" and "progressives") to pretend that #politics no longer meant anything. it was like sports.

(15/x)

(I suppose @mtaibbi would call it "tribalism", because he's a buffoon.)

it was necessary, because otherwise there was no rational explanation for @RonaldReagan. there was none possible: the @GOP did crimes to install him. Reagan's presidency was an irrationality.

(16/x)

the grapes of wrath have grown full and heavy since 1980 and @RonaldReagan...growing heavy for the vintage.

thank you *so* much, @Peggynoonannyc, for manufacturing this mere cardboard-cutout President of the United States of America.
/s

~Mona Drafter of Pnictogen

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