Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt and President Ronald Reagan: Almost immediately after its own scientists discovered the effects of burning fossil fuel, Exxon began a campaign of climate change denial with the help of Watt and Reagan. (Photo: UPI/TNYT)

This essay continues my recording many of the steps since World War II that has led to the devolution of the Republican Party into an anti-democracy party that’ has transformed itself into the autocracy of the Trumpistas. Ronald Reagan embodied the Big Lie of McCarthyism, the anti-government ideology of Barry Goldwater, the “I am the state” philosophy of Richard Nixon, and the implementation of future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell’s 1972 Memorandum to the Chamber of Commerce. Reagan’s personal popularity resulted in his policies leading our “advance to the rear” movement for 40 years (1981-2020).

The recent passing of James G. Watt (d. May 23, 2023) reminds us of the anti-environment policies and close-mindedness against climate change that has afflicted the Grand Old Party (G.O.P.) for decades. Mr. Watt was Reagan’s secretary of the Interior (1981-83), and it was he who set the example for denying climate change and advancing the use of fossil fuels even after scientists at Exxon, earlier in 1978, acknowledged that they were burning up the planet.

Watt was profligate in his leasing of federal lands to fossil fuel companies under the pretense of helping to pay off the national debt. Ironically, this was at a time when Reagan was cutting taxes on the extremely wealthy and tripling the national debt accumulated by all his predecessors combined. Besides, Watt’s leases were at rock-bottom rates, a steal for the fossil fuel industry, so hardly anyone bought Watt’s justification.

The House Interior Committee, chaired by a Democrat – whose party still held the majority in that body of Congress – asked him if he favored preserving wilderness areas for future generations. His reply was, “I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns.” I, and others, interpreted him to mean that we needed to use up all our natural resources while there was still time before Armageddon.

Watt’s supposedly “last gaffe” was when he complained about a Senate vote – and Republicans held majority control of the Senate – that barred him from leasing any more federal land. He was upset about who composed the panel that criticized his coal-leasing policies: He said that it contained “every kind of mixture – I have a Black, a woman, two Jews, and a cripple.” He was forced to resign post haste.

Nevertheless, each successive Republican administration during and after the Reagan-Bush era has tried to do more damage to the environment and more good for the fossil fuel industry than that of James Watt’s tenure at the Department of the Interior.

President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney: Bush placed Cheney, who had close ties to Halliburton and the fossil fuel industries, in charge of the newly formed anti-environmental Energy Task Force. (Photo: Brookings)

George W. Bush created an Energy Task Force in early 2001 that consisted of numerous Cabinet secretaries and other appointed federal officials and was chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney. Although its meetings and findings were held in secret, we have since learned who they met with. In at least 40 sessions, the task force sought extensive advice from utility companies and the oil, gas, coal, and nuclear energy industries and their lobbyists. It agreed to hold one meeting with representatives from 13 environmental groups, but Cheney didn’t bother to attend. Please remember that climate change was well recognized as a global issue at that time. With news of polar bears drowning due to melting ice, Bush II eventually admitted that climate change did exist, but that was about all he did.

Donald Trump’s energy policy was basically the same as Bush-Cheney’s: Promoting fossil fuels and denying climate change. In addition, his main emphasis was on undoing everything Barack Obama had done to try to save the planet. Sadly, for six years, Obama had to do everything by executive order, which could be undone by a later chief executive, such as Trump.

Recent polls indicate that virtually all Republican leaders and a large majority of likely Republican voters do not consider climate change a serious issue that must be addressed. This plays straight into the hands of Charles Koch’s donor network that finances multiple extreme right-wing think tanks to replace our democracy with an autocracy that represents plutocratic and theocratic interests.

Charles Koch: With his late brother David, Mr. Koch used his wealth from Koch Industries to gather like-minded anti-environment and anti-government donors to sponsor numerous think tanks to guide the policies of the Republican Party. (Photo: Bo Rader/AP)

The Heritage Foundation recently published a catastrophic G.O.P. “battle plan” called Project 2025: Acknowledge the obvious existence of climate change but deny any urgency to do anything about it; increase drilling and cut back on clean energy; to be implemented by an autocratic president. It’s essentially a “How to Burn Up the Planet Guidebook.”

As I have pointed out time and time again, the way for the G.O.P. to gain power is to accept that there are not enough extremely rich voters to win elections. The plutocrats (the wealthy) must get the support of single-issue voters: the minority who are evangelicals, the minority who oppose abortion rights, the minority who oppose gun safety regulations, the minority who oppose LGBTQ rights, the minority who oppose saving the planet, the minority who oppose democracy, the minority who want to suppress voting rights….

To win elections, they must unite these disparate minority groups, and they have been extremely successful. How else did George W. Bush (2000) and Donald J. Trump (2016) win the presidency? The Koch donor network has been brilliant at getting control of state and local governments. They’ve set the stage for winning the undemocratic and now-dangerous Electoral College vote that officially selects the American president even if a candidate loses the national popular vote.

In addition to his appointment of Mr. Watt, another notable contribution to Reagan’s climate-change denial was his bragging about removing Jimmy Carter’s solar panels from the roof of the White House. His legacy continues to threaten us. If the Trumpistas, as the current G.O.P. is presently constituted, regain control of the executive branch and either or both houses of Congress, we will not only lose our democracy: We will also lose the quality of life on the planet that we’ve been neglecting for far too long.

A version of this essay was published in south Arkansas’s El Dorado News-Times, on June 25, 2023.

When the NYC police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar, drag queens got fed up and rioted, setting off the Gay Rights Movement in 1969. (Photo: Michael Vi/Shutterstock)

When Ronald Reagan stuck to prepared scripts, he performed his ceremonial role as president to near-perfection. However, he rode to his election exploiting the Americans who were being held hostage in Iran (they were released – probably not coincidentally – the moment he completed taking the oath of office) and was re-elected on the excellent but ironic slogan “It’s morning again in America” while unemployment and inflation were still quite high and before his Iran-Contra Scandal was exposed.

Regardless, his legacy rests in his laying the groundwork for the Republican Party’s near-unanimous turn to the dark side that’s so prominent today. For instance, he utilized religion to lock-in the evangelical vote for the G.O.P. and gaining the support of the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons. Even though he never tried to do anything for them, he did give lip service to supporting unconstitutional things like official prayers in the public schools.

Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell, two evangelical opponents of abortion and gay rights, gained great influence over the Republican Party. (Photo: U.S. News/Getty Images)

After the Stonewall Riot in 1969 suddenly brought gay rights into the American consciousness of discrimination and equal rights, scapegoating gays became ripe for getting votes from those with anti-gay religious beliefs. One of the first things the Reagan administration did in 1981 was to go through Jimmy Carter’s White House subscriptions to newspapers and periodicals: They canceled The Advocate, the gay rights publication out of San Francisco. (In contrast, President Barack Obama created the Stonewall National Monument in NYC.)

Probably the most reprehensible and malicious policy of the Reagan administration was its pretending to be deaf, dumb, blind, and stupid (standard operating procedure for today’s Trumpistas) to the mysterious and devastating so-called “gay disease” that appeared during his first term. Doctors and pharmaceutical researchers were frustrated that they could get little to no funding, or even acknowledgment of the problem, from the Reaganites because the disease (HIV- AIDS, unknown at the time) seemed to afflict mostly homosexuals and drug addicts.

President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney: Cheney, who earned the moniker Darth Vader, stepped out of character and opposed the administration’s and their campaign’s support for an anti-same-sex marriage amendment. (Photo: Politico)

I first began writing these monthly essays – in my local newspaper they were either guest columns or letters to the editor – in August 2004 because the Bush-Cheney administration was using threats of constitutional amendments to divide the American voters by turning out the evangelical and hate votes for their re-election. They had amendment efforts for anti-abortion and anti-same-sex marriage circulating through Congress. Conspicuously, they were intended to take away or deny people’s rights and to expand the government’s involvement in their private lives, not to expand rights to more citizens and provide equal justice under the law. Fortunately, those amendments did not go anywhere at that time.

The current right-wing Federalist Society-stacked U. S. Supreme Court has since overturned Roe v. Wade and set back women’s rights for the foreseeable future in many Red States. That regressive success inspired Justice Clarence Thomas to continue his quest to turn back equal rights by suggesting that his fellow reactionary 6-3 majority revisit the ruling that authorized homosexual marriages. Not unexpectedly, Justice Thomas, a black man who is married to a white woman, has not suggested overturning the ruling that allows interracial marriages. Ethically challenged, Thomas doesn’t mind taking away people’s rights as long as no one comes after his.

Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was appointed by George H. W. Bush to replace the late civil rights champion Thurgood Marshall. Although also black, Thomas is otherwise the complete opposite of Marshall. (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP file)

Even though both Reagan and George W. Bush supported anti-abortion (the anti-same-sex marriage amendment didn’t come up under Reagan), they differed on the HIV-AIDS issue. The general consensus is that Pres, Bush’s finest achievement was PEPFAR (the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). The U.S. Department of State describes it as “the largest commitment by any nation to address a single disease in history, enabled by strong bipartisan support across ten U.S. Congresses and four presidential administrations and through the American people’s generosity.” The learning by Bush-Cheney and many of their fellow Republicans that AIDS was not only a gay or drug addicts’ disease showed that even some members of the G.O.P. could be educated on some issues.

On the other hand, Representative Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) is leading the Republican House majority’s opposition to renewing PEPFAR for the next five years. Presumably the saving of 25 million lives globally is enough. To pass the renewal, Smith insists that language be added to the bill to prevent any clinic or organization that receives our funding for AIDS not be allowed to also provide abortions. PEPFAR is probably the best foreign policy program we have – especially in Africa – but trying to get Republicans to care about that may be a lost cause. Fortunately, former president Bush is lobbying his party members to renew what is possibly his only positive legacy.

Likewise, Donald Trump’s most worthwhile legacy was his Warp Speed program to develop a vaccine for Covid-19. Bizarrely, he and his own party became adamantly opposed to the vaccine’s use. The Trumpistas are even promoting the “Democratic” presidential candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who used to be a commendable advocate for the environment, because he’s become an anti-vaccine nutcase. He’s become an embarrassment both to his party and to his family.

Arkansas’s Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders had embarrassingly been Pres. Trump’s press secretary for a while. After she left the job, the position became mostly titular and most daily press briefings were terminated. Now, as governor, she seems to hope to turn Arkansas into anotther right-wing version of Texas, Florida, or Tennessee. (Photo: Doug Mills/The New York Times)

Meanwhile, mean-spirited governors and state legislatures in Red States like Texas, Florida, and my own state of Arkansas are passing laws to prevent transgender kids from receiving the medical care they need.

Be it women’s bodily autonomy, transgender kids or adults, or anyone trying not to get ill, there qre always people who want to make their lives miserable and those people gravitate toward what is still known as the Republican Party. They threaten the American ideals that everyone should have equal rights and that our government should promote the general welfare. The idea is to use cultural issues to divide – not unite – the American people

In one way or another, all of the above are part of and a continuation of Ronald Reagan’s dark legacy.

A version of this essay was published in south Arkansas’s El Dorado News-Times on July 30, 2023.

Central High School in Helena-West Helena, Arkansas: When I was there (1970-74), it was one of the largest high schools in the state and the community was still economically thriving. Sadly, neither is true today. [Photo: Yearbook 1979]

I salute today’s teachers, many of whom are under duress following the pandemic restrictions and the ever-increasing mass shootings in schools. It’s especially difficult if they teach in Red States with governors and/or legislatures that are “anti-woke.” They’re not allowed to express any empathy for specific Americans and their history. And, with all the irrational and sinister book banning, we seem to be living in George Orwell’s nightmarish 1984 where the state rewrites what is the “truth.” Also, with taxpayers in Red States being required to pay for vouchers to private schools and for homeschooling, the future does indeed look bleak. If it’s any consolation, it’s always been difficult to do the best job our students are entitled to.

The first year I taught 11^th grade American history was in 1971 at Central High in Helena-West Helena, Arkansas. The principal called me in after a few months to explain that there should be no difference in my classes than those of any of the other American history teachers’ classes. However, using psychology on me, he said that I should not change anything I was doing. Translated: I could completely blow off four of my five classes – if I wanted to – but I was not to change a thing in the class his daughter was in. I never changed anything I was doing, and I survived to eventually chair the social studies department during my final year there (1973-74).

By the way, the principal’s daughter went straight to college after the 11^th grade. She told me later that her survey of U.S. history professor was shocked that she knew so much about McCarthyism. She explained to him, “I had a very good high school American history teacher.”

The principal’s wife taught many of my students in her honors algebra classes. She told them, “Don’t let that man tell you that Abraham Lincoln was a great president. This country has only had one president: Jefferson Davis.” Nevertheless, her husband and the assistant superintendent created two honors American history classes the next year for me to teach. (The assistant superintendent’s son was to be in one of those classes.)

Tom Conner was one of three of my Central High School American history students who joined me on three separate canoe trips on the Buffalo National River in north-northwest Arkansas. Tom was the second to go with me, and he was the most fortunate: It was on the upper and fastest part of the river, and the water level and temperature were perfect during the Easter break in 1974. [Photo: David Offutt]

At the American School of Quito (1976-78), I taught a mixture of national students, who understood English, and American students, who were there because their parents had been transferred to Ecuador for one reason or another, and they may have shown up at any time of the school year. One of my new mid-year American students heard me say or ask something to the class, and she looked around the room to the other students and said, “Do we talk about that in here?” “We cover everything in here,” was the class’s proud reply. They all loved it, and she fell right in. I remember that exchange, but I have no recollection of the topic that inspired it. Nothing they needed to know about was taboo.

One of the peculiarities of the American School was that we had no history textbooks. That was not a problem for me. Back at Central High, I assigned pages to read from our textbook for each class period, but we never used the book in class. I told them that I wanted them to know what we would be talking about each day in advance to eliminate any shock effects. We also finished the book each of the three years I taught U.S. history there, but I never was able to do that again because I kept adding additional things into my lessons.

A view from my classroom of part of the American School of Quito with the Cotopaxi volcano in the background: As much as I loved living in Ecuador and teaching at that school, I used to joke that the reason I left was that the school was relocating the next year to a site that would deprive me of my semi-daily view of Cotopaxi. Some days it was obscured by clouds. [Photo: David Offutt]

In Quito, I was the textbook, and I never used notes in class. That required my getting up early each morning to prepare for my four courses. Because many of my students were not native English speakers, I wrote a brief outline on the chalk board as we progressed through each lesson – yes, there used to be such a thing as a chalkboard. One of my students flashed his notes to his biology teacher and told him, “It all comes right out of his head.”

What I did need from the school – and didn’t have – was two sets of classroom maps for world history and American history. I found that the school’s library had individual maps that I could check out one at a time, but the librarian didn’t like their leaving her possession. I always returned each map when I no longer needed them, but that was never soon enough for her. I tried to explain to her that I would bring each map back to the library as soon as I finished a particular topic, but she never understood. I finally got the principal to order me some maps, and she never ceased to remind me how much they cost. (Teaching shouldn’t be completely abstract: students need to see what we’re talking about.)

Marcelo Santos, Rudy Cuadros, and Esteban Rodriguez: Three of my American history students in front of my classroom with Cotopaxi in the background. [Photo: David Offutt – My color photos from nearly 50 years ago are fading fast, so I’m scrambling to scan, edit, and save them.)

At Wynne High School, again in eastern Arkansas, (1978-80), I was hired to teach the honors U.S. history class that had been previously taught by the newly appointed department head, and she resented my not asking her advice on how to teach a subject that I specialized in, constantly complaining to the principal. (She had been asked to take all the 12^th grade American government classes that the retired former head of the department had taught.)

The principal called me in to ask me if I was teaching about American Indians in my honors class, as if Native Americans were not a fit subject. At first, I thought this was a joke, but I also knew that the department head was always harassing him about what a terrible job I was doing. I refrained from laughing and explained that I always began U.S. history with the original inhabitants of the lands that the Spanish, French, Russians, Dutch, and English encountered upon landing. I also pointed out that the westward expansion of the United State could not be properly taught without addressing its effects on the native inhabitants. Again, I didn’t change what I was doing.

Yours truly in my classroom at Xavier Prep in the mid-1980s: The U.S. Department of Education came to observe our school and curriculum. My observer came in during a period that we were going over the test my students had taken the day before. He was shocked that I had graded them so soon – which was routine – and asked me for copies of other tests I had given. The school was named one of five nationwide that had ideal curriculums. That was my meager contribution. [Photo: a Xavier Prep student]

These were all fine schools but the best was Xavier Prep in New Orleans, Louisiana (1980-87). It was an all-girls, all-black, Catholic school run by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. The problem that first year was that the students united in complaining that I was too hard, too unreasonable, too unfair, and too whatever. The guidance counselor came to see me and couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about. Then, the principal came in and told me point blank: “We know what the students are up to; we know what you are doing; do not give in to them; we are behind you 100%.” The following six years were the best I ever had.

Teaching may not be as fun as it once was, but I hope that today’s teachers will strive to do the best they can during our present divided and trying times.

Note: A version of this essay was published in South Arkansas’s El Dorado News-Times on May 7, 2023.

President Joe Biden signs the Inflation Reduction Act and passes the first pen to Sen. Joe Manchin, the man whose vote made the bill possible. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who secretly negotiated the deal with Manchin, applauds. [Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images]

The best news since Earth Day 2022 has been the enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) which was signed into law by President Joseph Biden on August 16, 2022. It was an omnibus bill of $738 billion, of which $391 billion will be spent on clean energy and climate change. It’s the largest climate bill ever, anywhere, and it needed to be even bigger. Why? Because of our irresponsible procrastination for over 40 years. It was remarkable that even this shortened version of the original Build Back Better bill got passed.

The Senate was evenly divided at 50-50, and the 21^st century Republican Party was/is united in its opposition to doing anything to save the planet or to reduce the cost of prescription drugs or to modernize the Internal Revenue Service so that it could serve the public conveniently and get wealthy tax cheats to pay their rightful share. All of those were in the bill.

Furthermore, they are determined to prevent any Democratic president from accomplishing anything or to at least weaken or sabotage anything he does get passed. That malicious policy was used successfully against President Barack Obama, but it began in earnest against President Bill Clinton. However, they were willing to compromise with Clinton on many Republican positions like the horrible “Three Strikes You’re Out” crime bill and the catastrophic repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. After their absurd impeachment of Clinton for lying about his cheating on Hillary failed, virtually all willingness to compromise with Democrats ended.

So, the passage of the IRA was all up to Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat and fossil fuel tycoon holdout. To get his vote (the 50th), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) secretly negotiated with him and reached a compromise. Schumer agreed to add a provision that Biden had campaigned against: allow millions of acres of federal land to be auctioned off for oil and gas drilling. VP Kamala Harris broke the tie. That’s how the deplorable Willow Project to drill for oil in Alaska was made possible.

Politics in a democracy is the art of compromise. Without compromise, you do not have a democracy. Opponents of democracy often believe that if anything in a piece of legislation is bad, then the whole bill is bad. The late senator Hubert Humphrey (D-Minn.) was criticized for accepting half a loaf instead of holding out for the whole loaf, but he understood that in a democracy change comes incrementally, not all at once. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal transformed America, but it was far from perfect: Since FDR got no support from the Republicans, he had to rely on the votes of southern Democrats and had to compromise with them. Remember: A benevolent dictatorship is an ideal – it will never be a reality. Hopefully, although they’re severely endangered, democracy and compromise won’t be lost.

Michael S. Regan is Biden’s director of the Environmental Protection Agency. [Photo: ncpoliticalnews.com]

Also, on this Earth Day, we should note that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been back in business since Biden appointed Michael S. Regan as its administrator. The agency had a four-year hiatus during the Trump administration but is now functioning again and looking out for the people’s and the planet’s health.

In the IRA, Congress classified greenhouse gases as pollutants to be regulated by the EPA. In the works are proposals to limit carbon emissions from existing coal and natural gas power plants, to cut tailpipe emissions and thus speed up the transition to electric vehicles, and to curb methane leaks from oil and gas wells. They will need to go through public comment periods but hopefully will be in place by mid-2024.

Of course, there will be opposition from Red State attorneys general. My own state of Arkansas’s attorney general Leslie Rutledge joined others in opposing Obama’s attempt to regulate power plants. She is now my lieutenant governor and has nothing to do, so she can do no more damage. My former lieutenant governor, Tim Griffin, is now the attorney general, and he will probably try to establish an anti-environmental record so as to run for governor whenever Sarah H. Sanders threatens to run for the Senate. Ironically, Arkansas calls itself “The Natural State.” Saving the planet is an uphill battle.

The sixteen young plaintiffs in Held et al. v. Montana [Photo: Our Children’s Trust]

One of the most encouraging actions on the state level will be the case of Held et al. v. Montana that goes to trial on June 12, 2023. The Busse brothers, Badge and Lander, who are now ages 15 and 18 respectively, saw what climate change was doing to their beloved wilderness near Glacier National Park. In 2020, they recruited 14 other concerned youths – the youngest was a boy of 2 with respiratory issues – and sought help from Our Children’s Trust. Rikki Held, who was the oldest – over 18 at the time of filing – received her name on the case.

Our Children’s Trust has similar cases in all 50 states, but this will be the first to come to trial. Nate Bellinger, its senior staff attorney, is representing the 16 plaintiffs, pro bono. Montana’s 1889 constitution essentially placed the state government into the hands of the coal, gas, and oil industries, which dominate the state. However, two years after the first Earth Day in 1970, a new constitution was ratified in 1972.

The post-Earth Day constitution guarantees residents “the right to a clean and healthful environment” and declares the state to be responsible for maintaining and improving the environment “for present and future generations.” Therein lies the state’s liability and the justification for the youths’ lawsuit. The youngsters insist the state has not been living up to its responsibilities. (Montana, sadly, has one of only six state constitutions that guarantees a healthful environment.)

Whenever the young take the lead to get their elders to do something they should be doing without being told, you know there is hope.

Note: A version of this essay was printed in south Arkansas’s El Dorado News-Times on April 23, 2023

President Ronald Reagan, Vice President George H.W. Bush, and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill (D-Mass.): The Democrats had just lost control of the Senate for the first time in 25 years. O’Neill had to preserve the New Deal and the Great Society from the ravages of a hostile president and Senate, and his own Democratic caucus was running scared. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Ronald Reagan’s election and presidency had a detrimental effect on the character of the Democratic Party. His coattails in 1980 resulted in 12 Democratic senators being defeated, including three giants of the Senate who were some of the most dedicated public servants our nation has ever had: Birch Bayh (Ind.), Frank Church (Idaho), and George McGovern (S.D.). Their losing should not have been surprising because they were from Republican states, but it was shocking nonetheless.

It gave the Republicans a 53-seat majority in the Senate, although the Democrats maintained control of the House. However, House Democrats began to run scared, fearing their own voters might become Reagan Democrats and vote them out in the next election(s). That’s how Reagan’s agenda, like tax cuts for the rich that quickly tripled the annual deficit and national debt, was often passed in the House. Too many congressional Dems believed they had to run and behave as Republicans-Lite to stay in office or to get elected in the first place. Reagan Democrats are still entrenched in the Republican Party, making up a large part of the Trumpista cult.

Democratic presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama were all corporate Democrats, but, in spite of some of their economic policies, they did a lot of good things. That’s why I consider them to be the best “Republican” presidents since Eisenhower. (Photo: History News Network)

Bill Clinton decided the same thing so as to be the first Democrat in the White House after 12 years of Reagan and Bush I. He adopted the Republican neo-liberal, market-oriented economic philosophy to get elected. Nevertheless, he quickly tried to go big with universal health care and action on climate change but was rewarded by the voters in 1994 with the Democrats losing both houses of Congress. It was the first time the Republicans had gained control of the House in 40 years. Clinton conceded: “The era of big government is over.”

Barack Obama inherited the Great Recession from Bush II and was able to get two important bills passed with no Republican support: A stimulus bill, which included infrastructure and renewable energy initiatives, and a major health care bill. However, to do so required him to water down both programs to get enough Democrats in the House and Senate to vote for them: Many were Republicans-Lite and insisted on cuts to each program to appeal to Reagan Democratic voters. (Also, in return for their “support,” Congressional Republicans also insisted on revisions, which they got, but none of them voted for either bill.)

Hence, Obamacare was based on a plan introduced by the right-wing Heritage Foundation as a corporate alternative to the 1993 Clinton plan and had been successfully implemented in Massachusetts by then-Republican Governor Mitt Romney. The stimulus bill was watered down to about half of what was needed, but, while very successful in ending the Great Recession, it only provided the impetus for the gradual economic growth that we experienced until the Covid pandemic.

Obama’s semi-progressive accomplishments were rewarded by the birth of the reactionary Koch brothers’ TEA Party movement and voters returning Republicans to majority control of the Senate. Sadly, Obama caved, saying that the government needed to tighten its belt just like families do, ignoring the lessons of the Great Depression.

The Koch Brothers, David and Charles, the fossil fuel titans, used their right-wing think tanks and other organizations to create the TEA Party, primarily to prevent Obamacare from becoming law. They were able to get a large number of conservatives and Reagan Democrats to say that extremely wealthy corporations and individuals were Taxed Enough Already. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Within the last two years have we seen signs of the party of FDR, Truman, JFK, and LBJ: An American Rescue Plan, a postal reform bill, the Inflation Reduction Act – which was also the largest anti-climate change bill ever – and a huge infrastructure bill, which even got a few Republican votes. There’s still hope yet, but the next two years will be mostly stagnant because of Republican control of the House and some of the federal courts.

While Jimmy Carter favored deregulation of industry, like AT&T, and never pushed for universal health care, as I’ve written before, he was still one of our better presidents in spite of his being demonized by the Republicans. Clinton and Obama were clearly corporate Democrats who responded to the anti-government Reagan Revolution. That’s why, for other reasons, I refer to them as the best “Republican” presidents since Dwight D. Eisenhower. Carter after four years, and Clinton and Obama after only their first two years all learned the lesson articulated by Clare Boothe Luce: “No good deed goes unpunished.”

Those other reasons are mostly environmental, cultural, and quality of life issues in which the two major parties have diametric points of view. Liberal George McGovern and conservative Barry Goldwater once discussed the fact that both wanted the same things for Americans, they merely differed on how to accomplish those goals. That hasn’t been true for the last 40-plus years. What the progressives advocate, the reactionaries don’t want at all or want to undo whatever has been gained. The progressives have been evolving on these issues while the reactionaries have been devolving.

Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) [Photo: Joseph Scherschel/Time-Life Pictures] and Sen. George McGovern (D-S.D.) [Photo: Getty Images): In 1964 Goldwater was the first extreme conservative to be nominated for president by the GOP; McGovern was known as an FDR Democrat, but the Nixon campaign successfully labeled him as an extreme liberal in 1972. Today, Goldwater wouldn’t be extreme enough for the Trumpistas, but McGovern would probably fit right in with the Democratic Party.

Here are some of the issues that the Democrats have been improving on while the other party wants nothing to do with, to sabotage, or to abolish: Abortion rights, appointments to the Supreme Court and other federal courts who are non-reactionary, appointments to cabinet positions who want their agencies to serve the people, childcare, child labor laws, conservation of public lands and waters, family leave, gun safety, health care, immigration and citizenship reforms, industrial regulation policies, LGBTQ rights, living wages, public education, racial justice, rational taxation of those most able to pay, recognizing and addressing climate change, vaccine encouragement, voting rights, and workers’ rights.

There are specific successful, beneficial Democratic programs that are always in the bullseye of Republican sights: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP or food stamps). Given the opportunity, they will end each and every one of them.

You may have noticed that all the above issues and programs promote strong family values that advance DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and the American Dream. Ronald Reagan would have considered most of them to be socialism, a term he never seemed to understand but knew how to get political mileage from. The current Republican Party claims that family values are forced births, discrimination, book banning, limiting education, and attacking transgender kids.

Voters sporadically notice the ever-increasing differences in the two parties. Therein lies hope for the future of our republic.

Note: A version of this essay was published in south Arkansas’s El Dorado News-Times on March 26, 2023.

Ronald Reagan: His Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of the Fairness Doctrine resulted in his being named “The Father of Fake News.” In fairness, Adolph Hitler earned that title much earlier, but Reagan’s action was extremely consequential. [Photo: Denver Post/AP)

This series of essays has been attempting to show how the Republican Party incrementally descended into a Trumpista cult that now doesn’t even support the peaceful transfer of power. The nation’s rightward Reagan Revolution began with Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, and it did not end with the Election of 2020.

Many hoped the nation’s regressive slide would have ended after the Democratic victories in 1992 (w/Bill Clinton) or 2008 (w/Barack Obama), but voters reacted against each of their progressive actions – primarily their health care initiatives – by electing Republican congressional majorities in 1994 and 2010. This encouraged the G.O.P. to continue its anti-government agenda and devolve deeper into what is now the Trumpistas’ current threat to our democracy and constitutional system. What follows is another action of the Reagan presidency that set the stage for these trying times.

The Fairness Doctrine was introduced in 1949 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). It applied to radio and TV stations that received licenses from the FCC to use the public airwaves. It required broadcasters to provide opposing views to controversial issues. Originally it rarely resulted in enforcement because stations voluntarily honored their license agreements.

Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson and President John Fitzgerald Kennedy: Each of their presidencies attempted to advance civil rights opportunities. Each of their administrations received one-sided opposition on radio stations in rural America, which violated the Fairness Doctrine. [Photo: CBS News]

That began to change in the sixties when rural stations began airing one-sided views against the Democratic administrations of JFK (New Frontier) and LBJ (Great Society), often in opposition to those presidents’ civil rights efforts. Both administrations filed lawsuits against stations that were violating the Fairness Doctrine. The debate essentially asked which was more in the public interest: free speech providing only one side of an issue or free speech that’s fair and balanced?

In 1986, the FCC consisted of three commissioners appointed by Ronald Reagan and one appointed by Richard Nixon, and it voted 4-0 to repeal the Fairness Doctrine. The next year, the then Democratic-led Congress responded by passing legislation that reinstated the doctrine, requiring the FCC to enforce it, but Reagan vetoed the bill. Another effort was made in 1991, but it died when George H. W. Bush threatened that he, too, would veto it.

Just as Reagan’s failed nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court opened Pandora’s box, causing a proliferation of reactionary Federalist Society-endorsed judges being appointed by Republican presidents to the federal courts, so too did ending the Fairness Doctrine. This time it released an explosion of extreme right-wing talk-radio hosts who appealed to the dark side of their listeners.

Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh: Major celebrities on extreme right-wing television and radio programs. [Photo: AP Photos]

The pioneer of what became known as “Hate Radio” was Rush Limbaugh, a latter-day Father Coughling, an anti-Semitic, fascist radio demagogue of the pre-WWII era. In 1988, Limbaugh signed a nation-wide syndication contract, and his show was offered to stations at no cost. From the get-go he espoused wacky conspiracy theories and divided America into “us” versus “them.” The most common description of him was “vicious,” a word he seemed to wear as a badge of honor. Not surprisingly, Donald Trump trashed the once-prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom by bestowing it on him shortly before Limbaugh’s death.

In 1996, Rupert Murdoch created FOX NEWS as a conservative cable alternative to Ted Turner’s CNN and the major broadcast networks. Billed as being “fair and balanced,” it conspicuously began as a propaganda arm for the Republican Party and eventually became its policy-making tool as well. It’s hard to believe that anyone was fooled who remembered Walter Cronkite, Eric Severeid, and Roger Mudd on CBS; Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, and John Chancellor on NBC; Howard K. Smith and Harry Reasoner on ABC; and Robert MacNeil, Jim Lehrer, and Bill Moyers on PBS.

Note: FOX NEWS, being a cable network, would not have been legally constrained by the FCC even if the Fairness Doctrine still existed.

I recall a televised meeting during Barack Obama’s first term between him (alone) and all the Republican senators. It was a complete mismatch: the president was mopping the floor with them. I was watching the Fox “News” coverage until the Republicans embarrassed the network so much that they chose to cut away and promised to return if something “substantive” was taking place. I laughed and changed to a network that was still covering the event.

Bill O’Reilly: For a while he was the most popular bloviator on FOX NEWS’s prime time programming. Keith Olbermann, formerly on MSNBC, had a segment on his show about the three worst people in the world on a given day – O’Reilly was usually one of the three. [Photo: Fox News]

FOX NEWS became such a joke that different names have been used for it over the years: Fox So-called News, Faux News, and simply Fox – but that confuses it with another cable channel. I prefer to refer to it as Fox “News” to let readers know that I’m aware that it’s not the real thing. One of its biggest stars for many years – before he had to leave because of sexual abuses – was Bill O’Reilly. He explained why he, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and others were so popular: They were more entertaining than the other networks. I think that was the only rational thing I ever heard him say. They yelled at their guests, saying outrageous things they knew their audience wanted to hear, the facts be damned. Mis-infotainment was their ticket to success. The running gag was that the more you watched Fox, the less you knew.

A question ever since the demise of the Fairness Doctrine was this: Do these talk-radio and Fox “News” bloviators really believe the lies and nonsense they spout or are they simply willing to say anything as long as they are paid a lot of money to do so? I’ve always presumed that greed was their motivation. Now that Dominion Voting Systems has filed suit against Fox “News” for lying about its machines rigging the 2020 election, we’ve learned the truth. Murdoch and his biggest star Tucker Carlson have admitted that the motive was “green” (money): They were concerned about ratings, advertising, and stock prices, so they had to lie to their base viewers about the election being stolen so as to keep them from going elsewhere, like to NewsMax, for their fake news.

Kevin McCarthy [Photo: Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images] & Tucker Carlson [Photo: Seth Wineg/AP]: McCarthy, who refused to honor a subpoena from the House January 6, 2021 Committee to testify, gave exclusive access to all the security footage of the attempted coup in the U.S. Capitol to Tucker Carlson, one of the election deniers on Fox News who knew there was no stolen election.

Any doubts anyone may have had about the close alliance between the Trumpistas (G.O.P.) and Fox “News” was erased when Kevin McCarthy, the party’s titular speaker of the House, handed over 41-44,000 hours of high security footage of the coup attempt on the U.S. Capitol to Tucker Carlson, Fox’s lead liar about the “stolen election.” Carlson, dutifully, was able to find only just-under four minutes of footage to “prove” that the three hours of pillage, mayhem, and killings on January 6, 2021, were merely tourists visiting the nation’s Capitol.

Had Ronald Reagan not eliminated the Fairness Doctrine, “Hate” radio and Fox “News” may never have been able to subvert the Republican Party and divide the American people so successfully as to jeopardize the future of our American republic and our constitutional system.

Note: A version of this essay was published in south Arkansas’s El Dorado News-Times, February 12, 2023.

Robert Bork and Ronald Reagan (January 7, 1987): Because of Bork’s extreme conservative (reactionary) views, President Reagan had been warned by the new Democratic majority in the Senate that he should not be nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. Reagan nominated him anyway. [Photo: ZUMA Press/Alamy Stock Photo]

The Republican Party’s descent into an entity that is conspicuously anti-democracy, plutocratic, theocratic, white supremacist, and authoritarian has been incremental since World War II. It has gradually become the Party of No, the Party of Insurrection, the Party of Forced Births, and the Party of Chaos, Obstruction, and Sabotage. Instrumental in its devolution has been its ability to appoint a majority on the U.S. Supreme Court that is both partisan and reactionary It was Ronald Reagan, defying warnings of a Senate fight, who insisted on nominating to our highest court the most extreme right-wing candidate up to his time. This opened Pandora’s box.

Robert Bork is best remembered as the man who helped Nixon implement the October 1973 Saturday Night Massacre. Richard Nixon did not want to release his self-incriminating Watergate tapes to Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, so he ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson refused and resigned. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to do it. He, too, refused and quit. Nixon finally turned to Solicitor General Bork, who was perfectly willing to do it. Bork was known to be an advocate of executive supremacy over the other branches of government.

Robert Bork, Elliott Richardson, Archibald Cox, and William Ruckelshaus: Those involved in Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre. [Photo: eBay]

But he is far more significant than that. In 1982 Reagan was able to appoint the right-wing extremist Bork to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia because Republicans had regained control of the Senate the year before (for the first time in nearly 30 years). It was 1987 when Reagan tried to elevate him to the Supreme Court, but the Democrats had just regained the majority in the Senate.

Bork’s ideology and rulings were very troubling: He ruled in favor of a chemical corporation’s right to require women employees to be sterilized or lose their jobs; he considered the Civil Rights Act to be unconstitutional; he insisted that the right to privacy was not in the Constitution; and he believed the 9^th Amendment to be invalid. Number 9 of the Bill of Rights states: “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Bork sincerely believed that, since those other rights were not specified, whatever they were should not be considered by federal judges, regardless of changing times and attitudes or custom and common sense.

Some of Ted Kennedy’s remarks on “Bork’s America”: “Women would be forced into back-alley abortions” – “Blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters.” – “Rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids.” – “Schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution.” – “Writers and artists would be censored at the whim of the government.” [Photo: Unidentified)

Senator Ted Kennedy feared the consequences of Bork’s confirmation to the Supreme Court: “The damage that President Reagan will do through this nomination…could live on far beyond the end of his presidential term. President Reagan…should not be able to… impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of Americans.” Kennedy didn’t realize that Bork’s rejection would galvanize the extreme right wing and eventually lead to many of the things he feared.

Bork’s nomination was mercifully rejected 42-58 by the U.S Senate. Nevertheless, Mitch McConnell, a young Republican senator from Kentucky, swore vengeance against the Democratic majority, promising to ultimately stack the federal courts with justices just like Bork. Over the years. he’s succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest fears.

President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – the two accomplices in stacking the Supreme Court with right-wing extremists: Neil Gorsuch’s seat should have been filled by Barack Obama; Brett Kavanaugh should have recused himself from consideration because of credible accusations of sexual abuse; and Amy Coney Barrett’s seat, by Mitch McConnell’s 2016 standards, should have been filled by Joe Biden. Only one of those three seats should have been filled by Donald Trump, the least qualified man to be president in American history. [Photo: Unidentified]

As majority leader, McConnell said that his proudest achievement was that, for nearly a year, he prevented Barack Obama from appointing Merrick Garland, a moderate respected by both parties, to replace the late, reactionary Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. He prevented a 5-4 majority of moderate to moderate-left justices.

McConnell then got the compliant President Donald Trump to be his willing stooge and eventually appoint three more Borkists to the Supreme Court: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. They joined Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and – usually – Chief Justice John Roberts for a 6-3 Borkist majority. Trump had campaigned on the promise to only appoint justices recommended by the Federalist Society and only those who would overturn Roe v. Wade. He delivered. (McConnell was often embarrassed by Trump’s abuses of his office and the Constitution, but he used him to get the federal judges that he wanted – and to get the tax cuts for the rich that he wanted.)

The Federalist Society was founded in 1982, within the first two years of the Reagan presidency. Its purpose was to groom law students, lawyers, and judges to reverse the previous fifty years of liberalism by “checking federal power, protecting individual liberty, and interpreting the Constitution according to its original meaning.” (Since the Founding Fathers were influenced by changing times and attitudes and by their personal experiences and acquired knowledge, they no doubt would have been appalled by the concept of originalism.)

Leonard Leo: A man very few people know about, but it is he who is most responsible for the six-person majority of right-wing fanatics that we have on the U.S. Supreme Court today. As a product of the Federalist Society, worked tirelessly to get Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and John Roberts appointed to the court. As executive vice-president of the society, he hand-selected Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett for Trump to appoint. [Photo: Cornell Law School Staff]

Leonard Leo was vice-president of the Federalist Society and an unpaid adviser to President Trump, and it was he who selected all three extreme right-wing candidates for him to appoint to the Supreme Court. McConnell rammed them through confirmation in the Senate along strict party-line votes.

In the last 20-plus years we’ve witnessed Supreme Court rulings that were so anti-democracy and partisan-Republican that they boggle the mind – and these were with only a 5 to 4 reactionary majority. Bush v. Gore (2000): This stopped the counting of the votes in Florida to assure a Republican victory in the Electoral College [Bush rewarded his lawyer by making him Chief Justice John Roberts]. Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission (2010): This repealed campaign finance laws that were passed after the Watergate abuses and claimed that the money of the wealthy and Big Business was free speech that could not be limited in political campaigns. Shelby County v. Holder (2013): This castrated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 at a time when numerous Red States were actively seeking to restrict and suppress voting rights and effectively encouraged them to keep doing it.

Now that we have a 6 to 3 Borkist majority, women in America, depending on where they live, have been afflicted with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health ruling of 2022, repealing Roe v. Wade on its 50^th anniversary. The forced-birth ruling unleashed the Red States to move quickly to outlaw or severely limit women’s rights to control their own bodies. Apparently the purpose of this reactionary ruling and its resulting state laws is the G.O.P.’s obsession to put women back into their rightful place in the home.

Ronald Reagan, Robert Bork, Mitch McConnell, and Leonard Leo finally won. Thanks should be given to George H.W. Bush (Thomas), George W. Bush (Alito and Roberts), and Donald Trump – and we should not forget to thank the voters and the Electoral College who consciously wanted them to have the power to make lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court.

Note: A version of this essay was published in south Arkansas’s El Dorado News-Times, January 22, 2023.

Detail of a portrait of Ronald Reagan in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library (Photo of the portrait by David Offutt)

Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 and his two terms as president were extremely consequential. He instigated the regressive and rightward direction of the nation for forty years and, unwittingly, the rise of the Trumpistas who now threaten the life of our constitutional government. His coattails helped bring in a Republican Senate for the first time since the early fifties, and they held it for six years.

What saved us was that the Democrats kept control of the House, but even they were running scared, fearing that Reagan Democrats would turn against them, too. That’s another story that will be addressed in an upcoming essay in this series.

We need to pause at this point to take a look at what the descent of the Republican Party into a Trumpista cult has brought us: Current events, so to speak.

Zelensky and Trump: Among the numerous impeachable acts committed by Trump was his notorious phone call with Ukraine’s president placing a condition on Ukraine’s receiving armaments. In return, Trump wanted a personal political favor against his probable 2020 challenger. This led to Trump’s first impeachment. (Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

Donald Trump took office in January 2017, believing – as did Richard Nixon – that anything he did as president was perfectly legit. He could tamper with the FBI, not release his tax returns as required by law, and violate the Constitution’s emoluments clause to increase his personal wealth – the list goes on. For his first two years, his Republican sycophants in Congress said, “Go ahead. We’ll look the other way.”

The Democratic House victory in 2018 partially restored our checks and balances against a threatening authoritarian rule by, among other things, impeaching him two times. Senate Trumpistas continued to pretend to be deaf, dumb, blind, and stupid without embarrassment and let him get away with everything, ignoring the evidence and voting not guilty.

The Biden victory and a tie in the Senate in 2020 reminded us that American democracy was not dead yet – but it was a seriously close election. Nevertheless, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking 26 tie votes in the Senate and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi masterfully keeping her diverse caucus together, Joe Biden had an incredibly successful two years: the Covid rescue bill, the long-needed infrastructure and climate change bills, the respect for marriage bill, and the reform of the electoral count bill – just to name a few.

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA): Mr. Warnock won a special election in 2020, giving the Dems a 50-50 tie in the Senate. After posting an impressive and productive two years, he won again in 2022 for his own 6-year term. He ran against a completely uninformed and unqualified opponent, but it was a shockingly close election. His narrow victory gave the Dems a 51-49 majority. (Photo: Matthew Pearson/WABE)

The also close elections of 2022 were a mixed bag but still hopeful. Fortunately, most of the G.O.P, candidates who promised to steal the next election for their nominee regardless of the popular vote lost their bids on the state levels. The Democrats picked up a one-vote majority in the Senate, so executive-branch positions can be filled. Also, more federal court justices who are recommended by the American Bar Association can be approved to help re-balance the court system.

On the downside, the GOP gained a small, ten-vote majority in the House (222-212), which controls the power of the purse. Hence, we must prepare for obstruction and sabotage on urgent issues for the next two years. Don’t expect any progress promoting voting rights on the national level. Also, look for the Trumpistas to be deadbeats on paying the nation’s bills: They will probably refuse to raise the absurd debt limit so as to not meet the government’s obligations to pay for what it has already approved and appropriated funds for, thereby setting off a global economic crisis.

Also, with the House G.O.P. in the majority, on January 3 the revolutionary Trumpistas will select the speaker of the House, who is two heartbeats away from the presidency. Of the returning G.O.P. representatives, only Dan Newhouse of Washington and David Valadao of California voted to impeach Donald Trump for his violent coup attempt on January 6, 2021. Newhouse and Valadao are probably not being considered for the speakership – even if they were crazy enough to want the job.

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA): On Jan. 6, McCarthy’s life was in as much danger as all the other members of Congress. He failed to get Trump to call off his dogs and later held Trump accountable. Then he went to Mar-a-Lago to apologize to Trump and swear fealty to him. This guy hopes to be elected Speaker of the House on Jan. 3, 2023. (Photo: Susan Walsh/AP/ Los Angeles Times)

The man who does want the speaker’s job is Kevin McCarthy, the current minority leader from California. He’s an invertebrate who is terrified of Donald Trump and his base. He’s best described by JFK who said of another person, “He couldn’t lead an army down the hall to the men’s room.” The January 6 Committee recently referred him, Jim Jordan of Ohio, and two others to the House Ethics Committee for their refusals to respect subpoenas to testify.

Mr. Jordan was the chief bloviater who tried to disrupt the two impeachment hearings, projecting himself as a blithering idiot. Believe it or not, he is about to become the chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Both he and McCarthy have no respect for the chamber in which they reside and should be given no positions of responsibility.

For 40 years, the Republican right wing has been purging anyone in their midst who showed signs of being a true public servant. They’re now down to the dregs, and they have no one of sufficient quality or stature in the House worthy of being the speaker. McCarthy currently doesn’t have the 218 votes necessary. Nine extreme reactionaries have publicly opposed him. If he loses five or more Republicans, he can’t win. They need to recruit someone from outside the House to take on the role, but who would that be? I have one suggestion.

Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson: Arkansas governors have no real veto power because a simple majority vote can override his veto, so a lot of bad bills – such as on voting rights and abortion – became law, often with his signature. However, he is a loyal, old-school tax-cutting Republican. He’s not mean and nasty like the Republican legislature that he moderated as best he could. He did it for eight years. I fear for my state now they’s he’s gone. (Photo: AP photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Arkansas’s now former-governor Asa Hutchinson is now available. He’s contemplating a run for the presidency as an alternative to any Trumpista, but the speakership at this time is tailor-made for him. He served in the House but, sadly, was one of the persecutors (sic) during the Clinton impeachment trial. I’ve never been a fan of his, but as governor for eight years he kept a mean-spirited Republican legislature from doing more harm than it wanted to do. The right-wing lunatic fringe would never vote for him, but there may be enough Democrats who will hold their noses and support him.

There is a 3-point consensus as to why Democrats did so well in November when history and inflation were against them. First, the obvious reason is that the G.O.P. had obnoxious, unqualified candidates. Second, democracy itself was on the ballot, and enough potential voters realized how true that was. Finally, there’s “Dobbs.”

The Trump-McConnell U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Roe V. Wade and the reproductive rights of half our population. How that came about brings us back to Ronald Reagan who nominated Robert Bork to the Supreme Court.

(To be continued)

A version of this essay was printed in south Arkansas’s El Dorado News-Times on December 25, 2022.

Ronald Reagan’s finest film, and his best performance, was probably Kings Row (1942). I liked and remembered him well as the host and occasional guest star on Sunday night’s 1950’s anthology TV series General Electric Theater. [Photo: Henry C. Casselli Jr.’s Ronald Reagan (1989) in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. by David Offutt, 2016]

Only sixteen years after Barry Goldwater’s racist and reactionary campaign in 1964 was soundly defeated and only six years after Richard Nixon’s obsession with authoritarian powers led to his resignation in 1974, Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980. He did it on a campaign supporting the plutocracy and trickle-down economics and opposing women’s rights, civil rights, workers’ rights, government regulations, and environmental actions.

This was far sooner than the Koch brothers, David and Charles, thought possible. David had run on the Libertarian ticket for vice president in that same 1980 election. Reagan’s surprise victory offering far right policies convinced the fossil-fuel tycoons to abandon support for third parties and throw all their eggs into the Republican basket. Reagan showed them that extremism could win. And he did it with a sense of humor, a winning smile, and an aw-shucks personality.

That allowed the Koch brothers to essentially turn the G.O.P. into a subsidiary of Koch Industries to advance the interests of the plutocracy and other polluting industries. The former actor and spokesman for General Electric was exactly the president they were looking for. His beliefs helped them implement the Powell Memorandum and get voters to oppose government regulations of Big Business and prevent further environmental protections. The Kochs increased their right-wing think tanks, like the Heritage Foundation, and expanded their donor network to finance campaigns for anti-government supporters on the local, state, and national levels.

Nobel Prize laureate for economics Paul Krugman – The idea that if enough money is placed in the hands of those at the top of the economic pyramid that money will gradually trickle down to the rest of the population through jobs and investments has been called many things: Trickle-down economics, supply-side economics, or voodoo ecoomics. Since it’s never worked historically, it should be dead and buried, but it keeps being revived. That’s why Krugman calls it Zombie Economics. (Photo from How to Academy)

Economically, Reagan reintroduced “trickle-down” economics, but he sold his tax cuts for the rich as “supply-side economics.” He assumed correctly that most people wouldn’t realize it was same policy that gave us the Great Depression. Historically, if you put more money into the hands of the rich, you make them richer, but you never get them to invest enough of that windfall in creating more jobs, and the resulting tax-revenue loss never pays for itself. George H.W. Bush called it “voodoo economics” when he competed against Reagan for the 1980 Republican nomination, but he adopted it so as to be Reagan’s vice president.

Reagan liked to give speeches decrying the vast national debt, but his policies tripled the national debt accumulated by all the previous presidents combined. Much of his spending was financed by our borrowing from Japanese banks. Voters didn’t mind. That inspired Vice President Dick Cheney to later explain that “deficits don’t matter.” Donald Trump’s only major legislative accomplishment was his ten-year tax cut for the rich. Its only two effects were to make himself and his fellow plutocrats richer and increase the annual deficit and national debt. Economist Paul Krugman calls it “zombie economics” because it keeps coming back to life after being proved a failure.

One of Reagan’s many pet peeves – as was true of the Kochs and their donor network – was the existence of labor unions, even though he had been a president of the Screen Actors Guild. But don’t forget that he was a longtime spokesman for General Electric, and that company sponsors a special exhibit for him in his presidential library and museum. During his first year in office, he saw a chance to drive a stake into the heart of the union movement, which had been responsible for the prosperity of America’s middle class since FDR’s New Deal.

David Offutt at The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library: I have visited many presidential libraries, but this one is the closest one to a deification shrine that I’ve ever seen. (Photo by David Offutt, 2016)

On August 3, 1981, 13,000 of the 17,500 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) union, a United States trade union, went on strike. This was after the collapse of its negotiations with the government to relieve stressful working conditions with shorter hours and better pay. Reagan ordered them back to work and, when they refused, began firing 11,359 controllers, thus breaking the union. Reagan’s popularity and his conspicuous contempt for unions began the long decline of union membership in America and led to the ever-increasing income-inequality that plagues the country today.

Reagan wanted to increase the military budget beyond what it was asking without raising taxes, so he froze the budgets for most other government agencies and gave the Pentagon the money that should have gone to the rest of the executive branch. As the population increases, agencies of the federal government must receive annual increases to properly serve the needs of the American constituency. The primary purpose of Reagan’s policy was to assure an inefficient government.

That was definitely not an unexpected consequence. For example, as he cut taxes on the rich and corporations, Reagan cut funding for the IRS so that it would be less likely to catch tax cheaters. Corporations and plutocrats have teams of lawyers and accountants who file massive, complicated tax returns that they know cannot be properly audited unless the IRS is well staffed. As a result, over the last 40 years, billions of dollars that are rightfully owed to the American people have not been paid. The Internal Revenue Service is not only understaffed but is also handicapped by having to use obsolete computers and other equipment that prevent it from doing its job.

The Inflation Reduction Act that increased spending for the Internal Revenue Service for hiring more staff and purchasing more modern equipment was opposed by all Republicans, and they hope to repeal that provision during the next congressional session.

Reagan’s IRS policy continued until the recent partisan Democratic passage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 that finally increased funding for that agency. Also, the House Ways and Means Committee recently obtained six years of Donald Trump’s tax returns, which The Donald had been desperately trying to prevent. It learned that, in spite of it being legally required of presidents since 1977, the former president escaped being audited while he was in office, and he paid zero taxes in 2020.

(To be continued.)

A version of this essay was printed in south Arkansas’s El Dorado News-Times on November 6, 2022.

Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump: Mr. Reagan showed the Republican Party that it could win with extreme right-wing positions. Mr. Trump realized that the GOP was his to be had. (Photo: CNN)

While not a great actor, Ronald Reagan was like-able enough to perform the ceremonial role of President of the United States to almost everyone’s satisfaction. His presidency was surprisingly consequential even though most of his policies were contrary to the popular will and to the nation’s best interests. There were many dark sides to his presidency, and they lay the groundwork for the rise of the Trumpistas who now threaten our democracy and our constitutional system.

Whereas Barry Goldwater pioneered anti-government extremism and Richard Nixon believed that anything the president did was legal, both of them came up short: Goldwater lost his presidential bid in a landslide defeat to LBJ in 1964, and ten years later Nixon avoided impeachment and conviction by resigning his office. It was Mr. Reagan who succeeded in embedding into the Republican Party (the G.O.P.) most of the traits of today’s Trumpistas: White supremacy, anti-women’s rights, anti-government, anti-environment, anti-LGBTQ, anti-democracy, pro-trickle-down economics, pro-political and ideological control of the federal courts, pro-theocracy, pro-plutocracy, and pro-authoritarianism.

Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan: Barry Goldwater pioneered the Southern Strategy, which was for the G.O.P. to seek white supremacists as a primary voting base. Nixon and Reagan successfully exploited the ploy only to be outdone by Trump. (Photo: Nixon Foundation)

Reagan became popular with white supremacists as governor of California with his rants against “welfare queens” that he carried over into the White House. From the Nixon tapes, we know of the governor’s phone call to Nixon referring to Blacks as being “jungle bunnies,” which got a chuckle out of Nixon. To open his campaign for the presidency, he went to the county fair outside Philadelphia, Miss., where three freedom riders were brutally murdered,. That symbolism was not missed by the voters. He also opposed the creation of Martin Luther King Day, even though he signed it into law anyway. Although obvious, his racism was considered subtle or dog whistles at the time. Today’s Trumpistas don’t bother with subtlety.

His successful presidential campaign in 1980 was aggressively anti-feminist. Even though his wife, Nancy, had persuaded him to sign a right-to-abortion law when he was governor of California, he promised as president he would support a constitutional amendment to prevent abortions anywhere in the nation. He was strongly influenced by the rise of the Christian Right – the “so-called” Moral Majority – which effectively believed that a woman’s place was in the home and that abortion was a sin. George W. Bush continued the mission but failed to push his anti-abortion amendment through Congress. It was the Trump/McConnell Supreme Court that finally got rid of the 50-year-old Roe v. Wade ruling.

The ERA has been around since just after women won the right to vote. This version of it was successfully sabotaged by the anti-women’s rights activist Phyllis Schlafly before Reagan took office. Reagan made sure it wasn’t resurrected. (Photo: National Organization for Women/Flickr)

Mr. Reagan was also a strong opponent of the ERA. The Equal Rights Amendment was passed by a Democratic Congress in 1972 with bipartisan support and was signed by Richard Nixon. It needed 38 states to ratify it by 1979 to be added to the Constitution. A Democratic Congress and president extended the deadline to 1982, but a Republican Senate with Reagan’s support refused to extend the ‘82 deadline. Virginia became the 38^th state to approve the amendment in 2020, but Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell’s Senate did not eliminate the previous deadline. The Democrats now need a filibuster-proof Senate to get it done.

The ERA simply states that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” I am embarrassed to admit that my own state of Arkansas is among the 12 patriarchal states that have not ratified this amendment. As one Arkansas politician said, “Women should be barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.” Fortunately, I’ve forgotten that guy’s name or position. Ironically, in 1981, to prove he wasn’t anti-women, Reagan appointed the first woman to the U.S. Supreme Court, but he picked one who was not an aggressive supporter of women’s rights: Sandra Day O’Connor.

One of the most unifying features of the Republic Party since the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt has been its determination to turn back the successes of the New Deal. It succeeded in stymying Truman’s Fair Deal but failed to prevent much of JFK’s New Frontier, LBJ’s Great Society, Obama’s Affordable Health Care Act, and Biden’s surprising progressive agenda. (Photo: The Street)

After supporting the New Deal during the Great Depression, Reagan turned against the idea that the government should lend a helping hand to those in need. Elected as the chief executive of the largest state government and then of the executive branch of the United States, he was peculiarly anti-government. He was fond of saying that the most scary words in the English language were “I”m from the government, and I’m here to help.”,

One of his first targets was to get rid of FDR’s Social Security System. Fortunately, the Democratic speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill, figured out that if he could get Reagan away from his reactionary staff and handlers, he could talk to Reagan and get him to understand the harmful ramifications of his actions. O’Neill had to compromise and give up benefits for some Social Security recipients, but he got Reagan to save the system. Nevertheless, Social Security and Medicare will forever be on the Republicans’ chopping block.

(To be continued.)

A version of this essay was printed in south Arkansas’s El Dorado News-Times October 30, 2022.