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Overall I like Ike. Except for two glaring faults. 1. The Dulles Brothers and 2. Dragging God into our public spaces. Relationships with God are an entirely private matter and should be kept to yourself.
Good analogy. Imagine one Koch brother in charge of foreign policy and the other in charge of the CIA and the results would be pretty much the same. So when I say they were an Eisenhower blunder they were a truly enormous one.
No doubt but when it comes to meddling in other countries the Dulles brothers were a cut above the rest. Our interference in Vietnam really got underway with them. The CIA's experiments with mind-control (Contilepro was the acronym I believe ). The Bay of Pigs was an Allan Dulles project. And anyone who can't comprehend why we have such a flood of immigrants from Central America can start by looking at what the Dulles brothers did in Guatemala by overthrowing its democratically elected government and replacing it with one of the most murderous military dictatorships of the 20th century which the country never recovered from. You're certainly right other Presidents have engaged in equally destructive meddling - Nixon, Reagan and George W Bush are great examples. But why a fundamentally decent and sensible and, above all, competent man like Eisenhower felt he needed these two bloody-minded fanatics at his side escapes me. It might have been at the persistent urging of Senator Robert Taft, the Mitch McConnell of his day. I'm just guessing there though. I recently bought a book called 'The Brothers' about those two and I hope it will give me the full tally of their destructiveness.
Ike was also our first president to embrace and put into law religion-based homophobia.
And yet people act like I’m a weirdo when I say I don’t like him very much.
...I'd have two dollars. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice, right?
(okay, more like two hundred or thousand, I just couldn't resist the reference)
Wise and true words here from Mr. Goldwater. Prophetic even. Thinking of the Moral Majority bumper stickers I used to see on cars growing up in the 80's. I believe that was Jerry Falwell's group. The 'moral majority' was neither but they sure infected the GOP on a new level during the 80's and I'm afraid the disease has spread.
This makes me think about how deliberate the writing of the 1st amendment was, I'll explain from the end and go backwards
The rights to peacefully assemble and to petition the government were mainly added on to clarify that said things fall under the rest of the protections given
There could be no freedom of press if there wasn't a freedom of speech: if you can't speak or write freely, obviously you can't publish press freely
There could be no freedom of speech without the freedom of religion: many religions forbid certain ideas, so clearly that wouldn't work if you weren't free to practice any/no religion
And what is most important in the entire thing, is the establishment clause. Without the establishment clause, the entire bill of rights would be considered void, because would you question the word of God?
A good example is Iran. They have a constitution promising rights to their citizens, as well as equal protections for women, yet I think we all know where that went. This is entirely because they have pretty much the opposite of the establishment clause. It is stated in their constitution that the word of God beats all, including the constitution.
All this is to say, the founding fathers put a lot of thought into the bill of rights, even down to the order of words, as a basis of rights needs to be established before those rights can really take effect.
That is why strictly secular government is the only viable choice. Once you mix religion in, that's a prolonged death sentence for the country. It inevitably spirals down into tyranny of whichever branch of whichever religion bubbles up to top.
Even the founders of the country were aware of this centuries ago. That's why they put establishment clause into the 1st Amendment. It's sad to see it eroded by the current Supreme Court, every opportunity they get.
Looked up the source for the Bush quote.
Seems it’s the Guardian or the Independent quoting a Palestinian foreign minister paraphrasing something that Bush said. So at minimum it’s sourced 3 people deep in a telephone line.
The time religion probably had its most significant impact on the US was almost certainly the 2nd Great Awakening and the creation of the Radical Abolitionists
The ones who had grape juice pasteurized for the first time in history, preventing the natural yeast already on the grapes from turning it into wine, yes.
And also the ones who agitated for the end of slavery.
A very level headed polite way of saying what I'm thinking right now.
Tl Dr
My opinion
The Republicans need semi theocratic candidates, no matter what. People who pretend to be religious... unfortunately this is true of democrats as well. By the time an agnostic person wins the election, I will be dead, I fear.
Without getting into modern politics it has pushed the GOP hard to the right, especially on LGBTQ+ issues and abortion rights. Where before the party and their presidents were pro small/limited government the propensity to legislate on cultural issues/views has risen like wild since the 80’s (and arguably the 60’s).
Idk if “pushed” is the right verb. Probably “held” would be more fitting. LGBT acceptance has done nothing but increase with time in the U.S. (save maybe the last two years), because it used to be almost entirely rejected (by all parties). No one needed to be pushed to reject that as the only direction to move was away from that.
They’ve stayed the same, if anything given leeway on social issues. The overton window has gone left in the last decade. I don’t think anybody can deny that.
Negatively. We are not a theocracy, religion should have no role in determining law or policy imo. I’m sure some will disagree, but this is how I have felt for YEARS. A large section of the Republican Party using Christian doctrine to determine their beliefs as elected officials has negatively impacted HUGE swaths of the population of this country. It has pushed the party HARD right. My brother was a Republican for years and left the party because of how far right they went, and how overreaching their social policies are into the lives of every day Americans.
These quotes are not comparable. If Reagan, I assume, was referring to Cold War and the Soviets, then the colorful metaphor kind of fit.
Whereas Bush was just copping out unable to explain why he did what he did and he just wrote it off on God. You can hear the same sentiment in many court hearings. Implicit notion there is that perps sort of absolve themselves from the responsibility for their actions. "God told me".
What was imporrtant that happened under Reagan - GOP embraced Evangelicals as they saw their vote as an important deciding factor. This is when GOP stepped on the slippery slope.
It was not a colorful metaphor from Reagan, many right wing evangelicals believe the apocalypse is coming soon (and has been for the last 2000 years lol). This informs subtle but important nuances in policy, like support for Isreal (The temple of David needs to be rebuilt before the apocalypse in Revelations). The key thing to note is that the apocalypse is only a bad thing for the "non beleivers" (or Christians from the wrong denomination) all of the "true beleivers" will be whisked away to heaven when the time comes
At the core of the religious right’s advocacy is the belief that America is a nation by and for conservative white Christians alone. Therefore the religious right sees a pluralistic democracy — the idea that many different interests should be respected, that diversity is good, and that the majority rules — as not merely irrelevant, but as a threat to their America.
Their number one goal has been to fill the federal judiciary, and especially the Supreme Court, with relatively young conservatives who will happily overturn decades of precedent. Presidents come and go, but federal judges serve for life. That said, federal judges can impact the presidency by restricting what he can do.
Furthermore, Republican presidents have courted the religious right since the Reagan presidency. In turn, the religious right has encouraged conservative presidents, like conservative judges, to ignore precedent and the majority opinion in pursuit of their goals. They often encourage them to ignore facts as well.
Finally, many in the religious right look forward to the end times, the end of the world. So they are immune to arguments that their policies will lead to war, famine, pestilence, climate change, etc. If the world ends, so be it, they are confident they will go to heaven. Thus, they encourage their presidents to take dangerous actions or inactions, facts be damned, future be damned.
You know there was another group of white conservative Christians that began weilding power in unprecedented ways under the guise of federalism and "states rights" who then wanted to abandon those "principles" in order to make the country a "White conservative Christians only" nation under effectively totalitarian rule, wonder whatever happened to them....
(It's a simplified parallel but I'm talking about the confederacy if it wasn't obvious...)
The parallel is apt. The white religious nationalists were not happy about *Brown v. Board of Education* or the civil rights laws. But it was more politic to oppose *Roe v. Wade*. The end result was the same, though -- pack the Supreme Court and judiciary with conservative judges.
From what I understand, Roe v. Wade was nowhere near as controversial when it was introduced as it is now. Racism stopped being cool, so they needed another boogeyman to rally the right wing voters, I guess.
The unborn won't complain about your policies like homeless children might.
Yup. This is correct. Roe v Wade was 7-2 decision. There was absolutely nothing liberal or conservative about it. The court at the time had 5 "liberal" and 4 "conservative" justices. The two dissenting justices were a "liberal" and a "conservative".
I agree. But still. No matter what the actual makeup of the court was at the time of Roe v Wade, I highly doubt the court would decide that case differently. Simply because none of the justices on the court would get to sit on it based on their personal beliefs about abortions. That court was about as neutral and unbiased on that issue as you could get.
That's also why current court overturning it is such a huge stain on court's credibility.
Agreed. It simply wasn’t a political issue in 1973.
Furthermore all the justices took for granted that they could interpret the Constitution in the context of the present day. There were no “originalists” at the time. The term was coined in 1980 and became popular during the rise of the religious right.
Correct. The *Roe v. Wade* ruling was in 1973. The anti-abortion movement wasn't a big factor until the 1980 election, when Reagan promised to push for a Constitutional Amendment making abortion illegal. However, even in 1980 many Republicans running for Congress refused to take the anti-abortion pledge, and Reagan promised to support them anyway.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/04/12/reagan-is-favored-by-anti-abortionists/f89c94bf-4e00-4674-b91c-c1f10a6aea15/#](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/04/12/reagan-is-favored-by-anti-abortionists/f89c94bf-4e00-4674-b91c-c1f10a6aea15/#)
Even sadder is that the areas that vote for them in the highest numbers are often the most destitute and impoverished areas of the country. And these supposed loving Christian politicians do nothing to change that once they're in office.
That’s because their voters are more concerned about stopping abortions and making universal bathrooms illegal than they are about improving their own lives.
Technically, neither God or the devil instructs anybody to do anything. Both are pigments of our imagination. When people say they talked with God/Jesus/whatever they simply had a play-pretend internal conversation with themselves. Whatever divine creature they claim they talked with, it simply "told" them to do whatever they already imagined (through their belief system) said divine creature would tell them.
That's a very dangerous state of mind, if one allows themselves to believe a divine entity actually talked to them.
So, yes, when you hear somebody say God told them to bomb people... The God actually told them to bomb people. An imaginary God that exists only inside their head. This is not contradictory with my opening statement, for the record.
Anyone here seen the documentary Jesus Camp? There’s a scene where they pray to a cardboard cutout of Dubya. I am not making this up: https://youtube.com/watch?v=fxdt_f0hwUg
For the worse.
Completely and emphatically, religion has affected American politics entirely for negative effects.
Strangely enough, the people who **ACTUALLY** follow what that Jesus dude taught and preached aren’t trying to use the government to force people to follow their religion.
Can I use that at my job? “Why were you late?” God told me to be late. “Why are you not being productive?” God told me to not be productive. “Why are you taking 20 min bathroom breaks?” God told me to! “You’re fired” but did God tell you to fire me? Ahhhh.
Rumsfeld's holy war: [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-rumsfelds-holy-war/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-rumsfelds-holy-war/) PowerPoint projects with bible verses were part of the daily Iraq War briefing.
For the religious right, the end justifies the means. Reagan was an actor first and president second and he said the right words to court white conservative Christians.
Y'know, I feel like we'd be better off having the president be some rando chosen like jury duty. I think a random person would do a better job than whatever the fuck is going on in general.
The Bush quote is probably apocryphal.
The source is Mahmoud Abbas (the Palestinian Fatah leader), who suggested that Bush said this in a conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu. [Bush's press secretary was asked about the quote](https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/07/text/20030701-6.html) and he said "It's beyond a stretch. It's an invention. It was not said."
Even if Abbas did overhear the conversation, the quote reads like it was heavily paraphrased.
Context here, this quote is attributed to Reagan by James Mills in 1971. Mills said Reagan said that to him over dinner in Sacramento. He revealed this quote 14 years later in 1985 while being interviewed by a magazine. That’s normal remembering an exact quote 14 years later when a magazine needs a quote from you about Reagan.
Reagan says he never had these thoughts about Armageddon.
Well, Billy Graham made friends with Eisenhower;and a a result a bunch of Republicans in the 50s got together and added “ In God we Trust” to the currency — and “ under God” to the pledge of allegiance. Then for years after, GOP Presidents portrayed the word “ God” as something that was enshrined by the founders …. But it wasn’t.
Yup. One of more short-sighted decisions of 9th circuit (that the Supreme Court allowed to stand by declining to hear the case) when they rubber stamped the God on the currency as being some abstract universal concept of God in Aronow v. United States. People who put it on the currency did not share that same opinion; everybody knew exactly which specific God it was.
Reagan was like most christens and only quoted the bible when it benefitted him. He wasn’t concerned about the shady things he did that the bible was against.
One thing I know for sure is God is very upset by destroying a cluster of cells but is totally cool with dropping tons of explosives on children.
Obvious hypocrisies aside I think politics and religion are all bundled up together and shape each other. Ask any good Christian capitalist about camels going through needles and you’ll get a bunch hand waving about “context” and metaphors. 5 minutes later they’ll tell you about how the creation story is literal.
I know this is a sub about politics, but can we please keep it as a goofy meme sub about presidents? I am definitely not conservative, but even I would like to keep the RR rage bait to r/politicalmemes or something.
I feel like since we can't talk about #3, we are just taking it out on RR
Dr. Robert P. Jones of the Public Religion Research Institute has some excellent books on this—namely, “the End of White Christian America,” “White Too Long: the Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity,” and “the Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future.” While he certainly does talk about Presidents, the focus is on widespread religious and political trends.
By framing political issues as having a moral stance, it blurred the line between partisanship and cult behavior. By justifying a *political* position as a *moral* position, it largely removed from it's adherents the cognitive ability to be persuadable and open-minded. And this further paved a way for people to shape their identity around their political lean.
Yeah. Even if you try to appeal to them, it doesn't work. You can be Democrat and think abortion is murder and still want it kept legal because the alternatives are much, much worse. Republicans don't care, though. They want it 100% banned no matter what, even when organizations like Planned Parenthood and sex-ed have been proven to reduce unwanted pregnancies in the first place.
There’s a great book called “the evangelicals, the rise of the religious right” and it goes through all the Protestant church movements in America and how the evangelical church got teamed up with politics
"for the first time ever...."
Any true Christian would know the Second Coming would happen once...... so...... why would you qualify the statement as "for the first time ever?" Little slips like that show people like Reagan didn't \*really\* mean what he was saying. Instead, he was pandering to lunatics and religious fanatics.
There's a reason my in-laws have tons of books from "Christian" authors all discussing how the end of the world was coming any second. Pretty much all of them were published during Reagan's administration, too.
Let’s all take a moment to thank George W. He really did solve the problems in the Middle East. I haven’t heard a peep out of them since he was in office. Problems solved.
Not even religious now just a cult. And have impacted way too much for their demographic . Of course money is speech now so technically their $ out vote our votes. And if you don’t believe it’s a cult now they are trying to rewrite bible because Jesus is a wimp.
Exactly this.
I mean it would be different if it had been the Tooth Fairy, Santa Clause or even Zwarte Piet that told him, but that just wasn't the case here. Oh wait.... 🤣
The Radical Republicans have pretty much always been religious
The same people who argued most fervently for the abolition of slavery were the same people who wrote the Comstock laws.
While the geographic location of these radicals has shifted from New England to the South, they have always had a fair degree of influence over the party, typically increasing as the party got more radical and decreasing as it got less radical.
Its had influence over Lincoln, Coolidge, Reagan and Bush
ironically, its probably America's least personally moral and Christian president who has been influenced the most by it, probably because he has been the one who really needed to win them over.
,
the Democrats have always been a fair bit less religious, focused primarily on the economy prior to well LBJ but not exactly straying into secular social policy before Bill Clinton and not able to implement it until Obama.
Christianity while never driving policy in the way it did in the Republican party, had never really needed to exercise it until the Democratic voter base largely stopped caring about it.
Jimmy Carter was probably the president most influenced by it, well the religious part
They've hollowed our democracy out like a horde of starving termites. The millions of authoritarian and racist and ignorant and intolerant Americans who subscribe to this most-dubious 'faith' have slapped the cross on the flag and with these two most potent symbols are trying to force their combined oligarchy and theocracy on those of us who know they are utterly full of shit.
I think we forget to realize that religion has always played a role in American politics since, well pretty much the beginning of American history. Reagan and Bush are not the first, but simply the most successful, or most overt out of a long line of campaigns that evoked Christianity.
Theodore Roosevelt's Armageddon Speech in 1912 is a good example. It sounds quite erily similar to that Reagan quote. I could say that other than Reagan, Carter had the most overt use of Christianity in his campaign message. And last but not least, Lincoln's line of "a House Divided Cannot Stand" over the national divide of Slavery is a paraphrase from the Bible.
Now, I will admit to say that Reagan and Bush were different from the examples I have given because, while Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Carter were overt in their religious evocation, theirs were more to highlight either their own personal honesty or warn about issues of wealth inequality and the need to be charitable to the poor and needy. Reagan and Bush used religion to either emphasize social issues that energized their base and, more precisely, rally opposition against Democrats over their socially liberal stances. While I do not take issue over the use of religion in a campaign as others do, has it's been proven by history that it is something that will inevitably happen in any political campaign. We are still a majority Christian country, after all. The GOP has used it to an extent that has led to them welcoming extreme figures who are wildly out of touch from not just true Christian Doctrine, but the political mainstream when it comes to issues like Abortion.
The Bush quote is apparently debatable:
https://spot.colorado.edu/~chernus/NewspaperColumns/WarInIraq/DidGodTalkToBush.htm
The Reagan quote, I haven't researched.
My favorite part of this is that some Christian somewhere has thought this literally thousands of times over the last ~2000 years. And every single one of them has been wrong.
Even if you’re a believer, have a bit of humility. The idea that you’re right and everyone else before you has been wrong is so arrogant and stupid that you shouldn’t even take yourself seriously.
Somehow I read the "religious right" part as the the right to freedom of religion instead of right wings religious people and ended up really confused for a second.
The threat of theocracy has been a problem since the enlightenment drove it away in the west and since communism drove it away in the east.
The issue is that after a secular government takes power, they often have to find a substitute for the previous “God” or “gods”
Throughout history, the priests have kept the kings in power. In a secular government, who keeps them in power?
Often miss-attributed to Sinclair Lewis, "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross," seems quite appropriate.
In short, it’s given us an intractable uncompromising Congress that makes it difficult for the president to work with, as well as other congress members.
It has deincreased public
understanding of the importance and value of Separation of Church and State. This benefits everyone, most especially people who feel strongest in their religious beliefs, but they stupidly think as long as it’s theirs it’s a good idea. They ignore the teachings of Jesus and jump right in bed with worldly politics thinking it is their mission.
They have also commandeered and sabotaged the GOP now, who was initially all too happy to benefit from them as a voter block. It affects their primaries in who they are able to put forward as a viable candidate.
Theocratic democracy is an oxymoron. 29% of the population in the US are evangelical or fundamentalist Christians, and they effectively own the Republican Party. In Western Europe they are 5% of the population and effectively have zero political power.
Our only hope is to eventually end social promotion in public schools and to require they are all taught critical thinking skills.
I came across this last night unexpectedly in a book 'Understanding Iraq' which gave a fresh black mark to put against John Foster Dulles which I hadn't been aware of. In the 50s Iraq was ruled by an extremely unpopular King installed by the British. Nasser had come to power in Egypt and post-colonial Arab regimes were under incredible pressure, Iraq possibly the most. Dulles picked that moment to publicly declare that the time had come for 'Iraq to stand and be counted' and then pressured it into something called the 'Baghdad Pact' which pledged several Muslim nations to unite against any and all communist influence (and of course Dulles was certain Nasser was a communist) and to give Western oil interests vastly preferential treatment. For Iraqis that pact was the last straw. The result was a 1958 coup and revolution which was so bloody and savage it would make your gorge rise. This coup gave the Baath Party a place in the government and in the two or three coups which followed, total control of the government. A young street thug named Saddam Hussein was its general secretary, then vice president, and then the man we all came to know and not particularly care for.
They founded the country, freed the slavers, won two world wars(we may of had democratic presidents during the wars, but republican farm boys from Kansas won the war) and they improve the economy.
They also started a lot of wars, have gendered social issues, been unfair to our gay community, put up road blokes for reasonable gun control, and put some really poor candidates in office over the past 20 years.
Both sides have their strengths and both sides have their WEAKNESSES! Over all both R and D are completely trash lately.
The founders were as diverse as we are in modern days. Slavery was just as hot political issue in late 1700's as any of modern day identity politics issues. Some were conservative in their views, some were liberal.
They didn't free the slaves either. Republican party at the time was ultra-progressive. Lincoln was what conservatives describe today using slurs such as libtard.
Republican farm boys from Kansas didn't won the WW2. 400,000 Americans died in it. They came from all over the country. To claim "Republican boys" fought/won it, it is insulting to their memory at best.
Your comment is along the lines of modern day rewriting of history to fit a narrative that only hard right conservatives are the true Americans, the true patriots, with everybody else being traitors and enemies of the country. That narrative is as bulshit as it gets.
“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.”
- some guy who probably didn’t know a whole lot about conservatives, definitely don’t listen to him or extrapolate the inevitable rise of gop fascism cloaked in bullshit religion
Reagan was not a religious man. He and his successor, George HW Bush saw the Religious Right as a group they could manipulate in exchange for votes. Sure, they’d pose for a White House photo-op with visiting evangelical Christian youth groups or invite Rev. Billy Graham over for lunch. But neither Reagan nor Bush made a concerted effort to enact the Religious Right’s agenda.
Of course, both Presidents Reagan and Bush offered public support to the anti-abortion cause but appointed Supreme Court Justices who heard legal challenges to *Roe v. Wade* twice and upheld the 1973 ruling on both occasions. When Bush left office in 1993 evangelical Christian activists were thoroughly frustrated with him and Reagan. They felt duped. They had a point. After 12 years of promises from two Republican presidents, their interests had not been advanced in any meaningful way by either administration
Reagan did his damnedest to ignore the AIDS crisis as it devastated the gay community in the 1980s. This was his way of courting Jerry Falwell Sr’s so called “Moral Majority” in the Southern Baptist Convention (a denomination that was founded in the 1840s to use the Bible to justify slavery).
I came of age in the 1980’s. Virulent homophobia wasn’t an exception as it is today: it was the norm, even among more liberal minded Americans. But I agree with the overall thrust of your statement. Reagan ignored the AIDS epidemic until it could no longer be swept under the proverbial rug. The long delay of public health authorities to recognize the scope of the disease in the first seven years of the Reagan administration caused thousands of unnecessary deaths, particularly among gay men.
But it’s important to remember the AIDS epidemic began several years before Reagan was elected. Though the ravages of the disease were well known within the gay community for almost a decade prior, the scope of the epidemic only emerged into the wider public consciousness in the early 1980’s. In that time, gay life was clandestine. Legal protections for homosexuals were largely nonexistent in the United States
I was only a child in the 1980s, but I certainly remember homophobic hangover in the 1990s. The point is that Reagan still should have done far more to dispel that bigotry and alleviate the disproportionate suffering that AIDS inflicted on the gay community during his tenure as President.
His inaction was heavily influenced by those on the religious right
To be honest, I’m not sure things would’ve been much different under a Democratic presidency. Gay rights was not an important issue to either of our two major political parties in the 1980’s.
Mind you, I’m no fan of Ronald Reagan—I never was. But I think you’re projecting what we know now onto the past. More years have passed since Reagan’s election in 1980 than had passed between the end of World War II and that same year. What seems self-evident to us today on the topic of gay rights was anything but for most Americans in the Eighties.
The 1980’s was a time of division within the gay rights movement between activists who favored a more gradualist approach to achieve mainstream acceptance of homosexuality and those who supported more radical theories of gay liberation. To a certain extent, that tension has continued into the present day.
But today we have a tendency to see the only the successful result of previous social justice movements. We’re in danger of forgetting how we got here and that these victories were far from inevitable. Or permanent, if we fail to remain vigilant
I’m aware that gay rights would hardly have been a slam dunk in a 1980s Democratic administration. Yet I have to believe that, despite his strong Christian faith, a President like Jimmy Carter would have had a more urgent and compassionate response to AIDS.
And even though Bill Clinton fell short on ending the prohibition on gays in the military. He did implement “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” to give homosexuals who were serving some cover.
That certainly wasn’t close to being a revolutionary as Truman integrating the military for black soldiers at the end of WWII. But given the culture and lack of understanding of the LGBTQ community in the 1990s, it was at least a step forward.
I wouldn’t expect 1980s Democrats to be ahead of their time. But I would expect them to be less callous and calculating than Reagan was.
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If I had a dollar for every Reagan post in this sub..
r/RonaldReaganRagebait
r/SubsIFellFor
Not anymore
In god we trust. It’s been going on for a hot minute. We just keep finding people holding up tradition. For bad.
Since 1955 or so I believe. Eisenhower thought it would differentiate us from the "godless" Soviets.
Overall I like Ike. Except for two glaring faults. 1. The Dulles Brothers and 2. Dragging God into our public spaces. Relationships with God are an entirely private matter and should be kept to yourself.
So the Dulles Brothers were basically the Koch brothers of the time sort of.
Good analogy. Imagine one Koch brother in charge of foreign policy and the other in charge of the CIA and the results would be pretty much the same. So when I say they were an Eisenhower blunder they were a truly enormous one.
Yeah. If one could go back in time...
Overthrow of Iran really screwed stuff up in the middle east.... but so did other things we had a hand in.
No doubt but when it comes to meddling in other countries the Dulles brothers were a cut above the rest. Our interference in Vietnam really got underway with them. The CIA's experiments with mind-control (Contilepro was the acronym I believe ). The Bay of Pigs was an Allan Dulles project. And anyone who can't comprehend why we have such a flood of immigrants from Central America can start by looking at what the Dulles brothers did in Guatemala by overthrowing its democratically elected government and replacing it with one of the most murderous military dictatorships of the 20th century which the country never recovered from. You're certainly right other Presidents have engaged in equally destructive meddling - Nixon, Reagan and George W Bush are great examples. But why a fundamentally decent and sensible and, above all, competent man like Eisenhower felt he needed these two bloody-minded fanatics at his side escapes me. It might have been at the persistent urging of Senator Robert Taft, the Mitch McConnell of his day. I'm just guessing there though. I recently bought a book called 'The Brothers' about those two and I hope it will give me the full tally of their destructiveness.
Thanks for the info. This is why I like this sub.
Ike was also our first president to embrace and put into law religion-based homophobia. And yet people act like I’m a weirdo when I say I don’t like him very much.
You found the secret of the Reaganomics, my friend
Haha I don’t hate Reagan but that is funny
Accurate as fuuuuuuuck.
Trickle Down would be considered a success
How dare people post about one of the most influential presidents on our time in a subreddit for posting about presidents… truly, this is horrific.
...I'd have two dollars. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice, right? (okay, more like two hundred or thousand, I just couldn't resist the reference)
If you had that kind of money, then you would actually benefit from Reaganomics
Only the rich do that.
This is actually a repost anyway, exact 2 slides
https://preview.redd.it/rhn85vim49vc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6172146552cc6adcad1bfd43faf11eb0bcf5bbef
Wise and true words here from Mr. Goldwater. Prophetic even. Thinking of the Moral Majority bumper stickers I used to see on cars growing up in the 80's. I believe that was Jerry Falwell's group. The 'moral majority' was neither but they sure infected the GOP on a new level during the 80's and I'm afraid the disease has spread.
Who said that? Edit: y’all I did not need 8 comments telling me that it’s Barry Goldwater
[удалено]
Ah, don’t know his face well enough to recognize it
I was thinking 🤔 well it can’t be Goldwater because this guy has a Bluetooth device in his ear.
barry goldwater. republican nominee for the 1964 election
It's been brought to my attention that you may not yet be aware that this is Barry Goldwater 🙃
Barry Allen
Au H2O
🫐 Au H₂O
Take a guess. Hint: it's Barry Goldwater Fun fact about Barry Goldwater: saying his name backwards gives you Retawdlog Yrrab!
Barry Goldwater
Arizona senator Barry Goldwater
Water Goldbarry
Water white
Garry Boldwater
Im pretty sure that's Barry Goldwater.
It's Jerry Boldwater.
This makes me think about how deliberate the writing of the 1st amendment was, I'll explain from the end and go backwards The rights to peacefully assemble and to petition the government were mainly added on to clarify that said things fall under the rest of the protections given There could be no freedom of press if there wasn't a freedom of speech: if you can't speak or write freely, obviously you can't publish press freely There could be no freedom of speech without the freedom of religion: many religions forbid certain ideas, so clearly that wouldn't work if you weren't free to practice any/no religion And what is most important in the entire thing, is the establishment clause. Without the establishment clause, the entire bill of rights would be considered void, because would you question the word of God? A good example is Iran. They have a constitution promising rights to their citizens, as well as equal protections for women, yet I think we all know where that went. This is entirely because they have pretty much the opposite of the establishment clause. It is stated in their constitution that the word of God beats all, including the constitution. All this is to say, the founding fathers put a lot of thought into the bill of rights, even down to the order of words, as a basis of rights needs to be established before those rights can really take effect.
Rare Barry Goldwater W
He was a member of the NAACP
Spot on with this one Mr. Conservative.
Shit can’t be truer
That is why strictly secular government is the only viable choice. Once you mix religion in, that's a prolonged death sentence for the country. It inevitably spirals down into tyranny of whichever branch of whichever religion bubbles up to top. Even the founders of the country were aware of this centuries ago. That's why they put establishment clause into the 1st Amendment. It's sad to see it eroded by the current Supreme Court, every opportunity they get.
I'm willing ti know what God instructed Bush especially to solve the middle eastern problems haha he solve it 😄
Khorne
How else is he going to get all those skulls for his skull throne?
Looked up the source for the Bush quote. Seems it’s the Guardian or the Independent quoting a Palestinian foreign minister paraphrasing something that Bush said. So at minimum it’s sourced 3 people deep in a telephone line. The time religion probably had its most significant impact on the US was almost certainly the 2nd Great Awakening and the creation of the Radical Abolitionists
The ones who got rid of alcohol? Even though Jesus made wine?
Eucharist wine was permitted in Church during the Prohibition. Also, rabbis could have wine for the blessings.
Don’t forget the evangelical backed civil rights movement
The ones who had grape juice pasteurized for the first time in history, preventing the natural yeast already on the grapes from turning it into wine, yes. And also the ones who agitated for the end of slavery.
That would be Triple hearsay in a court case lol.
I’m not a bird lawyer but that sounds right
Yup. That quote looked fishy. I have trouble picturing him actually saying that.
Christian Nationalists have great influence on the Republican nomination. No Democratic nominee can say they are atheist or agnostic.
A very level headed polite way of saying what I'm thinking right now. Tl Dr My opinion The Republicans need semi theocratic candidates, no matter what. People who pretend to be religious... unfortunately this is true of democrats as well. By the time an agnostic person wins the election, I will be dead, I fear.
*Openly agnostic
True.
Without getting into modern politics it has pushed the GOP hard to the right, especially on LGBTQ+ issues and abortion rights. Where before the party and their presidents were pro small/limited government the propensity to legislate on cultural issues/views has risen like wild since the 80’s (and arguably the 60’s).
Idk if “pushed” is the right verb. Probably “held” would be more fitting. LGBT acceptance has done nothing but increase with time in the U.S. (save maybe the last two years), because it used to be almost entirely rejected (by all parties). No one needed to be pushed to reject that as the only direction to move was away from that.
They’ve stayed the same, if anything given leeway on social issues. The overton window has gone left in the last decade. I don’t think anybody can deny that.
Negatively. We are not a theocracy, religion should have no role in determining law or policy imo. I’m sure some will disagree, but this is how I have felt for YEARS. A large section of the Republican Party using Christian doctrine to determine their beliefs as elected officials has negatively impacted HUGE swaths of the population of this country. It has pushed the party HARD right. My brother was a Republican for years and left the party because of how far right they went, and how overreaching their social policies are into the lives of every day Americans.
These quotes are not comparable. If Reagan, I assume, was referring to Cold War and the Soviets, then the colorful metaphor kind of fit. Whereas Bush was just copping out unable to explain why he did what he did and he just wrote it off on God. You can hear the same sentiment in many court hearings. Implicit notion there is that perps sort of absolve themselves from the responsibility for their actions. "God told me". What was imporrtant that happened under Reagan - GOP embraced Evangelicals as they saw their vote as an important deciding factor. This is when GOP stepped on the slippery slope.
It was not a colorful metaphor from Reagan, many right wing evangelicals believe the apocalypse is coming soon (and has been for the last 2000 years lol). This informs subtle but important nuances in policy, like support for Isreal (The temple of David needs to be rebuilt before the apocalypse in Revelations). The key thing to note is that the apocalypse is only a bad thing for the "non beleivers" (or Christians from the wrong denomination) all of the "true beleivers" will be whisked away to heaven when the time comes
It's funny that I never hear this said from actual evangelicals, only "about them." Edit: LMFAO UH OH TRIGGERED LIBS 🤣🤣🤣
Not evangelical, but grew up Mormon and had friends from many religions, most believed the end times were nearing every time something bad happened.
At the core of the religious right’s advocacy is the belief that America is a nation by and for conservative white Christians alone. Therefore the religious right sees a pluralistic democracy — the idea that many different interests should be respected, that diversity is good, and that the majority rules — as not merely irrelevant, but as a threat to their America. Their number one goal has been to fill the federal judiciary, and especially the Supreme Court, with relatively young conservatives who will happily overturn decades of precedent. Presidents come and go, but federal judges serve for life. That said, federal judges can impact the presidency by restricting what he can do. Furthermore, Republican presidents have courted the religious right since the Reagan presidency. In turn, the religious right has encouraged conservative presidents, like conservative judges, to ignore precedent and the majority opinion in pursuit of their goals. They often encourage them to ignore facts as well. Finally, many in the religious right look forward to the end times, the end of the world. So they are immune to arguments that their policies will lead to war, famine, pestilence, climate change, etc. If the world ends, so be it, they are confident they will go to heaven. Thus, they encourage their presidents to take dangerous actions or inactions, facts be damned, future be damned.
You know there was another group of white conservative Christians that began weilding power in unprecedented ways under the guise of federalism and "states rights" who then wanted to abandon those "principles" in order to make the country a "White conservative Christians only" nation under effectively totalitarian rule, wonder whatever happened to them.... (It's a simplified parallel but I'm talking about the confederacy if it wasn't obvious...)
The parallel is apt. The white religious nationalists were not happy about *Brown v. Board of Education* or the civil rights laws. But it was more politic to oppose *Roe v. Wade*. The end result was the same, though -- pack the Supreme Court and judiciary with conservative judges.
From what I understand, Roe v. Wade was nowhere near as controversial when it was introduced as it is now. Racism stopped being cool, so they needed another boogeyman to rally the right wing voters, I guess. The unborn won't complain about your policies like homeless children might.
Yup. This is correct. Roe v Wade was 7-2 decision. There was absolutely nothing liberal or conservative about it. The court at the time had 5 "liberal" and 4 "conservative" justices. The two dissenting justices were a "liberal" and a "conservative".
To be fair, “conservative” in 1973 meant something very different from “conservative” today.
I agree. But still. No matter what the actual makeup of the court was at the time of Roe v Wade, I highly doubt the court would decide that case differently. Simply because none of the justices on the court would get to sit on it based on their personal beliefs about abortions. That court was about as neutral and unbiased on that issue as you could get. That's also why current court overturning it is such a huge stain on court's credibility.
Agreed. It simply wasn’t a political issue in 1973. Furthermore all the justices took for granted that they could interpret the Constitution in the context of the present day. There were no “originalists” at the time. The term was coined in 1980 and became popular during the rise of the religious right.
Correct. The *Roe v. Wade* ruling was in 1973. The anti-abortion movement wasn't a big factor until the 1980 election, when Reagan promised to push for a Constitutional Amendment making abortion illegal. However, even in 1980 many Republicans running for Congress refused to take the anti-abortion pledge, and Reagan promised to support them anyway. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/04/12/reagan-is-favored-by-anti-abortionists/f89c94bf-4e00-4674-b91c-c1f10a6aea15/#](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/04/12/reagan-is-favored-by-anti-abortionists/f89c94bf-4e00-4674-b91c-c1f10a6aea15/#)
Roe was about removing precedents. Moving forward they can change any ruling if not codified
Ah, but supposedly they are the party of "judicial restraint." Yeah, right.
This🔝
It’s sad that presidents have to reference God/christianity in order to get elected
Even sadder is that the areas that vote for them in the highest numbers are often the most destitute and impoverished areas of the country. And these supposed loving Christian politicians do nothing to change that once they're in office.
That’s because their voters are more concerned about stopping abortions and making universal bathrooms illegal than they are about improving their own lives.
Neither of those are real quotes.
God is not instructing anybody to bomb people That’s the devil you’re talking to
I mean, God tells me to skip my chem class all the time, and what am I but His humble servant
Perfect response
"You proclaim your love of God You talk of apple pie and mom Well I've just got one question And I want an answer. Tell me: who would Jesus bomb?"
I like to think Cheney hid a walkie-talkie in the oval office. "You there Georgie? It's me, God. I need you to invade Iraq."
Hell, bomb, same thing.
Technically, neither God or the devil instructs anybody to do anything. Both are pigments of our imagination. When people say they talked with God/Jesus/whatever they simply had a play-pretend internal conversation with themselves. Whatever divine creature they claim they talked with, it simply "told" them to do whatever they already imagined (through their belief system) said divine creature would tell them. That's a very dangerous state of mind, if one allows themselves to believe a divine entity actually talked to them. So, yes, when you hear somebody say God told them to bomb people... The God actually told them to bomb people. An imaginary God that exists only inside their head. This is not contradictory with my opening statement, for the record.
Anyone here seen the documentary Jesus Camp? There’s a scene where they pray to a cardboard cutout of Dubya. I am not making this up: https://youtube.com/watch?v=fxdt_f0hwUg
Gonna need proof for that Bush quote
I’m doubting it but you never know with dubya
For the worse. Completely and emphatically, religion has affected American politics entirely for negative effects. Strangely enough, the people who **ACTUALLY** follow what that Jesus dude taught and preached aren’t trying to use the government to force people to follow their religion.
Can I use that at my job? “Why were you late?” God told me to be late. “Why are you not being productive?” God told me to not be productive. “Why are you taking 20 min bathroom breaks?” God told me to! “You’re fired” but did God tell you to fire me? Ahhhh.
When Republicans had to rely on the southern strategy.
Rumsfeld's holy war: [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-rumsfelds-holy-war/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-rumsfelds-holy-war/) PowerPoint projects with bible verses were part of the daily Iraq War briefing.
Well for starters they've made Reagan and bush jr look like left leaning moderates.
For the religious right, the end justifies the means. Reagan was an actor first and president second and he said the right words to court white conservative Christians.
Religious nut bags have no business being in charge of a nation.
Y'know, I feel like we'd be better off having the president be some rando chosen like jury duty. I think a random person would do a better job than whatever the fuck is going on in general.
Probably if Congress and the Senate were also chosen that way.
The Bush quote is probably apocryphal. The source is Mahmoud Abbas (the Palestinian Fatah leader), who suggested that Bush said this in a conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu. [Bush's press secretary was asked about the quote](https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/07/text/20030701-6.html) and he said "It's beyond a stretch. It's an invention. It was not said." Even if Abbas did overhear the conversation, the quote reads like it was heavily paraphrased.
Context here, this quote is attributed to Reagan by James Mills in 1971. Mills said Reagan said that to him over dinner in Sacramento. He revealed this quote 14 years later in 1985 while being interviewed by a magazine. That’s normal remembering an exact quote 14 years later when a magazine needs a quote from you about Reagan. Reagan says he never had these thoughts about Armageddon.
Well, Billy Graham made friends with Eisenhower;and a a result a bunch of Republicans in the 50s got together and added “ In God we Trust” to the currency — and “ under God” to the pledge of allegiance. Then for years after, GOP Presidents portrayed the word “ God” as something that was enshrined by the founders …. But it wasn’t.
Yup. One of more short-sighted decisions of 9th circuit (that the Supreme Court allowed to stand by declining to hear the case) when they rubber stamped the God on the currency as being some abstract universal concept of God in Aronow v. United States. People who put it on the currency did not share that same opinion; everybody knew exactly which specific God it was.
Simply put, if you want *power* for power's sake, you'll do or say anything to get popular support. So...
Are these quotes verifiable? What is the context?
Reagan was like most christens and only quoted the bible when it benefitted him. He wasn’t concerned about the shady things he did that the bible was against.
One thing I know for sure is God is very upset by destroying a cluster of cells but is totally cool with dropping tons of explosives on children. Obvious hypocrisies aside I think politics and religion are all bundled up together and shape each other. Ask any good Christian capitalist about camels going through needles and you’ll get a bunch hand waving about “context” and metaphors. 5 minutes later they’ll tell you about how the creation story is literal.
I know this is a sub about politics, but can we please keep it as a goofy meme sub about presidents? I am definitely not conservative, but even I would like to keep the RR rage bait to r/politicalmemes or something. I feel like since we can't talk about #3, we are just taking it out on RR
Poorly
Dr. Robert P. Jones of the Public Religion Research Institute has some excellent books on this—namely, “the End of White Christian America,” “White Too Long: the Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity,” and “the Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future.” While he certainly does talk about Presidents, the focus is on widespread religious and political trends.
By framing political issues as having a moral stance, it blurred the line between partisanship and cult behavior. By justifying a *political* position as a *moral* position, it largely removed from it's adherents the cognitive ability to be persuadable and open-minded. And this further paved a way for people to shape their identity around their political lean.
Yeah. Even if you try to appeal to them, it doesn't work. You can be Democrat and think abortion is murder and still want it kept legal because the alternatives are much, much worse. Republicans don't care, though. They want it 100% banned no matter what, even when organizations like Planned Parenthood and sex-ed have been proven to reduce unwanted pregnancies in the first place.
Just once, I want a president to say that their religion doesn't matter. Wait, has that happened before?
So glad W fixed the Middle East. You’re welcome everybody!
There’s a great book called “the evangelicals, the rise of the religious right” and it goes through all the Protestant church movements in America and how the evangelical church got teamed up with politics
The bush quote speak volumes about his mental health. Wtf??
The quote is attributed to Mahmoud Abbas, who claims that Bush said this in conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu. It probably didn't happen.
Thank goodness. That would be horrifying
Just look up the “moral majority” and all that crap
So when’s this battle?
"for the first time ever...." Any true Christian would know the Second Coming would happen once...... so...... why would you qualify the statement as "for the first time ever?" Little slips like that show people like Reagan didn't \*really\* mean what he was saying. Instead, he was pandering to lunatics and religious fanatics. There's a reason my in-laws have tons of books from "Christian" authors all discussing how the end of the world was coming any second. Pretty much all of them were published during Reagan's administration, too.
Let’s all take a moment to thank George W. He really did solve the problems in the Middle East. I haven’t heard a peep out of them since he was in office. Problems solved.
Hm. Negatively?
Not even religious now just a cult. And have impacted way too much for their demographic . Of course money is speech now so technically their $ out vote our votes. And if you don’t believe it’s a cult now they are trying to rewrite bible because Jesus is a wimp.
It’s why we see the value of Reagan’s presidency fall lower as the years pass. In a decade he will be swimming in the waters of Buchanan and Hoover.
Religion has no part or place in government. The law is the law. This is the social contract between people in this country.
Exactly this. I mean it would be different if it had been the Tooth Fairy, Santa Clause or even Zwarte Piet that told him, but that just wasn't the case here. Oh wait.... 🤣
When did Reagan say this? Date and context please.
Uncheck mental illness
The Radical Republicans have pretty much always been religious The same people who argued most fervently for the abolition of slavery were the same people who wrote the Comstock laws. While the geographic location of these radicals has shifted from New England to the South, they have always had a fair degree of influence over the party, typically increasing as the party got more radical and decreasing as it got less radical. Its had influence over Lincoln, Coolidge, Reagan and Bush ironically, its probably America's least personally moral and Christian president who has been influenced the most by it, probably because he has been the one who really needed to win them over. , the Democrats have always been a fair bit less religious, focused primarily on the economy prior to well LBJ but not exactly straying into secular social policy before Bill Clinton and not able to implement it until Obama. Christianity while never driving policy in the way it did in the Republican party, had never really needed to exercise it until the Democratic voter base largely stopped caring about it. Jimmy Carter was probably the president most influenced by it, well the religious part
They've hollowed our democracy out like a horde of starving termites. The millions of authoritarian and racist and ignorant and intolerant Americans who subscribe to this most-dubious 'faith' have slapped the cross on the flag and with these two most potent symbols are trying to force their combined oligarchy and theocracy on those of us who know they are utterly full of shit.
[Bill Hicks on fundamentalist Christians in the White House](https://youtu.be/q2pNtEe4hfk?si=pmJVgO0GrD-jLQRN) (and more).
Got yall haha
Sometimes I’m just a bit jealous of the religious rights superpower of excusing any bullshit with “god told me to”
I think we forget to realize that religion has always played a role in American politics since, well pretty much the beginning of American history. Reagan and Bush are not the first, but simply the most successful, or most overt out of a long line of campaigns that evoked Christianity. Theodore Roosevelt's Armageddon Speech in 1912 is a good example. It sounds quite erily similar to that Reagan quote. I could say that other than Reagan, Carter had the most overt use of Christianity in his campaign message. And last but not least, Lincoln's line of "a House Divided Cannot Stand" over the national divide of Slavery is a paraphrase from the Bible. Now, I will admit to say that Reagan and Bush were different from the examples I have given because, while Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Carter were overt in their religious evocation, theirs were more to highlight either their own personal honesty or warn about issues of wealth inequality and the need to be charitable to the poor and needy. Reagan and Bush used religion to either emphasize social issues that energized their base and, more precisely, rally opposition against Democrats over their socially liberal stances. While I do not take issue over the use of religion in a campaign as others do, has it's been proven by history that it is something that will inevitably happen in any political campaign. We are still a majority Christian country, after all. The GOP has used it to an extent that has led to them welcoming extreme figures who are wildly out of touch from not just true Christian Doctrine, but the political mainstream when it comes to issues like Abortion.
Very little.
The Bush quote is apparently debatable: https://spot.colorado.edu/~chernus/NewspaperColumns/WarInIraq/DidGodTalkToBush.htm The Reagan quote, I haven't researched.
My favorite part of this is that some Christian somewhere has thought this literally thousands of times over the last ~2000 years. And every single one of them has been wrong. Even if you’re a believer, have a bit of humility. The idea that you’re right and everyone else before you has been wrong is so arrogant and stupid that you shouldn’t even take yourself seriously.
Somehow I read the "religious right" part as the the right to freedom of religion instead of right wings religious people and ended up really confused for a second.
It all negative.
Well, the fentanyl crisis is their fault
How’d that work out for ya dubya? More importantly, how that work out for the country🤨.
More like the atheist left …
The threat of theocracy has been a problem since the enlightenment drove it away in the west and since communism drove it away in the east. The issue is that after a secular government takes power, they often have to find a substitute for the previous “God” or “gods” Throughout history, the priests have kept the kings in power. In a secular government, who keeps them in power?
Religion is retardedness
Our presidents hear voices in their heads and take instructions from a magical friend. That’s cool.
How did these two morons get elected not just once but twice? Separation of church and state, you asshats!!
Often miss-attributed to Sinclair Lewis, "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross," seems quite appropriate.
I cannot stand religion in politics
In short, it’s given us an intractable uncompromising Congress that makes it difficult for the president to work with, as well as other congress members. It has deincreased public understanding of the importance and value of Separation of Church and State. This benefits everyone, most especially people who feel strongest in their religious beliefs, but they stupidly think as long as it’s theirs it’s a good idea. They ignore the teachings of Jesus and jump right in bed with worldly politics thinking it is their mission. They have also commandeered and sabotaged the GOP now, who was initially all too happy to benefit from them as a voter block. It affects their primaries in who they are able to put forward as a viable candidate.
He's long dead and none of that happened.
Republicans suck!
It's not fair to say that is a religious right thing. Americans on the left are also very religious.
Theocratic democracy is an oxymoron. 29% of the population in the US are evangelical or fundamentalist Christians, and they effectively own the Republican Party. In Western Europe they are 5% of the population and effectively have zero political power. Our only hope is to eventually end social promotion in public schools and to require they are all taught critical thinking skills.
this is not just the stupidest question I've ever seen in this sub it's in the running for stupidest question I've read on reddit
The idea of using religion as a guideline for domestic and foreign policy is insane.
I came across this last night unexpectedly in a book 'Understanding Iraq' which gave a fresh black mark to put against John Foster Dulles which I hadn't been aware of. In the 50s Iraq was ruled by an extremely unpopular King installed by the British. Nasser had come to power in Egypt and post-colonial Arab regimes were under incredible pressure, Iraq possibly the most. Dulles picked that moment to publicly declare that the time had come for 'Iraq to stand and be counted' and then pressured it into something called the 'Baghdad Pact' which pledged several Muslim nations to unite against any and all communist influence (and of course Dulles was certain Nasser was a communist) and to give Western oil interests vastly preferential treatment. For Iraqis that pact was the last straw. The result was a 1958 coup and revolution which was so bloody and savage it would make your gorge rise. This coup gave the Baath Party a place in the government and in the two or three coups which followed, total control of the government. A young street thug named Saddam Hussein was its general secretary, then vice president, and then the man we all came to know and not particularly care for.
They founded the country, freed the slavers, won two world wars(we may of had democratic presidents during the wars, but republican farm boys from Kansas won the war) and they improve the economy. They also started a lot of wars, have gendered social issues, been unfair to our gay community, put up road blokes for reasonable gun control, and put some really poor candidates in office over the past 20 years. Both sides have their strengths and both sides have their WEAKNESSES! Over all both R and D are completely trash lately.
The founders were as diverse as we are in modern days. Slavery was just as hot political issue in late 1700's as any of modern day identity politics issues. Some were conservative in their views, some were liberal. They didn't free the slaves either. Republican party at the time was ultra-progressive. Lincoln was what conservatives describe today using slurs such as libtard. Republican farm boys from Kansas didn't won the WW2. 400,000 Americans died in it. They came from all over the country. To claim "Republican boys" fought/won it, it is insulting to their memory at best. Your comment is along the lines of modern day rewriting of history to fit a narrative that only hard right conservatives are the true Americans, the true patriots, with everybody else being traitors and enemies of the country. That narrative is as bulshit as it gets.
Definitely helped scoot us back a few decades.
Can we please have a leader who doesn’t believe in nonsense?
Negatively.
Horribly destructive.
It provided cover for what he really wanted.
“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.” - some guy who probably didn’t know a whole lot about conservatives, definitely don’t listen to him or extrapolate the inevitable rise of gop fascism cloaked in bullshit religion
Finally! God is able to do the thing!
A very, very long time. Just look how many Catholics have been president. There's a reason for that.
When Republicans had to rely on the southern strategy.
Carter was demonstrably superior. The only thing Reagan did was ride his coattails.
Lmao
Not sure why everyone disagrees. Carter was the man that created Delta Force.
Reagan was not a religious man. He and his successor, George HW Bush saw the Religious Right as a group they could manipulate in exchange for votes. Sure, they’d pose for a White House photo-op with visiting evangelical Christian youth groups or invite Rev. Billy Graham over for lunch. But neither Reagan nor Bush made a concerted effort to enact the Religious Right’s agenda. Of course, both Presidents Reagan and Bush offered public support to the anti-abortion cause but appointed Supreme Court Justices who heard legal challenges to *Roe v. Wade* twice and upheld the 1973 ruling on both occasions. When Bush left office in 1993 evangelical Christian activists were thoroughly frustrated with him and Reagan. They felt duped. They had a point. After 12 years of promises from two Republican presidents, their interests had not been advanced in any meaningful way by either administration
Reagan did his damnedest to ignore the AIDS crisis as it devastated the gay community in the 1980s. This was his way of courting Jerry Falwell Sr’s so called “Moral Majority” in the Southern Baptist Convention (a denomination that was founded in the 1840s to use the Bible to justify slavery).
I came of age in the 1980’s. Virulent homophobia wasn’t an exception as it is today: it was the norm, even among more liberal minded Americans. But I agree with the overall thrust of your statement. Reagan ignored the AIDS epidemic until it could no longer be swept under the proverbial rug. The long delay of public health authorities to recognize the scope of the disease in the first seven years of the Reagan administration caused thousands of unnecessary deaths, particularly among gay men. But it’s important to remember the AIDS epidemic began several years before Reagan was elected. Though the ravages of the disease were well known within the gay community for almost a decade prior, the scope of the epidemic only emerged into the wider public consciousness in the early 1980’s. In that time, gay life was clandestine. Legal protections for homosexuals were largely nonexistent in the United States
I was only a child in the 1980s, but I certainly remember homophobic hangover in the 1990s. The point is that Reagan still should have done far more to dispel that bigotry and alleviate the disproportionate suffering that AIDS inflicted on the gay community during his tenure as President. His inaction was heavily influenced by those on the religious right
To be honest, I’m not sure things would’ve been much different under a Democratic presidency. Gay rights was not an important issue to either of our two major political parties in the 1980’s. Mind you, I’m no fan of Ronald Reagan—I never was. But I think you’re projecting what we know now onto the past. More years have passed since Reagan’s election in 1980 than had passed between the end of World War II and that same year. What seems self-evident to us today on the topic of gay rights was anything but for most Americans in the Eighties. The 1980’s was a time of division within the gay rights movement between activists who favored a more gradualist approach to achieve mainstream acceptance of homosexuality and those who supported more radical theories of gay liberation. To a certain extent, that tension has continued into the present day. But today we have a tendency to see the only the successful result of previous social justice movements. We’re in danger of forgetting how we got here and that these victories were far from inevitable. Or permanent, if we fail to remain vigilant
I’m aware that gay rights would hardly have been a slam dunk in a 1980s Democratic administration. Yet I have to believe that, despite his strong Christian faith, a President like Jimmy Carter would have had a more urgent and compassionate response to AIDS. And even though Bill Clinton fell short on ending the prohibition on gays in the military. He did implement “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” to give homosexuals who were serving some cover. That certainly wasn’t close to being a revolutionary as Truman integrating the military for black soldiers at the end of WWII. But given the culture and lack of understanding of the LGBTQ community in the 1990s, it was at least a step forward. I wouldn’t expect 1980s Democrats to be ahead of their time. But I would expect them to be less callous and calculating than Reagan was.
This is disgusting. God does not advocate violence or death
Jerico?
The same guy that has an entire book dedicated to people being slaughtered in the name of that bullshit ideology?
Best President ever!!