Proving the ease of leading the flock by the nose...
MAGA has consigned the Reagan Revolution to “the ash-heap of history”
Trump's reaction to Ontario's anti-tariff ad reveals how fast a movement can be toppled
(Salon) President Donald Trump is worried. Besides the recent concerns he expressed about the state of his soul, he fears the Supreme Court will strip him of his tariff privileges. We know this because he had a temper tantrum upon hearing that Ontario had produced a television advertisement featuring President Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs — a response that was revealing, both about his mindset and strategy, and about how MAGA has turned away from Reagan’s once-mythic legacy.
The commercial itself was simple and effective. Against bucolic and urban images of industry and humanity, Reagan begins in his unmistakable voice, “When someone says ‘Let’s impose tariffs on foreign imports,’ it looks like they’re doing the patriotic thing.” For a certain swath of Americans old enough to remember his optimism and storytelling — and to ignore the extensive damage he did to the country — hearing his voice doubtless carries them back to a gentler time. Excerpted from a 1987 radio address, the remarks warn against protectionism broadly. (In the full five-minute address, Reagan also condemns pending congressional trade legislation aimed at Japan.)
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Trump is well aware of how Reagan was long held up as something of a god among Republicans, and Trump himself went to great lengths to suck up to him when he was president, albeit to little avail. In 1987, Trump had a big idea about foreign policy and trade, and he took out full page ads stating what is now his stale, familiar refrain about other countries ripping off the United States and laughing at us. You have to wonder if Reagan might have been talking about him when he said this in his address congratulating Canadians on their election in 1988:
We should beware of the demagogues who are ready to declare a trade war against our friends — weakening our economy, our national security, and the entire free world — all while cynically waving the American flag. The expansion of the international economy is not a foreign invasion; it is an American triumph, one we worked hard to achieve, and something central to our vision of a peaceful and prosperous world of freedom.
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Many of the staunch Reaganites who once believed in free markets, small government, private enterprise, international institutions and the “Pax Americana” guarantor of global security are now MAGA aficionados, enthusiastically endorsing every scheme Trump comes up with, from state capitalism to trade wars. Unlike the movement Reagan represented, there’s no long term education project, no underlying ideology, no commitment to principles. One day the administration is full force America First isolationism, and the next finds it blowing up boats full of civilians in international waters, with the president proclaiming “to the victors go the spoils.” ........................(more)
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