Your weekly excerpt from one of my books. This week: "The Hidden History of Neoliberalism: How Reaganism Gutted America and How to Restore Its Greatness"
What has happened in my home town is that most of the former Blue Blood Republicans (ala late Sen. John Heinz, former Govs Richard Thornburg, Raymond Shaffer, etc, mostly Presbyterians and Methodists) are anti MAGA and the former ethnic Democrats (mostly Catholics) are pro-Trump.
When I speak to those MAGA, they don't want to lose their Social Security and other governmental benefits. But mostly they are in denial that Trump/MAGA is the threat.
IMHO most of this can be traced to Nixon. Thom laid out what happened with the gold standard, but also our economy was undermined by competition from our "allies" like Germany and Japan. In my home town USSteel closed the Ellwood Works in 1972, and oil prices shot up, courtesy of OPEC at the same time the dollar was inflated. Japan put Youngstown Sheet and Tube, the 5th largest steel maker in the world out of bujsiness in 1977. As a result, Youngstown, already "Murdertown USA", became the unemployment and depression capitol of America, and this phenomenon spread throughout the rust belt.
Reagan took advantage of the situation. Made people believe that "altruism" was bad. Demagogued people on welfare. Ridiculed alternative energy. IMHO but for the October Surprise with the help from the Iranian Mullahs, he would not have been elected.
Among his first acts as president were to cut benefots for people on Social Security disability without a hearing and take the solar panels from the White House.
This chapter begs the question of how it came to pass that voters began to view the Republican Party as the party most qualified to run the US economy.
Clearly, Elon Musk's chainsaw metaphor seems an apt symbol for their reckless running of the economy. Republican presidents lied, cheated, and stole to change the economy, but they always ensured that their policies greened up their own cash stash, and just like today, administration corruption is the norm, starting with the First Family. As some historians have pointed out, the National Debt always soars when the GOP is in the White House, while it often tends to shrink a bit with those libtard commy Democrats in charge.
Thanks Thom for once again making a period in history that was at best murky crystal clear.
It’s ironic how history repeats itself and we as a people seem to allow these repeats as a natural course when it fact it’s a sign that we need to wake to the obvious, and REMEMBER as a society.
Like Charlie Brown we once more kicked and missed the ball and both literally and figuratively fell for the same old lies.
A solid encapsulation of what happened to us. However, I should also remind that a perhaps equal cause for the end of the gold standard and for the wild rise in inflation was the US Federal government's increased printing of dollars needed to pay for the Vietnam War (which was costing one Billion dollars a day -- that's '60s dollars!) under LBJ. France's DeGaulle had objected to this as it was causing inflation in his country and when the US failed to stop the practice, began returning US dollars and demanding gold in return.
What has happened in my home town is that most of the former Blue Blood Republicans (ala late Sen. John Heinz, former Govs Richard Thornburg, Raymond Shaffer, etc, mostly Presbyterians and Methodists) are anti MAGA and the former ethnic Democrats (mostly Catholics) are pro-Trump.
When I speak to those MAGA, they don't want to lose their Social Security and other governmental benefits. But mostly they are in denial that Trump/MAGA is the threat.
IMHO most of this can be traced to Nixon. Thom laid out what happened with the gold standard, but also our economy was undermined by competition from our "allies" like Germany and Japan. In my home town USSteel closed the Ellwood Works in 1972, and oil prices shot up, courtesy of OPEC at the same time the dollar was inflated. Japan put Youngstown Sheet and Tube, the 5th largest steel maker in the world out of bujsiness in 1977. As a result, Youngstown, already "Murdertown USA", became the unemployment and depression capitol of America, and this phenomenon spread throughout the rust belt.
Reagan took advantage of the situation. Made people believe that "altruism" was bad. Demagogued people on welfare. Ridiculed alternative energy. IMHO but for the October Surprise with the help from the Iranian Mullahs, he would not have been elected.
Among his first acts as president were to cut benefots for people on Social Security disability without a hearing and take the solar panels from the White House.
This chapter begs the question of how it came to pass that voters began to view the Republican Party as the party most qualified to run the US economy.
Clearly, Elon Musk's chainsaw metaphor seems an apt symbol for their reckless running of the economy. Republican presidents lied, cheated, and stole to change the economy, but they always ensured that their policies greened up their own cash stash, and just like today, administration corruption is the norm, starting with the First Family. As some historians have pointed out, the National Debt always soars when the GOP is in the White House, while it often tends to shrink a bit with those libtard commy Democrats in charge.
As I keep sayin', we wuz robbed. I don't think that voters think Republicans are better qualified. Its mostly the cuture..... The election was stolen.
Thanks Thom for once again making a period in history that was at best murky crystal clear.
It’s ironic how history repeats itself and we as a people seem to allow these repeats as a natural course when it fact it’s a sign that we need to wake to the obvious, and REMEMBER as a society.
Like Charlie Brown we once more kicked and missed the ball and both literally and figuratively fell for the same old lies.
A solid encapsulation of what happened to us. However, I should also remind that a perhaps equal cause for the end of the gold standard and for the wild rise in inflation was the US Federal government's increased printing of dollars needed to pay for the Vietnam War (which was costing one Billion dollars a day -- that's '60s dollars!) under LBJ. France's DeGaulle had objected to this as it was causing inflation in his country and when the US failed to stop the practice, began returning US dollars and demanding gold in return.
DL