Comparing Mondale vs. Reagan to 2020

The infamous 1984 presidential election in which Americans had their first chance to repudiate the Reagan revolution of massive tax cuts for the wealthy to spawn equally massive budget deficits and income/wealth inequality, and failed miserably, should be studied this year with a cringe. Now that Joe Biden is the the presumptive nominee (ironically he got a vote at the same 1984 nominating convention) we have to consider what happened the last time a former Vice President of a Democratic administration that was tasked with cleaning up a Republican mess (Watergate in Jimmy Carter's case, EVERY ASPECT OF DUBYA'S DISASTROUS MISADMINISTRATION/ GRIFT/ CRIMINAL SYNDICATE for Barack Obama) faced an incumbent Republican who was unqualified and extreme. History has a way of rhyming and the stakes are just too damn high to let doughfacedonny steal another term.

These numbers should seriously unsettle Democrats. pic.twitter.com/d73kU2mQbB

— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) April 21, 2020

This is the picture and tweet that got me thinking about possible rhymes in 2020 of the 1984 presidential election. In the latter year it was possible for people to go about their daily lives without politics affecting every aspect of them. This year, one has to retreat pretty far into themselves to escape the ramifications of authoritarian rule by incompetent gangsters. There was however, another epidemic concerning a novel disease that was little understood. AIDS had killed over 5,500 people prior to the 1984 election and it was still a joke to the republicans in office. Reagan left office with over 89,000 deaths under his belt from this joke and did nothing to help slow or stop the spread. We're already over halfway to that mark after about 3 months from COVID-19 and doughfacedonny has done worse than the nothing that Reagan did, in 2020 the republicans are actively trying to undermine containment and mitigation efforts for partisan gain and profiteering.

And the main reason that the awful, extremist republican got into office in the first place in both years is due to ratfcking and treason. In both instances the unqualified hack republicans denied just how much they cheated to manipulate voters. The Smithsonian magazine refers to “'individuals associated with the Reagan-Bush campaign of 1980 met secretly with Iranian officials to delay the release of the American hostages,' promising Tehran a cache of Israeli weapons in return" as a conspiracy theory. But historian Kai Bird wrote in the LA Times about a memo supporting the theory that future CIA director William Casey did in fact travel to Madrid, Spain to pass along the wink and nudge to an Iranian operative that the Islamic Republic would get a better deal for releasing hostages from Reagan than from Carter. Just as evidence now exists that Nixon sent envoys to South Vietnam in 1968 arguing practically the same thing, that he could get a better deal for Saigon than Humphrey if they dragged out peace negotiations until after the election.

Amazingly, the republican-controlled senate intelligence committee released a report on April 21 that concluded that the Russian government did in fact interfere with the 2016 election to help elect doughfacedonny. So for all the detractors on the right and the far left who claimed that Russian interference was a hoax and it was Hillary's bad campaigning and general ineptitude that lost her the election this would be a body blow to their confidence. But as we know nothing means anything anymore. Denial can be super-extra bulletproof when one's ego is on the line, though I rarely see Berniebros gloating about what a bad candidate Hillary was anymore. And MAGA republicans are basically unchallengeable because mainstream political press outfits only interview them on their feelings, trying to capture and scoop each other on when they finally flip on donny to see the real world. Never, ever do republicans get shamed for supporting this moron. 

In a decent world, the political press would be able to frame this election realistically but we don't live in that world. What will they do to give republicans an unearned even playing field this year? Joe Biden doesn't have a secret email server and doughfacedonny isn't a political outsider who refuses to release his tax returns. How will they frame reality this time? How will the Russians and other authoritarian regimes who love to see the US hobbled from within work to keep the game show host in office? Americans had the chance to arrest the Reaganite republican neoliberal agenda in 1984 as we have the chance to arrest the cancer of authoritarianism, treason, and incompetence this year. In case you forgot how Americans reacted to reaganism (republicanism) then:

The electoral college has been a broken system for much longer than when Dubya's Supreme Court pals gave him the win with a popular vote minority. Mondale won his home state by 0.18% to keep the map from being entirely red though he 40.5% of the popular vote. Four years ago, through voter suppression and Russian propaganda with a big assist from the political press's desperate need for balancing an utter incompetent with a hypercompetent candidate, team evil was able to steal Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania's electoral votes by a razor-thin margin. Whatever happens this year, no matter how inept the Biden campaign is, no matter how the political press puts their thumb on the scales, no matter how much republican and foreign ratfcking and dirty tricks it is up to us to change the tune. Whatever your motivations, restoring the Supreme Court, flipping the Senate, just hating doughfacedonny with the heat of a thousand suns, or having Diamond Joe as president, that map above has to be inverted to the greatest extent possible.

Then the real work begins. 

The Pandemic Was Never Going To Fix Republicans

So if doughfacedonny states that the virus is contained and that coming warmer weather will cause it to fade away, does that mean the opposite of truth? As over 12,000 other statements he has made have been lies? What do we make of the official "correction" of the stock market, that bastion of pure capitalism that has been the major marker behind the claim of a strong economy by republicans? Or can we finally cut the crap that stock market gains mean anything? If $3.4 trillion can evaporate in a week, maybe all those rural white republicans who keep claiming everything is great and fuck you libtards will have a crack in their Dunning-Krueger armor and ask a few questions. CNN has been awfully candid in this story, repeatedly stating that Wall Street loves doughfacedonny's "low tax and light regulation approach" so a Coronavirus outbreak could mean his defeat, which they wouldn't like. Because fuck democracy, the rule of law, and the ability to govern Wall Street demands more sacrifice.

Good God, I wrote that on February 28 and not only has that crack in the Dunning-Krueger armor failed to materialize, it has militantly hardened the MAGA idiots to science and facts. This is what freedom means to them:

Freedom is the freedom to dress up like a soldier, tote guns around the state capital, block traffic in front of hospitals in the middle of a pandemic, ignore safety protocols, and threaten a governor because she's a Democrat and a woman. 

These are the same shitheads who were clamoring for laws making protest illegal, making it legal for drivers to run over protesters, and screaming about respecting election results.

BECAUSE THEY ARE IRREDEEMABLE. As Driftglass often says, "never underestimate how much republicans hate this country." A corollary to that Driftism is Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.'s characterization of Hitler, "he is a man on a bicycle, has to keep moving forward or he'll fall." Meaning that if any of these militant moron MAGA republicans ever questioned, ever doubted, the absolute sanctity of their cause to destroy America as it was intended they would implode from the weight of irony crashing down on them. That is what I mean when you try to interpret their mantras of freedom and liberty, for words to mean anything we have to agree on their definition. Freedom to republicans like the protesters above means the freedom to submit to authority, the freedom to reject whatever facts do not fit their prejudices, and the freedom to act in absolute opposition to common sense. Liberty is the freedom to abuse constitutional rights in bad faith. Freedom of speech is used to attack and bully others, freedom of assembly is for them alone, and obviously the perversion of the second amendment that supports their right of bullying and intimidation.

So never, ever waste a moment's thought on "winning them back" or educating them. It is exactly that, a waste. We must study them to be sure, to find the best ways to defuse them and make them get out of politics. But they have abandoned reason, so there is no reason for us to entertain their delusions, respect their positions, or grant them any influence. That must be our freedom from now on. In 10-14 days there will be a flare-up of COVID-19 cases in the rural wastelands that these shitheads sprang forth from, oh well. This protest isn't even close to the apex of republican crimes against civilization this month. I just led with it because of the evidence it provides that nothing has really changed, crisis or no crisis.

Even if it has had an unexpected result, the Wisconsin primary election last week was a case study in republican hatred of democracy. Brother Charlie Pierce put it about as well as possible in his immediate reaction titled: 

You'd Have to Be a Newborn From Mars Not to See Wisconsin Was a Test Run for November

And, as usual he has words for the meatbag Michigan protesting republicans that put mine to shame.

Of all the screwy moments that we have experienced since the founding of Camp Runamuck, this is going to rank very close to the top. And it is not going to be a surprise to anyone if another AstroTurf movement similar to the Tea Party rises, especially if the president* “opens up” the country at the beginning of May... This is less AstroTurf than it is a spreading poisonous kudzu fed by the toxic sludge that has flowed under the conservative movement for decades.

And we all know what a great job the political press did when presented with a "mass" movement of supposedly "new voters, never before interested in politics" sprang up in 2009-10. So look forward to another round of flattering their every republican whim in the nightly news and on cable... Unless we stop it.

How many of you have seen crap like:

When trump starts sending out these 1000 dollar checks all you “he’s not my president “ people better not cash that bitch!! Just saying !

Irredeemable.

A friend from high school posted this trolling piece of garbage while trying to appear reasonable, just like he does every time he can punch down on us 'libs:

just ignore everything that I did during the Obama years to obstruct and inspire obstruction, and forget that trump inherited the results of all of Obama's work

So it isn't just meatbags with guns parading across the Capitol in Michigan, they are all irredeemable and nothing will fix that. Right after the inauguration of doughfacedonny I saw this meme, no idea where it's from or what metrics were used to come up this number but I have to say I like the sentiment and even more so in the middle of a pandemic:

because fuck'em if they can't take a joke