The Republican uses the same old Reagan/Bush strategy today trying to tap discontent wherever possible.
...just like the Kentucky Republican congressman in BOMBASTIC GADFLIES.
Incontrovertibly, the Reagan Bible of Distress reflects the watershed moment in US politics of the tactics Americans experience today: taking the focus off the real issues...that forever changed our country's politics--leading to what turns so many people off about our present political culture. This mode of political play established the real turning point. Of course, mudslinging, name-calling, evoking fear, and the like always existed in politics. However, the Reagan Bible of Distress legitimized the practice--portrayed it in a noble, glamorous light. This right-wing movement rejects modernity. Of course with Ronald Reagan, anti-communism remained the glue of his movement. And religion (the loosening of the country's morals) played a paramount significance in the rise of this Bible of Distress.
The Reagan Bible of Distress presents the candidate as an authorized ideological transformer and hard-edged partisan Republican. This strategy indoctrinated by Ronald Reagan reflects the same campaign that won George Herbert Walker Bush the presidency. A litany of subsequent Republican candidates since its inception have stood upon the model Republican agenda adapted to their state. All social issues pulled from the Reagan Bible of Distress rouse an impending pain...danger...fright (fear). (Remember, Ronald Reagan argued famously that Medicare meant the end of American freedom.) If the Republican candidate wins, he intimates he would try to outlaw abortion by signing a bill (if the Supreme Court allows it). About established resource centers for the family (like in Kentucky’s 1990 Education Reform Act) the candidate admonishes unwelcome social experiments that come into direct disagreement with the traditional values.
Like the Reagan/Bush strategy, the Republican candidate tries to tap discontent wherever possible. He may go after their state's working class, the sulky dissatisfied voter (blue-collar Democrats). After a candidate's spill about taxes way out of reach (even though Reagan ended up raising taxes and vigorously pursued deficit spending) he further emphasizes people remain without decent jobs--as a result of the state giving too much money to large unions. The Reagan Bible of Distress candidate eyes those who contributed to his campaign—BUSINESS. Hence, the Republican candidate proposes a weakening of environmental laws. Simply, if businesses would rally around the campaign...contribute those dollars, their administration would open the doors to their needs. Talk often abounds like pushing the state’s tourism...or maybe pressing for an acceleration in the state's timber industry. (However, that remains typical political idle talk.)
In short, like Reagan/Bush, the model-Republican candidate tries to tear away business...dislodge people frightened that the family is coming apart...tear away those thinking taxes are to the roof....and extract those with bad jobs. The Reagan Bible of Distress candidate believes if he can move all those elements--tear them away--toward him, he can be victorious. The candidate attempts to show he has substance....obtains the lofty road on moral principles, ethics...and tries to portray the Democratic candidate as simply one more shifty-eyed liberal Democrat. He may also spout the need to take the FOR SALE sign off the Capitol—to clean house.
Reagan felt the American way of life, the family, and individual rights were threatened by liberals. Reagan's movement formed a revolution that enlisted religious conservatives in the fight against abortion, gay rights, and crime, along with assorted social issues. The 40th president's major rival, Richard Nixon, in an internal memo, succeeds in representing and describing how so many folks viewed Ronald Reagan: "Reagan's strength derives from personal charisma, glamour, but primarily the ideological fervor of the Right and the emotional distress of those who fear or resent Blacks, and who expect Reagan somehow to 'keep him in his place' or at least to echo their own anger and frustration" (Longley, Mayer & Schaller, 2007, p. 76).
No comments:
Post a Comment