BILL MAHER EXPOSES THE RONALD REAGAN MYTH

This essay is a shout-out, a kudu, to Bill Maher’s commentary on June 7^th on Ronald Reagan’s true place in regards to the Tea Party.  Maher skillfully and accurately dissected and destroyed the notion that Reagan would be too moderate to be a member of the Tea Party, when in fact he was the father of the Tea Party.    On that program, Maher stated:

“Ronald Reagan was an anti-government, union busting, race baiting, anti-abortion, anti-gay,.

anti-intellectual who cut rich people’s taxes in half, had an incurable taste for the military industrial complex and said Medicare was socialism that would destroy our freedom.”

Maher went on to enumerate a litany of ills that Reagan visited upon this country.  I cannot resist adding to that litany that Reagan also raised the interest rates and  restructured the repayment of government backed school loans that has resulted in the current crisis of so many college grads returning home to live with their parents; expanded homelessness from an insignificant issue to the current crisis, waged war on the poor to the extent that his administration tried to have ketchup classified as a vegetable, and exchanged drug treatment for incarceration resulting in the grotesque number of African Americans  incarcerated today.

It boggles the mind that a president could create such a mess and remain so incredibly revered by so many Americans.  From airports to highways, venues have been renamed in honor of the virtually canonized Reagan.   Had they been able to squeeze him in, they would have added him to Mount Rushmore.   Even more tantalizing is the fact that this love affair with Reagan did not begin with the rose colored glasses of short and failed memory.  He has been revered (by a large portion of white folks and regrettably, some Negroes) since he became president.

Despite the awful wounds Reagan’s draconian social policies inflicted upon  American society, Reagan’s true significance lies even more in his transformation of the soul, character and ethos of this nation.   By appealing to, elevating and expanding the very worst of American instincts- that psychology that created the doctrine of manifest destiny and justified slavery- Reagan became in my humble opinion, perhaps the most significant president of the latter half of the twentieth century.  While he was in office I stated that it was no coincidence that the most openly racist president since Woodrow Wilson was also the most beloved.  I also wrote in a column that appeared in the Chicago Defender that Reagan rescued (white) America’s psyche at the cost of her soul

Reagan not only appealed to racism, he made it fashionable.   He kicked off his campaign in Philadelphia Mississippi, a place famous for only one thing: the murder of Civil Rights workers.  He was the first presidential candidate to be endorsed by the KKK.  He  supported  apartheid in South Africa.   When forced to sign the King Holiday into law, Reagan praised racist senator Jess Helms and NOT M.L.  King Jr.   Reagan came into office at a time when America had actually lost a war to people of color (Vietnam).  That war was the result of America- champion of freedom and free elections- scuttling the elections in Vietnam because the U.S. did not like the man (Ho Chi Minh) who reportedly would have won the election.  The arrogant  notion that white Americans were the Chosen People and Guardians Of The Planet,  Infallible  Masters of The Universe was, if not on life support, at least gravely ill. Until ….

Ronald Reagan, upon a noble steed, rode to the rescue.  He declared that America had every right to intervene in the internal politics of Vietnam.  He declared that the U.S. did NOT lose that war militarily, but because of the evil bureaucrats, representing an even more evil government in Washington, cost America that war.  White Americans who headed huge corporate and financial institutions that stole billions of dollars were not at fault for any problems in the economy.  Rather it was the lazy, thieving Negros on Welfare who cheated and took money out of the pockets of hard working red blooded, real  (meaning White) Americans.  All his constituents had to do was click their heals three times and they would recognize that they remained  the rightful guardians and masters of the universe.

I remember listening to pundits wrestling on the radio with how this president could mess up so much and never suffer any repercussions.  (He was actually known as the “Teflon President” because nothing could ever stick to him.)  I called the station and opined that his Teflon coating was made of racism, and the fact that he made white America feel so good about being white would also preclude any of his missteps from ever sticking to him.  The air went dead.  I finally asked why there was so much silence.  They replied that there was nothing to say, because I had spoken the truth.

This love affair with the myth of Reagan has gone so far as to infect our first Black President.  While I have generally supported Mr. Obama, there have been times when he has deeply disappointed me.  I have come to understand that many of his shortcomings with regards to the plight of Black people are pretty much inherent in the nature of the “Negro Firsts.”  From Jackie Robinson to Sammy Davis Jr. to Nat King Cole, Negro Firsts have, by definition, had to be so palatable to whites- had to swallow so much degradation and humiliation- that they inevitably disappointed the Black community in some way.  That was the price they paid for those who would follow.  As president, Obama represents the ultimate in assuaging white folk’s fears of black folks.  But there is a limit; a point at which one can bend over so far backward that one’s spine will never straighten.  When Obama praises Ronald Reagan he has reached that point.