In my years of being a Leftist and covering them, there is one rock-solid, take-it-to-the-bank statement that not even the most honest Leftists can deny: Leftists say some really weird shit. And I’m not just talking about prolonged discussions on the virtues of Drag Queen Story Hours or the actual number of genders (still two, by the way). Even when I’m prepared for the weird shit, there are times when even I have to take a step back and admire the nuttier-than-squirrel-shit take.
Like this one from The Hill website, “Are the Democrats Now the Party of Reagan?” Although the premise is as absurd as the media allowing a major party candidate to go unquestioned for more than a few minutes, let alone weeks (good thing that never happens, amirite?), it did get me to thinking. Which lead me to writing this week’s Lexicon, since that’s kinda what I do around here.
the party of Reagan
What the Left thinks it means – a by-gone era that should stay in the past because it was so horrible, except when it can be used to attract voters
What it really means – a by-gone era that the Left still doesn’t understand
The 1980s were a decade of dayglo oddities. The old excesses of the late 70s continued (including the coke habits) while new technologies started to take hold. Celebrities rose and empires fell. And at the core of it all was Ronald Reagan.
Say what you will about the man, but Ronald Reagan was a generational President in both good and bad ways. His strength when dealing with the former Soviet Union, his economic policies, and his undying love of America held us in good stead during a time when America’s self-opinion was lower than a snake’s codpiece. Yet, the way he handled Iran/Contra, his mental decline in his later years, and some of the policy decisions he made with AIDS and apartheid in South Africa were less than awesome.
In short, Reagan was just like the rest of us. Only with more access to the nuclear arsenal.
The Left’s hatred of the Reagan era stemmed from their unrequited love of the former Soviet Union. After decades of appeasing the Soviets, Reagan became an aggressor because he realized what the super-smart Leftists (just ask them) didn’t: communism doesn’t work. At some point, the communists run out of other people’s money, which creates either massive deficit spending, a greater reliance on those who are already carrying the bulk of the weight, or a combination of the two.
There’s that economics degree Reagan earned coming into play.
Once the Soviet Union went the way of the Atari 2600 “E.T.” video game, the Left’s hatred of Reagan intensified. Sure, they had other legit and semi-legit criticisms as noted above, but he proved them wrong. Appeasing the Soviets only allowed them to continue stockpiling weapons, making plans to conquer the rest of the world, and putting out shitty products under the auspices of everyone being equal (except for the party leaders, of course). Leftists at the time swore up and down Reagan would lead us into World War III, create a nuclear holocaust, and destroy the planet.
You know, like Leftists said Donald Trump would do?
When that didn’t happen, Leftists couldn’t handle it. And since they were the ones writing the history books at the time, they did their best to control the narrative. Once the Berlin Wall fell, though, they couldn’t get it done with those who actually lived and paid attention during that time. So, Leftists decided to wait a generation or two to get their version of events to become the primary timeline.
Which brings us to the party of Reagan. As much as I would like to say today’s Republican Party is an offshoot of the Reagan years, I can’t. Both major parties shed their skins some time ago and evolved into parties that no longer resemble their namesakes. Democrats and Republicans are both fans of big government at times, but only when they’re running it. And they’re not afraid to use force to get what they want. Remember the COVID lockdowns? President Trump and President Brick Tamland didn’t deviate that much policywise. Of course, much of that can be laid the feet of Saint Anthony of Fauci’s fault, Patron Saint of Scientific Bullshit, but both Trump and Tamland were reading from the same script.
Furthermore, the Republican “leadership” is as flaky as a croissant at times. Sure, they talk a great game about fiscal responsibility and conservative values, but they will sell those out in the name of compromising with people who think they’re the most evil people on the planet. And it happens time after time after time.
And the Democrats? They’re selling out to the lunatic fringe at every opportunity. From the Green New Boondoggle to the anti-Israel sentiment from The Squad, the Left has gone so far left Karl Marx looks like Milton Friedman, both in ideology and in economic knowledge. Today’s Left is turning off a lot more people than they’re attracting, or at the very least they’re turning off enough Leftists with actual jobs and money. This makes for an interesting internal civil war for the soul of the Left, and hopefully an even more interesting blog post later.
Meanwhile, it amazes me anybody with two brain cells to rub together would think Democrats are now the party of Reagan. Then again, this is an opinion writer from The Hill, so your intellectual mileage may vary. The way the author makes it sound, Republicans have abandoned the principles Reagan laid out, which they have for the most part. But he fails to make the connection that Democrats have taken up the mantle. The best he comes up with is Democrats’ undying support for Ukraine (which reflects not only a lack of understanding of Reagan’s foreign policy , but a fundamental lack of understanding of just how fucked up Ukraine’s leadership is).
His case isn’t exactly bolstered by self-professed Reaganites like Bill Kristol, Adam Kinslinger, and Liz Cheney, whose conservative bonafides are more questionable than three day old convenience store sushi. Or a freshly-made meal at Chipotle, for that matter. While the aforementioned Republicans (and many more like them who will remain nameless to protect the innocent and the dumbasses) tout how much closer they are to Reagan than any of the current crop of Republicans, the fact is they’re closer to Regan from “The Exorcist” than Reagan himself.
So, if the Republicans aren’t the party of Reagan anymore and the Democrats never have been and never will be if the current crop of fuckups have any say in the matter, who is the party of Reagan today? Unfortunately, there is no party that has it even remotely right. Either the fiscal policies are out of whack or the social and military policies are off, so there’s no real safe haven for those of us who have a fond memory of what Reagan stood for. So, we’re stuck either holding our noses for candidates who Reagan wouldn’t even acknowledge as Republicans, voting for a third party because we can’t hold our nose enough to vote for Republicans, or writing in candidates like your humble correspondent.
By the way, SMOD 24, baby!
Maybe it’s time we should stop thinking in terms of Reagan as far as political leadership is concerned, but not in terms of the grassroots. Even if our elected officials don’t hold Reagan in high esteem, we still can. American pride, appreciation of hard work, a love of the free market, all these things and much more are still within our power to use in our lives.
Plus, it will piss off Leftists, so win-win, baby!
Tag: ronald reagan
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
In case you’ve been living under a rock or on the campus of UC Berkeley, you’ve heard President Brick Tamland is old. How old? I wish I could say this is a set up to a Johnny Carson-esque joke, but I can’t. He really is old, and it shows.
Or, it would show if Leftists were honest about it. Instead of admitting President Tamland is so old he makes Strom Thurmond look like a newborn (and, to be honest, I’m not sure the President wasn’t at his baptism), they’re going with a different approach: pretending everything we’re seeing isn’t real. In fact, the Tamland Administration has come up with a new term to describe it, that being “cheap fakes.”
Given the inflation caused by the Administration, I’m surprised anything is cheap. But it’s a good jumping on point for this week’s Lexicon.
cheap fakes
What the Left thinks it means – the results of right wing media distorting videos to give the impression the President is feeble and not capable of being President
What it really means – Leftists trying to gaslight us more than Victorian times
The Left knows the President has issues, and by issues I mean subscriptions. He mumbles incoherently like he’s taking diction lessons from Ozzy Osbourne. He loses track of where he is in speeches, even reading directly off the teleprompter when it was more instructional. He freezes in the middle of sentences and stares blankly into space. He wanders off and has to have others help him get to where he’s supposed to go. He’s even fallen up stairs. Not down, up!
But Orange Man Bad, amirite?
No matter what video evidence there is (and how many videos show the same deteriorating conditions), the Left has an answer. They provide statements from numerous sources, including Republicans, saying President Tamland is as mentally sharp as ever. They compare the President’s mental ability to Donald Trump’s. And now, they’re saying it’s all fake.
It’s at this point I’m throwing the brown bullshit flag. It’s one thing to have it happened once in a while. We all get old and occasionally forgetful. It’s another thing altogether to dismiss multiple televised and live instances to consider it to be a total right wing conspiracy with altered footage, distorted camera angles, and selective still shots to make President Tamland look bad. He’s doing that well enough all on his own, so he doesn’t need the Right’s help.
But the Left’s response to people noticing President Tamland is shakier than Rosie O’Donnell eating Jello on the San Andreas Fault during a 7.8 earthquake is a tell. As you’ve seen in previous Lexicon entries, the Left has no problem doing what they’re accusing the Right of doing. Fuck, Media Matters has made a tidy career of doing just that. Then, there’s documentarian/all-you-can-eat-buffet enthusiast Michael Moore, a reliable Leftist liar.
And don’t get me started on the Left’s “very fine people on both sides” lie.
The Left has no problem lying when it suits them, so when they call actual video footage of President Tamland acting like a broken down animatronic robot from the Hall of Presidents a cheap fake, it’s pure drive in movie level projection, baby!
That’s not to say the right-leaning news organizations aren’t prone to distortion when it suits a narrative, mind you. Fox News has seen legal repercussions from lying, as has Alex Jones. And, for what it’s worth, I don’t trust either of them (although the video of an Alex Jones rant turned into a folk song is pretty funny). But it’s Hank Johnson opinions on Guam levels of stupid to say the Right is on par with the Left when it comes to distorting the truth. Dishonesty against political opponents is the coin of their realm.
Oh, and being absolute fucking idiots.
And they’re being absolute fucking idiots here. Instead of saying “Yeah, President Tamland is a PR disaster that shits himself on the regular, but he’s the best candidate we have,” the Left will continue to blame right wing disinformation and expect us to either cower in fear or question what we clearly see time after time after time.
What they don’t expect is for people across the ideological spectrum to see President Tamland’s decline and express concern he may be too old and incapable of being President. It’s getting harder and harder for the Tamland Administration and its lapdog media sources to tell us what we clearly see isn’t what we’re seeing and there’s a perfectly rational explanation for everything. They haven’t come up with this rational explanation, mind you, but they insist there is one.
Of course, this wouldn’t be a Leftist Lexicon entry without exposing at least some Leftist hypocrisy. Back in the mid-to-late 80s there was another President who was accused of being in cognitive decline while in office. That man was Ronald Reagan. Media outlets at the time questioned his mental acuity and there is some debate as to whether Reagan had Alzheimer’s Disease while in the White House. At that time, more than a few of the Leftists now saying President Tamland isn’t experiencing any decline in his faculties were suggesting Reagan was incompetent. They’ll deny it, of course, but it happened. I was fucking there. And they continue to do it.
But when it’s one of theirs (or two if you count Dianne Feinstein), such concerns are brushed aside. All for political gain.
Fuck that shit! We are seeing a man who shouldn’t be running a lemonade stand let alone have access to the nuclear codes getting worse and worse at a job that has physical and mental strains attached to it. And the worst part is I can’t even be mad at President Tamland for it. He’s being used by others as a figurehead while the real shitty work is being done behind the scenes when it’s not being done in his pants. This is elder abuse, but with global implications.
And the people using President Tamland as a meat-shield don’t care. They care about us noticing his mental decline repeatedly and deciding he should be home, not in the White House. And that’s utterly fucked up when you think about it.
So, save me the “cheap fakes” bullshit. Not only is a stupid turn of a phrase, but it reveals how little you really think of the President as a human being. The more you run interference for the guy, the worse it gets for you.
But look at the bright side. After this Administration gets tossed out on its asses and all the bullshit gets exposed, they will always have a seat on any panel on MSNBC.
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
The buzz around Washington DC this week was around the Congressional testimony from Special Counsel Robert Hur and his report about President Brick Tamland. The report itself is here, but the short version is the President violated the law, but the Department of Justice didn’t think he could be convicted because he’s a sympathetic doddering old fuck.
The Left has done a great job in making it seem like the Hur Report exonerated President Tamland, even going so far as to make the case Hur overstated the President’s memory problems, among other failed attempts to discredit the report and the Special Counsel. Regardless, the Hur Report and its impact on President Tamland’s Presidency (as well as Leftist sanity) is worth exploring further.
the Hur Report
What the Left thinks it means – a report from a moron that exonerates the President from hiding classified documents in various locations
What it really means – a disappointing political paradox that we should have seen coming
The life cycle of a modern political scandal is as predictable as the ending of a mystery novel written by your average social media “star.” The politician breaks laws that would get anyone else outside the ruling class thrown in prison for years. The media find out about the crimes committed and either attempts to hold the politician accountable (if he/she is a Republican or conservative) or downplay it in the hopes the scandal goes away (if he/she is a Democrat or a Leftist). People outside the media bubble find out and start asking questions. The politician and his/her handlers hold off on explaining anything until the questions get too close for comfort. Then, the politician and his/her handlers address it without actually addressing it, thus pissing off some people (namely those who think the laws should apply to everyone) and pleasing others (namely people who are a short skirt and pom-poms away from being full-blown cheerleaders). And after a little while, it all goes away, save for the gnashing of teeth who really wanted something done.
There are some variations to this framework that pop up from time to time, but it’s pretty much the same from Ronald Reagan to Brick Tamland. I mean, how long have we known Eric Swalwell slept with a suspected Chinese spy and he’s still not spending his days getting a tan at Gitmo? How many politicians wound up on Epstein Island and are still running around free? That may be the most disturbing, disgusting, and disheartening thing about all of it: no matter what, you’re more likely to get Dylan Mulvaney to stop being an attention whore than you are to get a politician to see any time on the business end of a conviction.
That brings us to the Hur Report. First off, how dare you assume the report’s gender? More importantly, th0ugh, is what the report lays out in stunning detail is just how fucked we are with President Tamland at the helm of the ship of state. Here are some choice cuts.
– The President remembered the month and day of his son’s death, but aides had to provide him with the year.
– Aides would provide information when the President seemed to be having trouble.
– The President admitted to having documents he wasn’t authorized to have, albeit with some chronological difficulty.
– He forgot when he served as Vice President.
– The President admitted to memory issues after the fact, citing his long history in government as the reason.
But I’m sure it was just his stutter.
Wait, why does the ship of state say Exxon Valdez on the side?
Seriously, these issues (among the several he’s had this year alone) paint a vivid picture of a man well past his prime trying to do a job that taxes men decades his junior. If there were ever a case for invoking the 25th Amendment, the last year or so of President Tamland’s performance would be it. On the one hand, it would get spun as a political move (which it would be anyway because Leftists). On the other it would lead to President Word Salad (which would make for worse decisions, but a better 2024 outcome for Republicans). So, pick your partisan poison, I guess.
The problem the Hur Report creates for Republicans is how weak the aftershocks make them look. President Tamland is clearly mentally diminished due to age, the onset of Alzheimer’s, or him just being dumb as a stump to begin with. Yet, Leftists keep saying he’s mentally sharp as ever. So, either he shouldn’t be President because he’s no longer capable of performing “Three Blind Mice” on a children’s toy flute let alone the country, or he shouldn’t be President because he’s corrupt as fuck.
And Republicans can’t stop tripping over their own dicks to make either case, which gives the Left an open field to make whatever case they want, such as the bullshit “he was exonerated” line that’s been repeated ad nauseum.
More to the point, though, the Hur Report and Hur himself makes the argument why President Tamland shouldn’t be allowed to be in an Office Depot, let alone the Oval Office. For all the talk he’s done about white supremacists being a major threat to the country, the biggest threat is Tamland himself. Think back to the days when Leftists called out Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump for being mentally unfit during their respective Presidencies. I’m not sure how many fucks they gave at the time, but I’m guessing it was pretty close to zero.
Now, their past is coming back to haunt them. That is, if the GOP would hold them to the standards they set. The Hur Report gives them the tools they need to put away a pretty big tool, but for some reason they’re happier making broad statements in Congressional hearings and creating viral moments than putting on their Big Congresscritter Pants and doing something other than voting for more money for Ukraine and Israel.
And people wonder why I’m voting for C’thulu/Sweet Meteor of Death 2024.