Let's go down the list or what Reagan Republicanism was and what it lead to:
1. Reagan held one of his first political rallies in Philadelphia Mississippi, the location of brutal backlash to the Civil Rights movement and the murder of 4 Civil Rights activists.
2. Reagan's campaign leaned HEAVILY on thinly veiled Racism with his "Welfare Queen" and "Young Buck's eating steak and lobster" rhetoric.
3. Reagan supposedly (was never definitively proven) went behind the back of the Carter Administration and made a deal with Iran, to interfere with negotiations to release the hostages once he was elected. For this, he supposedly agreed to sell Iran weapons, even as they were a, "state sponsor of Terrorism".
4. Reagan gave financial support and weapons ILLEGALLY to several brutal right wing regimes in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Panama.
5. Reagan shifted the tax burden for society from the wealthy to the middle and working class, gutting the progressive tax code and blowing a hole in the budget. He had to raise fees and start taxing Social Security to avoid the worst effects of his scheme.
6. Reagan purposely ignored the AIDS epidemic because he and his administration deemed it the "gay cancer" and made moralistic decisions that lead to the deaths of millions because of his inaction.
7. Reagan's support of junk bonds and artificial inflation of stocks and overleveraging of assets to "play the market" lead to not one, but several monetary crises and scandals during the 80's .
8. Reagan tried to gut the New Deal and installed cabinet secretaries into positions where the appointed person HATED the department they worked for and wanted to destroy it.
There are many others. I am sure that the list would be super long. The point is, that Reagan seems "reasonable" compared to Trump because Reagan had actual skill and training as an actor and pitchman. Reagan had also been the Governor of California (where he did equally horrible things) so he had some political skill whereas Trump is just a schmuck who was born wealthy, lived a pointless life, and is a sociopath. Reagan was folksy and amiable where Trump is boorish and stupid. It is simply a difference in character and presentation with no real difference in ideology. Both Reagan and Trump exhibited bigoted and racist attitudes. They both have a hierarchical view of how society should be structured. They both support extremist right wing ideologies and leaders and opposed collectivist and egalitarian forms of government.
Nixon and Reagan were from an era of politics where rhetorical skill and some effectiveness as a policy maker were still required. They came from a world before DEDICATED right wing propaganda networks cowed the "liberal" media into legitimizing more extreme right wing ideas as "mainstream". If either Nixon or Reagan had Fox News and the associated supporting networks and internet presence, or Social Media, their presidencies would have been very different. In fact, the concept of Fox and right wing media, while in planning before Nixon, was really pushed and created in the wake of the Watergate scandal and resignation of Nixon. Roger Ailes, who was in the Nixon administration and wanted to never repeat what happened to Nixon (media holding the President to account for unethical and illegal behavior). While the right wing media ecosystem was still under construction during Reagan's presidency, he was skilled enough at PR to avoid the pitfalls of the less likeable Nixon. The point is, that both Nixon and Reagan had to exist in a period where their supporters still had to get actual, factual information from the media. There were limited outlets and everyone operated from the same set of facts, which had to be spun by the politician and their team.
All proceeding Conservative politicians from the mid 90's on, had a megaphone and an open spigot of lies designed to insulate and motivate a base of supporters to no longer accept verified information as fact. This has helped to create the extreme presentation of people like Trump, Greene, Boebert, etc... preceded by Gingrich, DeLay, Boehner, Ryan, and Paul. We have people who see the verbatim words and actions of a sociopath like Trump or grifters like Greene and Comer, and they deny reality, literally, they hear Trump say, "I would gladly club a baby seal and wear its pelt as a pocket square" and then either outright say, "That's fake" or they try to justify it in some way completely divorced from reality.
Johnson is trying to thread a needle that doesn't exist. He wants all the horrible things that Reagan started, that Trump stupidly says, but Johnson doesn't want the heat that Trump appears to enjoy. Johnson wants to operate like Reagan, doing horrible shit, but being seen as "folksy and decent".
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