Posted on 11/21/2018 11:30:15 AM PST by DoodleBob
At midterm, the once-dazzling political momentum of what conservatives enthusiastically called the Reagan Revolution has stalled. In the year ahead, President Reagan faces what his allies and advisers see as the most critical tests of his Presidency both at home and abroad.
''Historically, the third year is the one that makes or breaks a Presidency, and Ronald Reagan's third year is more critical for him than any President since World War II,'' said Richard Wirthlin, the President's longtime poll-taker and a fellow California Republican conservative.
''It's the year when people will judge the President not only by the goals he articulated in the campaign or the legislation he has passed, but how his program has affected their lives,'' Mr. Wirthlin said. ''It's also a year in which foreign policy will be given a more severe test.''
On a string of tough issues - the budget, Social Security, military spending, the MX missile, arms control talks with the Russians, Middle East diplomacy - the choice that politicians of both parties see Mr. Reagan confronting is between his ideology and political pragmatism, between the tactics of confrontation and compromise, between sticking with a course that suits the Republican right or shifting more toward the political center.
Voicing Private Anxieties
On the major issues, some of the President's White House aides and Cabinet associates see similar forks in the political road. They prefer not to be identified in speaking. But privately, some acknowledge their concern that his presidency faces serious difficulties.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Surprise surprise..,notwithstanding this IS the Slimes, the similarities in the fears espoused about Reaga's political future in this article to that in 2018 regarding Trump are stunning. Clearly, Trump will follow Reagan whereby " White House strategists acknowledge that the elections showed an erosion of public support; many minority, blue collar and elderly voters who supported Mr. Reagan in 1980 went back to the Democratic Party." Crushing reelection defeat awaits Trump akin to that Reagan experienced.
Oh, wait...
Yes, I understand the limitations of this back test. America is changed. There are lots of bad signs unique to 2018, from fraud, to losses that - prescinding from fraud - should have been wins. Antifa, the muscle wing of the DNC, camped out in front of Tucker Carlson's home. The Dems get to pick a Speaker and perhaps Ms Ocasio-Cortez may be help take back the three chambers of government.
Or is it really that different? Before we all buy more ammo and freeze-dried food, and slink off to our bunkers to make our last stand like the statists want us to do (and which so many people seem only willing to oblige), what if we rolled up our sleeves and tried to convert more people to MAGA? It worked for us in the 80s...it can work again today.
As Scott Adams has pointed out, the two sides are so polarized now that “converting” members of the opposition is damn-near impossible. Its a “Team” game now, and no one will root for the “other team”.
Having said that, the key is turnout of the GOP, and turning just a few points of those who have not voted before or are truly “independent”.
So POTUS has a narrow window to eke out another victory in 2020. But a 59% popular vote-49 state sweep a la The Gipper is an impossibility.
The open-minded, patriotic Democrat voters who made that possible in 1984 are all dead and buried (literally).
In their sted are now legions of “Borg-like” unthinking would-be totalitarian leftists drones.
The economy did not really start showing signs of improvement until after Reagan’s first midterm.
What concerns me is that Trump’s economy set records during the same period, and yet people STILL voted Democrat.
A lot of doom and gloom was going on in the media about Reagan and the Soviet Union, as they wanted him to be an appeaser. However, the reality was that the Soviet Union and East Bloc were in that very serious financial and economic trouble. Gorbachev was likely that too young and idealistic and reform minded for many of the Communist rulers back when Brezhnev died that November, but by the time Andropov and Chernenko had both come and gone by early 1985, the Soviets had really no other choice to put him in as leader.
Good thread. Well, I get discouraged, but from what I have seen from Trump, until he is out of office, I am going to put my hope and trust in him. To this point, when he says he is going to do something...much of it gets done.
I’ll stick with that.
It was the same with Lincoln, he took some hits in his midterm with the Democrats making some gains in Democrat States.
Reagan’s first midterm and poll numbers weren’t much different than President Trump’s.
Reagan has slightly fewer losses in the House and didn’t do as well in the Senate.
The media hated Reagan too, but didn’t pile on to the extent that they are doing today.
Reagan ended up winning one of the biggest landslides in American History 2 years later.
We need to help President Trump do the same.
This was before the democrats fleeing blue states for red and destroying them...
EXamples....Colorado...North Carolina, Idaho,Montana
Reagan won every State except for Minnesota.
Same type of thing in 2012: Obama got 66MM votes/51% while Dem House members got 60MM votes - more than Repubs - yet remained in the minority.
I DO believe, that Repubs need to get a handle on fraud and be proactive. Dems seems to always have a "In Case of X Break Glass" plan. But if we just whine that this is all fraud we are going nowhere. Combat fraud with building a wall of MAGA-loving centrists (they still exist) that overwhelms the faked votes. Lovers of liberty can't be flat footed in 2020.
We beat Hillary/avoided despotism by only 60,000 votes, we got tax reform and Gorsuch and Kavanaugh and a strong economy and NK willing to talk and Kanye wearing a MAGA hat... and we're gonna bail because we lost the House? Dems address defeat by sharpening their axes and becoming even more impossible. I hope everyone finishes their tantrum and gets to work...there are scores of fellow citizens waiting to be red-pilled.
Well said.
Dems are even more “Borg-like” than before. “Bolsheviks”, when they’re not. “Brown-Shirts” are brought to front-lines—when most effective. These are NOT JFK-Democrats.
We need to help President Trump do the same.
We need to do much better than Reagan in terms of coattails, he brought in only 182 (+ 16 only) in House in '84 and lost in the Senate. I believe The GOP won fewer than half of the massive number of districts carried by Reagan.
Democrats in 1983:
Senators above 50% Conservative - 5 (Heflin, AL (72); Johnston, LA (56); Exon, NE (60); Zorinsky, NE (92); Boren, OK (54))
Senators 25-49% Conservative - 9 (DeConcini, AZ (43); Pryor, AR (28); Nunn, GA (28); Dixon, IL (29); Long, LA (45); Baucus, MT (25); Melcher, MT (29); Bentsen, TX (25); Randolph, WV (32))
Congressmembers above 50% Conservative - 40
(Erdreich, AL (52); Nichols, AL (73); Shelby, AL (74); Bennett, FL (57); Chappell, FL (82); Fuqua, FL (52); Hutto, FL (91); Ireland, FL (91); Bill Nelson, FL (57); Barnard, GA (82); Darden, GA (50); Jenkins, GA (89); Levitas, GA (55); McDonald, GA (100); Ray, GA (91); Rowland, GA (65); Thomas, GA (74); Lipinski, IL (61); Hubbard, KY (55); Breaux, LA (70); Huckaby, LA (70); Roemer, LA (83); Tauzin, LA (74); Byron, MD (74); Dyson, MD (52); Montgomery, MS (96); Skelton, MO (57); Valentine, NC (57); English, OK (61); McCurdy, OK (50); Lloyd, TN (78); Hall, TX (73); Hance, TX (57); Hightower, TX (70); Kazen, TX (61); Leath, TX (100); Patman, TX (61); Stenholm, TX (91); Vandergriff, TX (61); Daniel, VA (100))
Congressmembers 25-49% Conservative - 41
(Bevill, AL (43); Flippo, AL (41); Anderson, CA (26); MacKay, FL (32); Mica, FL (30); Hatcher, GA (43); Russo, IL (30); Slattery, KS (36); Mazzoli, KY (35); Natcher, KY (26); Perkins, KY (26); Boggs, LA (25); Albosta, MI (26); Dowdy, MS (32); Young, MO (30); Harry Reid, NV (35); D’Amours, NH (26); Stratton, NY (35); Clarke, NC (26); Hefner, NC (27); Jones, NC (25); Neal, NC (32); Whitley, NC (43); Dorgan, ND (32); Applegate, OH (30); Jones, OK (39); Watkins, OK (35); Gaydos, PA (35); Murtha, PA (35); Yatron, PA (27), Tallon, SC (33); Boner, TN (27); Cooper, TN (43); Jones, TN (45); Andrews, TX (36); Ortiz, TX (32); Pickle, TX (30); Wilson, TX (48); Olin, VA (30); Sisisky, VA (43); Mollohan, WV (30);
Democrats in 2017:
Senators above 50% Conservative - Zero
Senators 25-49% Conservative - Zero
(Highest ranking Democrat - Manchin - 8% Conservative/92% leftist)
Congressmembers above 50% Conservative - Zero
Congressmembers 25-49% Conservative - 1 (Collin Peterson, MN - 26% Conservative/74% leftist)
I show these figures from the American Conservative Union from 1983 (after Reagan’s “backlash” midterm) vs. the last figures from 2017 from Trump’s 1st year.
In 1983, you still had 14 Democrat Senators that ranged from moderate liberal to even outright Conservative (such as Nebraska’s Ed Zorinsky). You had a whopping 81 Democrat House members that similarly ranged from moderate liberal to even outright Conservative (including 3 that even scored “perfect” ratings, Dan Daniel from VA, Marvin Leath from TX, and the legendary Larry McDonald of GA, who would be assassinated that year by the Soviets on KAL Flight 007).
In 2017, they no longer exist, save for one member who barely slides past 25%, Collin Peterson of MN, and that’s not much to crow about. Otherwise, it is very stark and very frightening to note that the Democrats have utterly and completely purged any and all non-leftists from the House and completely from the Senate by 2017. Virtually the entire caucus votes in lockstep. Only 4 Dem House members have less than an 85% leftist rating. There is no such thing as a “moderate” Democrat in Congress anymore, they are gone. Any new Democrat who “won” this month for Congress is likely to veer more than a couple points away from that 100% ultraleft score.
Of the above 95 Democrats named from 1983, none of them could even win a Democrat primary now voting as they did then. A handful were in Congress or the Senate until recently, some like Bill Nelson of FL once voted almost half-right when he was in the House (scoring in the 50s). Nelson was voting as a Senator almost a perfect 100% ultraleft rating. He had a 0% rating in 2017. Similar to my Congressman today, TN’s Jim Cooper, he once voted close to half-right when he represented a rural district. He now votes 89% leftist from this Nashville district he’s in today, and barely is distinguished from his psychotic, anti-Christian bigot colleague from Memphis, Steve Cohen.
The most radical leftist members from 1983 which came from like-minded districts are now the entirety of the Democrat caucus, regardless of location, and will as vociferously oppose anything Trump supports will be on full display as a House “majority” come January 2019. Taking back the House from them when they have no hesitation to use any means to keep power will be exceptionally difficult. Too many disturbed and misguided individuals are more than happy to vote for people that are destroying this country and topping it off with illegal votes/missing votes/multiple votes, et al, may have already pushed us past the breaking point. I expect fully this will all be harnessed to overthrow President Trump in 2020. If they can steal and use fraudulent/deceptive means to take 40 seats in the middle of a booming economy (which makes no logical sense that you’d shoot your foot off when you’re winning a sprint), do you think they won’t do it again in 2020 ? Very scary times.
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