Posted on 01/23/2015 6:08:23 AM PST by xzins
This week marks the twenty-sixth anniversary of the “massacre of the Reaganites” by newly elected President George H.W. Bush that effectively ended the prospect of institutionalizing Reaganism as the governing principle of the Republican Party and America.
We call it the “massacre of the Reaganites” because, in a well-thought-out and carefully crafted purge, on Inauguration Day 1989 practically every conservative who remained in government at the end of President Ronald Reagan’s second term, and certainly any conservative of any political consequence, was fired or forced to resign from their post in the federal government.
Even those who had worked tirelessly to elect George H.W. Bush President in the expectation that a Bush presidency would be effectively the “third term of Ronald Reagan” were dismissed.
Within hours of Bush’s inauguration establishment Republicans, such as James Baker III, who had opposed many of Reagan’s initiatives from within the administration, were promoted. But throughout the government Reagan’s conservative appointees, many of whom were loyal Republicans who had supported Bush, were forced to resign, were stripped of their duties, or were summarily fired by a new administration that wanted no part of the relatively few movement conservatives left in the government on the day Ronald Reagan departed Washington for California.
The few that were left were relegated to the dim reaches of various federal office building and given a few months to find another job or left on the payroll, but given no responsibilities in the new administration. Their in-boxes filled with only magazines and with nothing substantive to do they soon left.
While Bush partisans argued that the new president was justified in putting his own people in place, the 1989 “Inauguration Day Massacre” firings were more akin to political executions; lists of those to be “executed” were drawn up, and they were fired before sundown of the first day of the new Bush administration in a well-planned agenda to replace conservatives (be they Bush supporters or not) with establishment Republicans.
While most conservative critiques of George H.W. Bush tend to focus on “Read my lips,” and Bush’s abandonment of his pledge not to raise taxes, the result of the “Inauguration Day Massacre” firings were with no conservatives left to say “hey wait a minute,” Bush quickly walked away from conservative principles on a long list of policies and decisions.
• Bush reversed himself and imposed a temporary ban on semiautomatic rifles—so-called assault weapons—after first opposing the idea.
• He signed and advocated the Americans with Disabilities Act, creating a whole new realm of litigation nightmares for businesses large and small.
• He bailed out the troubled savings and loans banks.
• He signed the Civil Rights Act of 1990, making it easier for employees to sue employers.
• He bought into global warming by signing the Framework Convention on Climate Change.
• He created a “no net loss of wetlands” policy out of whole cloth, with little legislative authority, outraging farmers and landowners across the country.
• And, in what was perhaps his most lasting and damaging betrayal of conservatives, he appointed an obscure state judge, David Souter of New Hampshire, to the Supreme Court.
The “massacre of the Reaganites” should serve as a caution to conservatives who look at Jeb Bush and listen to his “right to rise” rhetoric and think “he sounds pretty good, how bad could a third Bush administration be?” During Reagan’s presidency conservatives frequently said, “Personnel is policy,” and Bush’s Inauguration Day massacre was a sure sign that he intended to abandon Reagan’s policies, and his principles.
Despite all of Bush’s rhetoric about “the transformative power of conservative ideas,” Jeb Bush is the “great white hope” of the Republican establishment.
No one else in America, save Hillary Clinton, starts the 2016 political season with a larger Rolodex of Washington insider supporters than does Jeb Bush. In addition to supporting all of their major policy goals from Common Core to amnesty for illegal aliens, a Bush candidacy will send millions of dollars in consulting business and lucrative lobbying contracts to a small, but powerful, coterie of Bush family supporters and acolytes.
We limited government constitutional conservatives must recognize up front that a successful Jeb Bush campaign would ensure that the Republican establishment stays in power for at least another decade, and it would also ensure that, no matter if Jeb or the Democrat wins, Big Government will continue to get bigger.
Per those who are in the Bohemian Grove circle, Reagan was told if he wants to become president that he had to select GH Bush as his VP.
Jesse Jackson said that.
What did they tell him in 1976 when he almost took the nomination?
“After our population was dumbed down by the poisoned education system, it was easy for them to do it.”
Don’t underestimate the effect of cable TV and the rise of the sound byte.
Another thing you can add to that list is sending Quale to gut the effort on the National Aerospace Plane. The small team I was on had already accomplished one of the six enabling technologies. Look where we’re at now, the Chinese have already made three hypersonic flight test in a short period of time. I’m sure we did the research free for them once again. To have drawings of whole systems on network drives I saw the air force do is of the most absolute stupidity and they want you to go to a class on op-sec every time you turn around.
Our nation has been looted, ruined, and its people sold out by a few generations of power elites that set about enriching themselves, their families, and associates.
Yep.
The GOPelites are no better than the democrats. Both parties sold our once prosperous nation down the river.
All Hail the Dauphin Jeb Bisson!
This struck me as curious, too. I remember some turnover, which would be common in any transition, but I don't recall it reaching purge levels. Some names and positions would add a lot of credibility to the original article.
bookmark
BTTT
Yes, that’s the image they want conservatives to believe.
It’s a myth, a fairy tale. Unicorns and rainbows.
” Our nation has been looted, ruined, and its people sold out by a few generations of power elites that set about enriching themselves, their families, and associates.
Yep.
The GOPelites are no better than the democrats. Bo
th parties sold our once prosperous nation down the river.”
Reagan was our last legitimate POTUS. All since have done all they could to bring about our demise.
I added ‘Terri Schaivo’ to the keywords on your post. I urge EVERYONE to help me do the same whenever Jeb is mentioned in any context.
Terri Schaivo. I will NEVER vote for Jeb. NEVER.
That was magnificent, as always.
W. also pushed the propagandistically named Security and Prosperity Partnership and the NAFTA Superhighway. In other words, he did a few nice, small things while dutifully doing the large things that are part of the elite's plan for moving us to global governance.
JEB! will be president. I have no doubt whatsoever. His job will be to "examine the great damage to our economy caused by Obama, harrumph, harrumph" and convince the downtrodden American People that the only way to security and prosperity (great buzzwords there!) is to join a one-world currency. This is the wetdream of the elites.
His Grandpappy Prescott Bush was a fascist who conspired with others to overthrow the FDR administration. He also helped fund Hitler and was indicted for the same.
The Bushes are extremely evil people who despise the very concept of government by the people, and who lust to weaken our nation from within, grasping power for themselves and the elites within their deviant milieu. I have no doubt that when elected, JEB! will let his freak flag fly and publicly embrace every perversion - moral, political and economic - that exists.
Viguerie if a friend of Cruz.
Cruz is the other one that slipped the GOPe’s grasp and went rogue.
well documented, Dr. Thank You.
Very true, but the corrupted education system sufficiently dumbed down most people to make them more easily susceptible to such things. At least 85% of the population right now are un/misinformed, fools.
Since those in the Bohemian Grove circle didn’t choose him in 1976 they probably didn’t tell him anything
So the larger point is that the next republican president is going to do the same to anyone who supported a democrat, and this is the historical justification in advance.
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