Get some rest . .
I notice you did not refute my points but infer that I am too harsh for your poor little ego to stand.
I'll tell you two things Harry Truman told his opponents.
Harry, "Said they accuse me of giving them Hell. I just tell the truth and they think it is Hell!"
Harry also said, "If you can't stand the heat get the Hell out of the Kitchen!"
Anyone who thinks that a man who campaigned in 1980 as an FDR fan was a rock ribbed conservative has to think FDR was one too.
I covered the 1980 campaign. I did an imitation of Reagan telling the story of how the big mean corporation fired his Daddy on Christmas Eve... and The envelope that they thought contained a Christmas bonus in fact contained his pink slip.
I remember Reagan telling crowds in the Midwest about his support for Unions and union workers. Reagan would hold up his Screen Actors Union card and say "I am the only Presidential candidate in history to be elected head of his union.. not once but twice." Reagan would say,"I fought for workers rights at the bargaining table and was good enough at it to get relected... "
Reagan would talk about how he had been a life long Democrat in the Roosevelt Kennedy tradition. He would tell working class voters that his economic policy was identical to that of JFK... And of course he was telling the truth.
Reagan told every crowd that he still held the same views he had when he was a Democrat. He said he had not changed. Reagan said the Democratic party had changed. Since Reagan was now a Republican with unchanged views it must be true that when the Democrats stopped being Democrats .. the Republicans became Democrats.
It was funny how Reagan became known as a Conservative. I was 1964 and Reagan planned to run for Governor of California in 1966. But there was a huge problem. Reagan only recently had switched parties. The Republicans in California were going to paint Reagan as a RINO. And being tagged a RINO would make it impossible for Reagan to win the Republican primary.
Ed Meesce and Cap Weinburger came up with a great idea. No one wanted to speak at the Republican Presidential convention in 1964. Everyone knew Goldwater was going down big time. No elected official wanted that to rub off on them. Cap and Ed figured that if Reagan spoke for Goldwater at the 64 convention in prime time, it would go along way to removing the RINO label from Reagan.
So that is what they did. Goldwater was happy to have a popular RINO actor speak for him at the convention.
Reagan spoke so well the media immediately tagged him as a far right conservative. Reagan went from RINO to far right in one speech.
In every election there after Reagan spent a lot of time trying to overcome the stigma of being thought of as far right. From then on he ran as a RINO... It worked he got a lot of Democratic votes.