Reagan was the one who woke me up to the outright mendacity of the Left. He’d get on TV and deliver a speech right to Mr. and Mrs. Main Street America, and then some Democrat dupe would get propped up there and follow this strategy:
1 - Quote Reagan out of context so as to set up a straw man that Reagan didn’t support.
2 - Beat up the straw man.
3 - Declare Reagan’s argument invalid by proxy.
OR (worse)
1 - MISquote Reagan so as to set up a straw man...
Steps 2 and 3 as above.
I don’t know HOW many times I saw these exact strategies employed. Reagan said one thing, and the guy pasted in there to give the Democrat rebuttal would NEVER say what Reagan said; they’d ALWAYS say something Reagan DIDN’T say, and then go to town railing against that.
Watching that dynamic repeated ad nauseum during Reagan’s Presidency iced it with me: Democrats are liars from Square One; they cannot win if they speak truthfully about the positions of their political opponents. In their arguments, they mimic Satan, himself, who speaks appealing half-truths salted with outright lies in a bid to win support from the unwitting, and the mentally dull.
To this very hour, the only difference between those Democrats, and the present crop is the ratio of half-truths to outright lies: today’s Democrats are nearly out of half-truths and have had to economize considerably on their usage.
You are right about Reagan and half-truths. The media is all about spin and many people have fallen for the lies.