Ron Reagan, former President Ronald Reagan’s son, went on Chris Matthews “Hardball” to essentially say that Trump’s base is mindless drones who follow Trump wherever he goes. “They really aren’t in touch with reality. The most important thing to them (is that Trump) seems to hate the same people that they hate. That’s real Trump derangement syndrome.” Ron Reagan went on to say that his base will try to match the level of love for authoritarians as that of Trump, “If Trump seems to love Putin, they’ll love Putin, too.” “If it was left just up to Trump’s base, they would elect Vladimir Putin as president of the United States over virtually anybody with a D after their name.”
An example of this loyalty came from former Fox News host, and sexual harasser and verbal abuser Bill O’Reilly. While appearing on a radio show, O’Reilly didn’t want to believe that the Trump-Cohen tapes discussing paying off women was what he was hearing:
“I don’t hear anything. “I mean, I have no idea—and there’s no context to it. And I don’t know what they were discussing, and I don’t make my analysis based on false premises. So I, Bill O’Reilly, don’t know the setup to the call, it was abruptly cut off. President Trump pointed that out in a tweet. I don’t know what was said afterward. The other stuff was garbled. I don’t trust Michael Cohen, or whoever represents him, to tell the truth. I certainly don’t trust CNN to tell the truth.” It’s not about the truth. It’s about loyalty. Even to it’s most insane and delusional conclusions. Millions of Americans reacted to the Trump-Cohen tapes the same way the Bill O’Reilly did.
It doesn’t matter to Trump supporters that a federal judge has allowed a case to move forward that alleges Trump is receiving gifts from foreign entities, and governments, breaking the emolument clauses in the United States Constitution. It doesn’t matter to his supporters that he’s violating constitutional law, because Hillary has the Clinton Foundation.
Furthermore, this federal judge allowing the lawsuit to move forward is part of the deep state.
As DCReport.org points out; “When Trump stays at Mar-a-Lago, or First Lady Melania Trump stays at Trump Tower in New York, the Secret Service must rent rooms from Trump’s business. By law, the government must pay commercial rates. Such rates include a profit for the owner.” At least when their was a secret service scandal under Obama, it was for courting prostitutes, not having to pay their boss for a hotel room.
Trump supporters do not care that according to Public Citizen, his first year as president saw penalties handed down to corporations doing wrongdoing drop by 94 percent. As Rick Claypool, a Public Citizen research director points out, Trump’s “Zero tolerance” policies grab the headlines, but lawbreaking corporations get to walk away scotch free. Trump supporters may think that protecting the border is a bigger deal than the pollution caused by corporations, meanwhile, his supporters have far greater chances of getting sick or dying by his polices, than negative impacts caused by illegals. Consider it this way; Trump supporters are more worried about shark attacks than gun violence, even though the stats prove the shark is by far the lesser threat in every way possible (By the way, there are illegals who pay into social security and will never see any of it in the future. Before judging illegals, maybe meet one).
It doesn’t matter to Trump voters that his ethics lawyer is possibly close to saying “fuck it, I’m out.” Stefan Passantino has been his ethics lawyer for a year and a half, and a lawyer who has dealt with Stefan before has said, “he’s done a pretty good job under a lot of stressful circumstances.”
Ronald Reagan’s son is right to say what he said about Trump and his supporter’s, but his history is a bit asymmetrical. In 1980, his father announced that he was running for president at the Neshoba County Fair. Seven miles from there in Philadelphia, Mississippi, three civil rights activists were murdered in 1964.
During his speech for running for president, Reagan said:
“I still believe the answer to any problem lies with the people. I believe in states' rights. I believe in people doing as much as they can for themselves at the community level and at the private level, and I believe we've distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended in the Constitution to that federal establishment.”
Whether it was for the slaves states, or for Jim Crow, the south used “state rights” as a shield for their oppression of African Americans. Reagan says he believes “in people doing as much as they can for themselves at the community level.” Booker T. Washington, a man born into slavery, expressed the same sentiments. In response to Jim Crow, Booker T. Washington expressed a “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” kind of philosophy for African Americans.
In reality, it doesn’t matter if it was Booker T. Washington, W.E.B Du Bois, or Malcom X. Their efforts did not see succeed. Slavery ended by the Civil War. Jim Crow ended because of the Civil Rights Act. The right want to gut the Voting Rights Act. Ron Reagan can lament what has become of the Republican party, but the reality is that Trump is the manifestation of his father politics. Ronald Reagan blew a dog whistle, and Donald Trump blows the blow horn.
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