I know that title sounds a bit odd, but I wanted to share something with you all. The feeling around now, in the paleoconservative circles, is one of utter dread. However, this isn’t anything new. consider something that I read over at TomDispatch.com (H/T UNZ.COM):
The Rise of the Evangelical Right
It wasn’t particularly difficult to portray 1980 as a gloomy time for America. The spike in oil prices in 1979 had sent the U.S. economy into a tailspin and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was propelling the two superpowers into another cycle of Cold War tensions. Iranian radicals were holding 52 U.S. diplomats and citizens hostage in Tehran, which produced a daily (and, thanks to Ted Koppel’s Nightline reports, nightly) humiliation for President Jimmy Carter and his administration.
As the Republican Party’s presidential candidate, Ronald Reagan responded to these developments by continually playing up the image of an America in decline. His grim vision of that American future cemented his ties to an ascendant right wing within the evangelical community. As early as 1971, intellectual historian Paul Boyer pointed out, Reagan claimed that “the day of Armageddon isn’t far off.” He was referring then to turmoil in the Middle East and the pivotal role of Israel there. “Everything is falling into place,” he added. “It can’t be long now.”
Reagan was not exactly an easy sell to the Bible belt. Divorced and anything but a devoted churchgoer, he was closely associated in the public mind with that Sodom of the West Coast, Hollywood. In the 1980 election, he was also up against Jimmy Carter, a born-again Christian who openly discussed his faith.
Admittedly, Reagan benefited from the endorsement of the Moral Majority, founded by Reverend Jerry Falwell in 1979, and he began playing directly to the religious crowd by establishing a new tradition of inserting “God bless America” into his speeches. But it was those repeated references to Armageddon that cemented his relationship with the religious right. Apocalyptic thinking is central to the worldview of evangelicals. Indeed, it’s what principally distinguishes them from mainstream Christians. “The one thing that affects how they live their daily lives,” writes historian of religion Matthew Avery Sutton, “is that they believe we are moving towards the End Times, the rise of the Antichrist, towards a great tribulation and a horrific human holocaust.”
The mainstream media was shocked that Reagan then brought such doomsday rhetoric into the Oval Office. “It is hard to believe that the President actually allows Armageddon ideology to shape his policies toward the Soviet Union,” the New York Times editorialized just before the 1984 election. “Yet it was he who first portrayed the Russians as satanic and who keeps on talking about that final battle.” Reagan easily went on to win a second term. Later, George W. Bush would employ similar apocalyptic references to justify the invasion of Iraq and unqualified support for Israel, and it didn’t prevent him from winning a second term either.
This piece goes on to say how similar Trump is to what happened in the 1980’s with Reagan. So, basically, this is all too familiar. There is a difference however; Reagan was more of a statesman, noble type. Trump is all about his own image and sometimes, that image is terrifying.
I think another difference between Reagan and Trump is this: For one, in Reagan’s day there was no 24 hour news cycle, as there is today. CNN was just getting started and there was no FOX News or MSNBC. For two, things were different in Reagan’s era. He came from the 1940’s. In that era, couples, families; people in general — kept their private lives, just that — private. You never saw Jane Wyman getting on TV in the 1980’s and trashing Ronald Reagan, when he was running for President. Because in those days, people just did not do that. The press was different too, there was a certain moral code that they lived by.
Sadly, that has all changed today. It started around 1989; right around the time that Reagan was leaving office. The fairness doctrine was gone and slowly the media became more and more politicized. Nowadays, gossip and innuendo are more valued over hard factual news. Accusations are more treated as fact, than facts themselves. It is a total and utter bastardizing of the media.
It is very obvious to this writer, that Donald Trump has lost this battle with the media and should step aside and let Mike Pence carry the torch and hopefully, he can win. However, as the steel-eyed realist that I am; I am sorry to say, it does not look good for us, at all.
