Let me get two things out in the open off of the top:
- I am an Obama supporter. I believe in his message of hope and change. I have been a community organizer in Milwaukee, WI since 2004, a student organizer at Milwaukee Area Technical College and Fisk University, and I believe that the number one problem facing inner-city and minority youth is a lack of VISION and HOPE. These are all reasons why Obama's message resonates with me.
- This is my first diary post.
The second item is important because I probably would not be writing this diary, even though I have very passionate - if somewhat withheld - ideas about Bill Clinton's Presidency and Hillary's candidacy. However, the displays of these two over the last week and a half - which have been exceedingly diaried - have been driving me nuts. Well, I think Hillary reached a new low-point today.
Much has been made about Obama's comments on Ronald Reagan. I think, that Obama is fundamentally correct, as Fonsia points out:
The turmoil of the 60s turned half the country toward political conservatism. The nation divided along the lines we still see today. Because of Watergate, Nixon lost his chance for a generational realignment after his second, massive victory. Carter won with only a narrow victory that reflected the nation's continuing division, and was unable to achieve his goals as president. Then the struggling economy and the Iranian hostage crisis set the stage for another big shift.
Enter Ronald Reagan. He beat us. He also implemented shortsighted, egregiously destructive policies that were, intentionally, the polar opposite of progressivism.
Ronald Reagan siezed the political day, and pounced on a general public perception, that the government had grown too large, and people were generally ready to embrace conservative ideas of small government. He siezed on the perception that people had grown generally lawless. Any semblence of a growing racial harmony disappeared after the political assasination of the late 60's and the country was generally ready for a strong political figure to come and restore law and order. Instead they got the Nixon and Ford Administration. Jimmy Carter came in at a point when people were generally ready to bail on Gerry Ford because he was connected to Nixon, not necessarily because they wanted to embrace his ideas. Then, as pointed out above, Ronald Reagan united a large majority around IDEAS.
This is not a slanted view of history, or even a subjective interpretation of history. This is a reflection upon the historical record here and here. This is an assesment of the figures, and historical background that Fonsia does a much better job of detailing in the post above. I wish that we had had a candidate who could rally progressives around progressive ideas, and that the general feeling of the populace was one of congeniality toward progressive ideas during the 1980's. But it was the opposite. And any realistic reflection on that period in history will show those two things.
This is not a normative statement of the ideas that Reagan put forth, as Obama's wasn't. It is a recognition that Reagan was a transformative figure. I think the problem that many people have is that they take an objective term like "transformative" and turn it into a normative term. Transformation can be either for the good or for the bad, and trying to emulate the transformative nature of a bad person (yes I called Reagan a bad person, maybe I will do a diary on that sentiment when this all dies down, ha) and use it for good purposes. You don't need to use his ideas or even methods to be transformative, and I think Obama has the tools to be equally transformative for the progressive cause.
Now that I have dealt with that, I will get to my point, and the title of the diary. It burns me when I hear Hillary making statements like this:
"I have to say, you know, my leading opponent the other day said that he thought the Republicans had better ideas than Democrats the last ten to fifteen years. That's not the way I remember the last ten to fifteen years.
"I don't think it's a better idea to privatize Social Security. I don't think it's a better idea to try to eliminate the minimum wage. I don't think it's a better idea to undercut health benefits and to give drug companies the right to make billions of dollars by providing prescription drugs to Medicare recipients. I don't think it's a better idea to shut down the government, to drive us into debt."
As Greg Sargent points out, this is what Obama said:
I think it's fair to say the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time over the last 10 or 15 years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom.
That isn't the normative statement that Hillary says it was. In fact, the very next sentence is where he makes his normative statement! Read:
Now, you've heard it all before. You look at the economic policies, when they're being debated among the presidential candidates, it's all tax cuts. Well, we've done that, we've tried it.
Hillary strawmans his argument in a way that is beyond mischaracterization. It is an out and out lie. This is what her campaign has come to, and it perturbs me beyond words. There is a line between honesty and dishonesty in criticizing someone's positions and character. We are used to seeing her operatives or husband or friends try back-door tricks to get her into the GE. But this is a new abyss for Hillary and her campaign. I'm starting to even lose respect for her.
UPDATE:In response to a comment...
I don't need to live through the Reagan years to understand that he destroyed the Black community. I live with the realities of the crack epidemic every day, and lay the blame to none other than Ronald Reagan. Politics aside, it destroyed families, and futures. I wish Reagan and Bush I would be held accountable for this (even posthumously if necessary) but I don't hold my breath for it. The link between Iran-Contra and the drug epidemic has been dismissed by some as a "conspiracy theory", but it certainly is no theory. And whether he was active or complicate in that plot, he bears the responsibility. So don't lecture me on the destruction which Reagan wrought. I am a product of the 80's and as an organizer on the South Side of Chicago, so is Obama in large part. There is no apology for Reagan or his policies in my heart, only visceral contempt (the same type that is growing for the Clintons with every new report).