Ronald Reagan is the household God of the GOP; much as FDR has been for generations of Democrats. Wingers invoke the Reagan geist so much that it has inspired jokes about Zombie Ronnie. They’ve missed the point of Reagan’s genial persona: he was able to slather niceness over the most retrograde policies and make them seem less harsh This generation of Goopers, however, are mean, ornery and tacky, which are all aspects of malakatude.
We all remember thecheers for the death penalty during Gov. Package Check’s 2012 debate debut and the “let him die guy.” Last night another crowd of wingnut malakas booed a Gay serviceman who asked about DADT:
Asking Rick Santorum what he’d do as President is like asking Oscar when he’s planning to take the SAT. Never gonna happen, my friend. I did, however, get a kick out of Dan Savage’s buddy saying that we should take all sex and social engineering out of the military so they can be butch and kick ass. The military, in fact, is a great place for social experimentation: it was desegregated long before the Solid South, after all. Why? Because bigotry is unacceptable, that’s why. I bet this crowd would boo Admiral Mullen too.
Reagan would have shaken his head, smiled and praised the soldier for his service and ducked the question by telling a story about playing the Gipper or something. Ronnie may have helped to ignite the winger social issues counter-revolution but had remarkable little interest is playing Elmer Gantry. He’d rather praise Burt Lancaster for winning the Oscar for that part…
The other Rick-Perry-is betting that the voters want a prick as their President. I have my doubts about that. Sure, the teanuts want a hater but most people want their President to at least *pretend* to be genial. We have elected Tricky Dick who was a malaka to the core BUT even he felt the need to feign niceness before retreating to the Oval Office to trash talk all and sundry. The current crop of Goopers would be well advised to stop talking *about* Reagan and learn how to sound like him. The man could have sold car insurance to the Amish…
So I’d like to thank the GOP debate audiences for being so nasty. Their malakatude can only hurt their cause, which is hunky dory with me.