February 25, 2022
HATING MEXICANS IS THE GATEWAY DRUG:
How Republicans moved from Reagan's 'evil empire' to Trump's praise for Putin (Marc Fisher, Feb. 25th, 2022, Washington Post)
For decades, the Republican Party's stance on Russia's dictators and expansionist tactics was rock-solid: From Dwight D. Eisenhower to Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan, Russia -- then the Soviet Union -- was America's chief enemy, untrustworthy, anti-freedom. It was, in Reagan's famous formulation, the "evil empire."This week, while many Republicans blasted Russian leader Vladimir Putin's all-out assault on Ukraine, former president Donald Trump and some of his allies urged the United States to stay out of the conflict and praised Putin, even presenting him as a "peacekeeper," as Trump put it."Don't look for consistency in Republican policy," said Craig Shirley, a Reagan biographer and longtime Republican political consultant. "The Republican Party right now is a little schizophrenic. Anti-communism and love of freedom used to be the glue that held the party together, but now the attitudes toward Russia have gotten all mixed up with domestic politics."
It's a short trip from Nativism to Nationalism and the Islamophobia stop in-between made them ideological soul-mates with Vlad.
Posted by Orrin Judd at February 25, 2022 8:00 AM