Would Today’s GOP Right-Wing Republicans Vote for Ronald Reagan Today?

Over this past weekend, conservatives celebrated what would have been President Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday.  During the entire commemorative ceremony, Republicans tried to outdo each other with their praises of him.  I love Ronald Reagan.  Oh no, I love Reagan more. I love Reagan more.

The reality is that Reagan actually turns out really not nearly as conservative as they say he was. I n fact, I think there’s no way he could have gotten elected as a Republican today.  Are you ready for this?  I don’t think there’s any way he could have gotten elected as a Democrat today. FOX News would have ravaged him.  Let me show you why.

When he was president, did you know that Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times?  And when he was governor of California, Reagan signed into law the largest tax increase in the history of any state up until then? Now, what do you think FOX News would have said about that?

Also President Reagan almost tripled the federal budget deficit during his time in office.  The debt increased to nearly $3 trillion. That’s almost three times as much debt as the U.S. had accumulated in the first 80 years of the 20th century. That’s a lot of debt. I thought Republicans were against debt.

In addition, President Reagan also illegally gave weapons to Iran. He negotiated with terrorists. Secretly sold arms to Iran in exchange for American hostages and money for contrast. That was the Iran contra fair.  Does it get any worse than negotiating with terrorists? 

And in 1984, Reagan pulled American troops out of Lebanon. President Reagan deployed an American peace keeping force in Beirut but after 241 U.S. services members were killed in a bombing ordered by Hezbollah, he ran for the hills.

President Reagan also — and this is crazy I know, but I’ll explained, he helped to start the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. How? Reagan was trying to fight the Soviet Union which made sense but he trained, equipped and funded the Islamic Mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan. His plan backfired a little bit when they became the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden, which were the tough fighters for that group. I’m not giving all of the blame for him there. But it did turn out that way.

Now, if all that wasn’t bad enough, this one is going to sting. Reagan gave amnesty to three million undocumented immigrants. He signed a law that  made any immigrant who entered the U.S. before 1982 eligible for amnesty. Complete amnesty.

Now, if you think Reagan sounds like a no good lib at this point, and you’re wondering why anyone calls him a conservative, it’s partly because of context but also partly because of what he did on race.

In Philadelphia, Mississippi, he gave a speech about state’s rights and that’s where some civil rights workers had died. I wonder why he gave that speech. And by the way, he was against the Anti-Apartheid legislation handed to him. He vetoed it!  Luckily, they overcame his veto.  So the one thing Reagan was conservative on was racial issues. And that didn’t really sit pretty as you can see with history.

Boy, what an American hero.