have a question for you…
What would happen if Ronald Reagan would come back to life only to meet Donald
Trump in the oval office?
Do you think they would become friends?
Do you think they would shake hands and
find common ground, with similar values and political beliefs?
Of course, both are considered die-hard conservatives, both are considered a boogie man for the liberals
and both had a career on the show business.
But… in fact, this is where the similarities stop.
Ronald Reagan’s job as president was to fight the worst recession since the great
depression and to do
so, he promised the Reagan Revolution.
The so-called revolution focused on reducing government spending,
taxes and regulation.
President Reagan liked the free market and believed that capitalism would solve the
nation’s problems.
He also liked to portrait himself as a humble, paternal, figure.
In other words, he
pride himself for being a man of high moral values.
Donald Trump however… is a totally different animal.
He is showing off his fortune, his trophy former-
model wife, and he so obviously is the opposite of a paternal figure.
He would be more like your nasty
uncle, living like a bachelor regardless of his age and getting embarrassingly drunk during
family
reunions…
On the policy side, Trump is seldom friendly with free market and small state, loves debt
and the idea of
trade wars and his protectionist policy of taking care of America first seems to be at
odds with the
GOP’s tendency to be in favor, at least in theory, of the free market.
As you can see… there is a CLASH that runs deep in the soul of the Republican Party.
Or at least, this is
how it looks like from an outside perspective.
In one hand, there is that…
Good Old Party that loves America… small government, low taxes and conservative values.
And then… there is this other Republican Party…
That loves trophy wifes, big beautiful walls and tariffs.
And who is winning?
Well… you guessed it.
There is a wave of Republicans leaving Congress Among all these differences in values and
policy, the news cycle has completely been taken over by a new
wave of republicans.
And who is the most important of all of them?
Well, that would be PAUL RYAN, the
speak, the speaker of the House and Republican’s golden boy.
During years, Paul Ryan was the champion of
fiscal rectitude and small government.
And now he has announced we will not run for reelections.
And, as you can imagine, he is not the only one.
Many Republicans might be leaving but there are always new elections and, therefore, new
candidates but
also questionable characters.
Take for example the Alabama special elections back in December 2017.
Trump-backed candidate, Roy Moore, was buried under lots of allegations of sexual abuse
of minors.
After
this scandals, Republicans lost the seat in Alabama for the first time in decades.
But the biggest
surprise is that a Republican president supported an allegedly, sexual predator.
Could you imagine
something like this just 5 years ago?
As you could expect, this Alabama scandal appeared on all the
national newspapers and hit the White House.
And now you might wonder…
What did Donald Trump do to solve this PR crisis?
Exactly!
Nothing!
They did
nothing!
And this is one of the reasons why so many republican candidates are doing so bad on
the polls.
Even in traditionally red states.
But what does this mean for the White House?
Well, for those who don’t keep up with American politics so
much, this year we have legislative elections.
The so-called MidTerms.
This is where the members of the
Congress and many senators are elected.
In America, the president, this is the executive power, is voted
in one election and the legislative power in another.
This is why, for example, despite Obama being
democrat, the majority on the legislative chambers was republican.
And if the republicans loose so many seats on this Midterms 2018, Trump is gonna be in
dire straits
anytime he wants to pass some bill.
But the real question now is… how did the Republican Party get here?
Can a political party change their
ideology this fast?
Today we are going to answer to all of these questions but before, let’s take a look
back at history.
THE REAGAN REVOLUTION
Ronald Reagan started out as a registered Democrat and New Deal supporter but left the
party in 1962,
crossing over to the GOP stating that he didn’t leave the Democratic Party but was the party
that left
him.
Nevertheless, things on the GOP where not ideal either.
According to Reagan, republicans had bought most
of the values of the Democratic platform.
And, despite the passionate rhetoric, there was some truth on
that.
Have you ever heard about CULTURAL HEGEMONY?
This is a concept Marxist philosophers like to use a lot.
According to them, the ruling class needs to create a consensus.
A set of moral values that are shared by
the majority of the political players, including the opposition party.
And back then, ideas like the welfare state and the need for a bigger state control on
the economy became
the new mainstream.
Even the republicans had to accept those principles if they wanted to keep being
considered a serious player.
This explains why both Nixon and Eisenhower did very little when it comes to
economics.
An, you guessed, Reagan was not a big fan of this hegemony.
No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national
income.
But here it comes the interesting part: cultural hegemony is something that changes over time.
How?
When
those values and common-sense stop working to solve people’s problem.
This is what happened in the 70s,
with the crisis.
America was not in a good place back then.
And this was the window of opportunity for Ronald Reagan to reinvent the Republican Party
and create the
ideological platform we used to know as conservativism.
In other words, he took something old and made it shine again by kind of creating a
brand-new ideology.
But the real question is… how do you do that?
How can you create a brand new ideology that makes sense
and makes you win elections?
Well, introducing the theory of the EMPTY SIGNIFIER.
Basically Ronald Reagan went to all the political groups that felt outside of that old political
mainstream.
He spoke to the evangelical conservatives in one hand.
He spoke to the military industry
complex guys on the other.
And finally, he spoke to everybody who was tired of paying so many taxes.
Then, he merged all this groups into a common cause: Liberty and Freedom.
This is what we call an empty
signifier.
A concept so vague that everybody can project onto that vagueness the meaning they are looking
for.
For a fiscal conservative, freedom means being free from paying less taxes.
For a hawkish
conservative, freedom means fighting authoritarian rulers.
In this crisis, Government is not the solution to our problem.
Government is the problem.
But think about it…
How is that possible that you have people so different from one another in the same
platform?
It is a big-time contradiction to have someone who wants smaller government and someone else
who wants to increase military spending, right?
Well… if you wanna create a political identity, you need an antagonist.
And…
Ronald Reagan couldn´t have
it easier.
MR.
GORBACHEV, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL”
Yeah, the evil communists.
This is why during the 80s we have so many movies where the communist are the
bad guys.
Here you have titles like ´Red Dawn´, ´Rocky IV´ and, of course, ´Top Gun´.
All this movies,
alongside with Reagan’s speeches, helped to create a brand new hegemony.
Even Democrat presidents like
Clinton had to promise tax cuts to win elections.
But… as you know Soviet Union fell in the 90s.
So what happens when you lose your antagonist?
Well… then
you find another one.
Like president Reagan did two decades before, President Bush operated from a Christian worldview
that
distinguishes between good and evil.
After the tragedy of September 11 president Bush announced that the
battle ahead would be “a monumental struggle of good versus evil, but good will prevail”
and that’s how
the so called “evil” became America’s new enemy.
We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage, we will not tire,
we will not
falter, and we will not fail.
Of course, here I’m not saying that terrorist or communist are not that evil, or that they
are just a
fabricated monster.
Of course not.
But they can be utilized to create a political platform.
Every
important politician has done it.
Roosevelt did it, Reagan did it, Bush did it… but what happens when you
run out of enemies?
What happens when the Soviet Union is over or when Bin Laden is dead?
This is the
time for…
THE TRUMP REVOLUTION
After the 2008 financial crisis, the economic mainstream and the cultural hegemony was once
again
challenged, resulting in people not trusting the economic mainstream anymore.
The word didn’t spread through mainstream media.
And immediately, the question arose whether or not the
lack of coverage was because it wasn’t newsworthy or because some of the people being protested
against
had the control over the various mainstream media outlets’
When people lose faith in something, that usually leaves a void that needs to be filled
by a new kind of
discourse.
And here swoops in candidate Donald J. Trump with his inflaming speeches during campaign
rallies, all his personal scandals and the scorching and polarizing public statements.
Once again, a new presidential candidate managed to ally himself with an astounding variety
of political
and religious groups that felt misrepresented by the mainstream.
In fact, 80% of the Evangelical
Christians voted for Trump, much more than any other religious group.
Evangelicals values are those of family and moral integrity so, why isn’t a character
like Trump, with
all his divorces and sexual scandals perceived as immoral?
Even in the light of the recent media storm surrounding the alleged hush payment to silence
porn star
Stormy Daniels, 78% of Evangelical voters still support Trump.
Some evangelical leaders went as far as publicly stating that they have given the president
what they
call a Mulligan, a do-over.
After much googling, dear viewers, I found out that to give someone a
Mulligan is a golf metaphor... which seems strangely appropriate considering Trump’s
passion for the
sport
Yes, Evangelical conservatives gave him a Mulligan, they let him have a do over, they
said we will start
fresh with you and give you a second chance --Tony Perkings speaking at CNN
So how is this possible?
Well, you guessed, the antagonists come into play.
So, who or what is Trump’s
political enemy?
The first group that immediately comes to mind is the mainstream media, or as the American
President
calls them, the fake news media.
The second enemy is the so-called Swamp, a term that refers to the not-
so-clean and not-so-transparent political scene in Washington.
The third of many more enemies is, you
guessed it, immigrants.
So, Trump can always play the ‘me or the others’ card.
And it seems to work for
him.
What do all these talking points have in common?
The alt-right has been using them for years.
Trump
managed to appeal to evangelicals and members of the far-right that for a long time have
felt
misrepresented by the liberal and mainstream media.
And Trump’s rhetoric on migration also drew in the
support of the extreme far right, as was the case of the neo-nazi rally in Charlottesville
that wasn’t
later condemned by the President, who went so far as to say that there were very fine
people on both
sides.
From Mexican rapists to bad hombres, the Trump campaign in two moments
Trump’s rhetoric has also spawned a lot of Republican candidates that are trying to
appeal to the same
voters that are the core base of the president, going so far as to state that they are “Trumpier
than
Trump”… but... does it work?
Apparently, it mainly works for those bearing the Trump name.
Take for
example the West Virginia Republican primary.
One of the candidates came up with an ad that was filled to
the brim with Trump’s preferred phrases and idioms and yet he still came up last in
the race.
In order to give a fuller account of the Trump presidency we would need a couple of days
but in the
meantime, considering all this controversy... how are the Republicans doing?
Many political analysts believe that a Democratic blue wave may crash onto these Midterms Election
but is
it only a reaction to Trump’s scandals?
Or are the democratic-inclined voters more energized?
Republicans are losing 2018 midterm money wars
The GOP is worried about these incoming midterm election, as was reported by CNN.
In their piece CNN
reported that senior members of the party are warning the younger members to accumulate
as many donations
as possible, in order to be able to run successful campaigns in such a difficult political climate.
Suffice it to say that in the 88 most competitive House races, 40 Republicans have been out-raised
by
their Democratic challengers.
With House Speaker Paul Ryan abrupt exit, the Republican corporate donor base was a
bit shaken.
A number
of party donors and operatives believe that the Speaker’s exit was the final piece of
evidence they
needed to flip their attention from the House to the Senate.
And that means empty wallets for House
Republicans which will pretty much be left to fend for themselves.
But we need to remember that, when it comes to politics, nothing is written in stone.
We at VisualPolitik
are going to pay special attention to these upcoming mid-terms.
So now it’s you turn… are the Republicans losing their credibility?
Do you think they will lose votes?
Is
a democratic blue wave coming these midterms?
Please, leave your answer on the comment section below.
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