What Reagan And Trump Have In Common That Isn't Tariffs
Flashback time!
If the Supreme Court puts an end to Donald Trump’s tariff-related reign of terror, he will likely blame Canada. Trump threw a predictable fit after the province of Ontario aired an anti-tariff ad featuring former President Ronald Reagan. He condemned the ad, which was soon taken down, as a “fraud” intended to sway his stooges on the Supreme Court, who are known for their obsessive viewership of Canadian television.
Trump immediately retaliated with a 10 percent tariff on goods imported to the U.S. from Canada — unintentionally demonstrated why tariff power should reside with Congress rather than a mad king.
“They cheated on a commercial,” Trump whined. “I guess it was AI or something. They cheated badly. Canada got caught cheating on a commercial, can you believe it?”
As usual with anything Trump says, you probably shouldn’t believe it because it’s not true. Ontario’s ad simply noted that Reagan supported free trade and opposed tariffs, unlike the parallel universe where Trump’s mind resides and Reagan “loves” tariffs. That Reagan probably sports a goatee.
Here’s the beardless Reagan clearing stating his opposition to tariffs, even ones that have more thought behind them than Trump’s economic whack-a-mole. (Watch below.)
Although the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute gave cover to Trump, the reality of Reagan’s tariff position is undeniable. Reagan said in one of his final radio addresses as president on Nov. 26, 1988:
“The record is clear that when America’s total trade has increased, American jobs have also increased, and when our total trade has declined, so have the number of jobs. Part of the difficulty in accepting the good news about trade is in our words. We too often talk about trade while using the vocabulary of war. In war for one side to win, the other must lose. But commerce is not warfare. Trade is an economic alliance that benefits both countries. There are no losers, only winners, and trade helps strengthen the free world. Yet today, protectionism is being used by some American politicians as a cheap form of nationalism, a fig leaf for those unwilling to maintain America’s military strength and who lack the resolve to stand up to real enemies, countries that would use violence against us or our allies. Our peaceful trading partners are not our enemies. They are our allies. We should beware of the demagogues who are ready to declare a trade war against our friends, weakening our economy, our national security and the entire free world, all while cynically waving the American flag.”
I included the full remarks because they wholly contradict and repudiate Trump’s own views about trade, which is views as a zero-sum game with “winners” and “losers.” And he’s too emotionally damaged and just plain stupid to realize that American “trade deficits” are actual economic positives for us.
Reagan supported free trade and didn’t consider commerce another form of warfare. However, if it’s any consolation to Trump, they still have a lot in common. For instance, they’re both racist.
Now that President Flaming Cross is back in the White House, people like to share videos of Reagan not physically urinating on minorities and immigrants. This is supposedly demonstrates how far removed the white nationalist in chief is from Our Fair Reagan. But the street where Ronnie lived was just as racist as Trump’s. This isn’t just “woke” speculation and revisionist history. We have the evidence on tape.
Back in October 1971, the United Nations voted to recognize the People’s Republic of China and expel Taiwan. This annoyed Reagan, then governor of California, so he phoned the White House to complain. That was the well-connected white guy’s version of “calling the manager.” Richard Nixon was the current president and few private conversations with him were ever positive or actually private. The creep recorded everything. Reagan shared with Nixon his anger over the African delegates siding against the U.S. The great communicator sounded like an unhinged MAGA podcast host. (Watch below.)
“Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television as I did,” Reagan told Nixon, “To see those, those monkeys from those African countries—damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!”
This was followed by Nixon’s jovial Quaker laughter.
What’s interesting is that the National Archives appreciated how racist Reagan’s comments were way back in 2000 when his taped conversation with Nixon was released. They deliberately withheld the monkey routine, despite it killing with Nixon — a notoriously tough audience.
Nixon later shared Reagan’s bigoted complaints to Secretary of State William Rogers:
“As you can imagine, there’s strong feeling that we just shouldn’t, as [Reagan] said, he saw these, as he said, he saw these... these, uh, these cannibals on television last night, and he says, ‘Christ, they weren’t even wearing shoes, and here the United States is going to submit its fate to that,’ and so forth and so on.”
It’s bad enough that Reagan expected “monkeys” to wear appropriate footwear, but Nixon complaining about the shoeless state of “cannibals” seems to really miss the point. Reagan was something of an alpha racist, and Nixon tried to present his bigotry as indicative of how the average (white) American viewed the situation.
“[Reagan] practically got sick at his stomach, and that’s why he called,” Nixon went on. “And he said, ‘It was a terrible scene.’ And that sort of thing will have an emotional effect on people … as [Reagan] said, ‘This bunch of people who don’t even wear shoes yet, to be kicking the United States in the teeth’ … It was a terrible thing, they thought.”
If the “cannibal monkeys” are kicking Uncle Sam in the teeth, isn’t it a good thing they don’t have shoes? We’re having trouble tracking the racist metaphor. Reagan was never a big supporter of Africa, at least not the black residents. When he challenged President Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination in 1976, Reagan loudly denounced Ford’s support of black majority rule in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). At a rally in Texas, Reagan — probably wearing a 10-gallon hat — said, “We seem to be embarking on a policy of dictating to the people of southern Africa and running the risk of increased violence and bloodshed.” This was very George Wallace of him.
As president, Reagan claimed to morally oppose apartheid but he vetoed a bill to impose sanctions on South Africa. He also believed the African National Congress, which fought the corrupt South African government, was a pack of commies.
Reagan might’ve been more polite and superficially charming than Trump, but his policies still inflicted significant damage on America. I know that’s easy to forget when Back to the Future, Thriller, Purple Rain, and Like A Virgin all occurred on his watch.
We all know some people are paid to have short memories.
I feel like I'm crazy because I distinctly remember that Reagan kicked off his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi which has special symbolism. He rode the "welfare queen" thing with Lee Atwater's guidance to overwhelming victory!
Aaaargh!
The nature of conservatism lends itself to racism. Because at the core, what they are trying to conserve is hierarchy: social hierarchy, class hierarchy, gender hierarchy, religious hierarchy, and racial hierarchies.
To generalize further, you will usually find two types of racism within conservatism. The "polite", "Country Club", "Behind closed doors" racists and the open screaming loud in your face Neo-Confederate Nazis. The former group will almost convince themselves that they aren't racist because they aren't actively screaming the N-word or openly discriminating against minorities, but scratch the surface and the toxic poison comes out.
Those people are, in some ways, worse, because they deceive themselves even while committing atrocities.