Bill Mayer counters the recent narrative that Ronald Reagan would not win a Republican primary today based on his record or raising taxes, immigration reform and compromises with the Democratic Congress:
“This has become a kind of conventional wisdom that the Republican Party has gone so far right Reagan himself wouldn’t fit in, but I’m here tonight to call bulls**t on that. Ronald Reagan was an anti-government, union busting, race baiting, anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-intellectual, who cut rich people’s taxes in half, had an incurable case of the military industrial complex, and said that Medicare was socialism that would destroy our freedom. Sounds to me like he would fit in just fine.”
Here is some schadenfreude:
“Ignore the fucking scandals for a few days and save the country from Chuck Schumer.”
That is Mickey Kaus, alarmed about immigration reform sailing through the first hurdle in the Senate with over 80 votes. Some other witless conservative dubbed immigration reform the “Schumercare Democrat Voting Fraud Act of 2013.” LOL. First, these conservatives always personalize their opposition to a bill by attacking the person or persons behind it. Nancy Pelosi. Barack Obama. Ted Kennedy. Chris Dodd. Barney Frank. Harry Reid. And now Chuck Schumer. And hence “Schumercare,” which is supposed to allude to Obamacare for some reason, I suppose to awaken fear and loathing in the conservative lizard brain, as if enough did not exist there already. Second, “Democrat voting fraud?” Let’s ignore for the moment the fact that every single documented instance of “voting fraud” over the past several years has had a Republican as the culprit, and instead let’s focus on the fact that conservatives view minorities voting as a fraud. That cannot be denied given all the Jim Crow laws Republicans are passing or have passed in the South. Further, the earliest that an undocumented immigrant can be become a citizen under this reform bill and vote would be 2028. 15 years from now. They will be voting on whether to keep President Julian Castro on for a second term. And if the GOP decides to go all racist in opposition to this immigration reform bill, then yes, those new citizens will all be voting Democratic. But their votes will be as legal as the conservative’s vote. And that is because they would have paid their fines and their dues and fulfilled their other onerous requirements in this reform to bill to become citizens.