It all started with Reagan many years ago. When he deregulated the media, he gave the purveyors of lies, conspiracies, and misinformation the freedom to do and say whatever they wanted.
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No facts in public discourse = goodbye to the two party system. It puzzles me why the GOP would have poisoned their own truth well. The point to be emphasized is deregulation opened the door for nefarious actors, not the least of which are foreign adversaries.
an omission to the timeline: When the Lewinsky scandal broke out for Clinton, MSM discovered that a politician could endure an extended scandal (no doubt influenced by Murdoch's hounding of the British royal family) and MSM could, in fact, profit magnificently both in financial and political equity
The British TRIED to warn us in the early 80s about Rupert Murdoch (Fox News), but the US was too far gone to listen to sanity and reason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1QKXjQTUkc
It keeps seeming like if you dig back to the root cause of a problem, you've got an 80% chance of nailing it with "Either Reagan or the French aristocracy"
Clinton is just as (if not more) responsible. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 wildly deregulated the telecommunications industry, allowing companies like Sinclair Media, Clear Channel and Fox to consolidate their power any snapping up TV and radio stations and homogenizing content.
For real though, Clinton was not as good a president as people think. They passed the clean air/water act and helped facilitate “de-escalation” in the Middle East but other than that dude was just as evil as the others
Remember, Reagan was a stupid Nixon with a pretty face. Most of Reagan’s policies were from the people who thought Nixon was unfairly railroaded and set out to exact revenge on the Democrats while making sure that no Republican President would ever again suffer Nixon’s crucifixion.
Truer words have never been spoken. Reagan was the beginning of todays maga movement with his deregulation of media, where truths, facts are optional. We witnessed the death of journalism, which used to be the Gatekeepers of Truth, with the switch to ratings, sensationalism, gossip, conspiracies.
Amen, and it needs to be shouted out from the rooftops, also supported South Africa's Apartheid Government., during his champaign for Pres. ,one his stops was Philadelphia, Miss. where the 3 civil rights workers were murdered in the 60's & announced that he was for states rights.
How could you leave out McConnell? Actually there is not room to list all the Republicans who ignored their oath of office to get us where we are today.
Because they're operating behind the curtain. They're also peddling all the 'look over there'...'no...over THERE'...'LOOK OVER THERE' purposeful manipulation and distractions while they prepare for implementing project 2025 beginning January 21, 2025. The people need to RISE UP OR ITS OVER.
Their rise was literally predicated on getting Reagan elected…
The simple answer is most republican voters hate this country more than they love their own family the complicated answer is they are stupid fucks who react emotionally not logically
Come to think of it, a lot of negative has happened as a result of Reagan-era policies. Raise your hand if you’re still waiting for $ to “trickle down” from the wealthiest Americans.
Started earlier than that. Read "The Powell Memo" from 1970. His statements were to be initiated in the Nixon administration, but we all know what happened. Took until Reagan to start. Powell was given a SCOTUS seat for his agenda into authoritarian oligarchy.
But don’t worry! I’ve been told my whole life that NEXT election we can worry about popular issues and progressive policies! We just have to support the 84 year old leading the party now and they’ll totally support us later!
And that’s why people turn to Trump. He gives answers (no matter how insane or racist they are) to their very real frustrations. Democrats are SUPPOSED to be the counter balance and push for left wing, progressive policies that address those same frustrations, but instead they bring out Liz Cheney
It started with fdr and the creation of social security. Theodore Roosevelt created welfare as a way for those without jobs to work for the government in return for government assistance. Social security is a posey scheme that benefited the baby boomers and didn't adjust for declining birth rates
If you mean “started eroding their power,” so true !
Now, are you able to look at our male-centered language we all grew up with? Can you substitute “weakening” or “disempowering,” since that works just as well? 😐🤓
Frame it right and you’ll be get independents and some MAGA too. (we’ll just have to help them with their deconstructing racism and sexism, alongside our own).
Thanks! This has been cooking for a very long time. All those Republicans who are horrified now were willing players back then. One other thing that Ronnie Raygun did was preach that Government was always bad so here we are and no one should be surprised.
Reagan is Dead. We can’t do anything to him. All it takes is ONE smart scientist to target the Republican gene and wipe them out once and for all. If you know what I’m talking about, and you know how, don’t wait. Get in the lab and make it happen. It’s time for the meek to inherit the earth.
You know you are wrong when you start with it started with Reagan. Reagan was an empty headed vessel. A useful tool for people that were working since Brown 2. This shit more started with Reinquist and him being the only clerk willing to write a dissent draft against Brown 1.
You are missing the part where Rudy Ghoolianis law firm got Fox on basic cable and somehow every single cable subscriber pays $3 of their cable bill for Fox, whether they watch it or not
The fairness doctrine was based on the "greater good" social contract. The greater good social contract governs most of a polite societies behavior. For instance, it's why most of us return our shopping cart to the cart coral.
I am not being “argumentative” at all. You have incorrect facts and I am correcting them. It does no good for people to replace one inaccurate version of history with another inaccurate one, and it does no one who inadvertently states an inaccurate historical fact to get defensive when corrected.
He didn’t serve in the Reagan administration at all. He was an ambassador to NATO under Nixon. President Ford made him Chief of Staff and later Secretarybot defense.
And Donald Rumsfeld served several roles throughout the Reagan Administration…
almost continuously serving in one position or another related to the Middle East and official Reagan Admin arms trafficking… or in other words~ Iran-Contra
There’s a reason Republicans try to bury this history…
Ford didn’t inherit shit from a Nixon-Agnew administration. He inherited the presidency from a Nixon-Ford administration. The Ford Administration lasted from August 9, 1974 to January 20, 1977, so longer than a term of Congress.
I've said that everything wrong with America has Reagan's fingerprints for years. I regret that I didn't invest in a better-quality voodoo doll when he was in office. I kept it for years, hoping it would finally work but alas.
Wait till older Republicans discovered that Reagan "borrowed" $75 billion from Social Security to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy that were going to trickle down, and then began taxing SS benefits.
Reagan's worst and least visible legacy, for Western economies, was the embedded trade deficit which permitted the neglect of whole regions and capabilities, as well as collapsing the economic bargaining power of huge sections of society.
I have a 64 year old friend that will defend him to the death. "When Reagan cut taxes, I got a raise that year." That year, that's the only year that that happened to him and everything has gotten worse since, but that one year where he himself made more money made it all worth it.
Buy your friend a used copy of "The Presidents Club: The worlds most exclusive fraternity." (thriftbooks for <$10)
It was written by two historians and is about the opportunities and traps that one president leaves the next. Based on Pres Library documents and interviews with their staffers.
Written in 2012, if he's 64 he should find it fascinating. It talks about how sitting presidents consult with former presidents and how various policies have led the world to where it is today. Very unbiased, calls out both sides equally.
Here in Ga recently was told that the reason that education is poor today is because Carter created the DOE - not that Reagan & the GOP have cut the federal & state subsidized K-12 and public college funding we had in the 60/70 that made us # 1 in the world in education to pay for those tax cuts..
The folly of that logic is that while he got that tax cut the wealthy and corporations for a much larger one that had contributed to our National debt that he will pay for in fewer need services…🤷♀️
Asolutely!! Yet the Republican party has rewritten history as to make him look heroic, he was the beginning of the rot, stench, decay of todays Republican Party.
Reagan has been falsely credited for ending the Cold War, just like Nison is being credited for ending the war in Vietnam. Both are lies. The Cold War ended when the Ruskies groomed Gorbachev, and sent him to Reagan, and Ford ended the Vietnam war, with a cut and run that played as an Evac.
I'm so happy there are some of us rooted in truth, reality, and know the real story of Reagan, and have not fallen for rewritten history of the Repubs that he was a hero, nothing be further from the truth. Joe Scarsborough has really pushing that lie, nowadays,his show is down 50%
For his capitulation to Trump and his lies, and those of us who ceased watching him are never coming back. Watching independent pro-democracy networks, such as MTN, TEXAS PAUL,DAVID PAKMAN, where truth, facts still matter.
Reagan also cut off funds for social programs and in particular funding for psychological care. This turned thousands of people with psychological disorders and mental deficiencies out into the street. No other viable care options were available, in turn significantly exacerbating homelessness.
I recall this as my mother, at the time, was a clinical psychologist teaching at a major university and she took her students on weekly clinical rounds in a large hospital affiliated with the university. She was on a crusade against Reagan’s psych cut-backs and program eliminations - to no avail.
Don’t know but I remember a hearing a thing about Roger Ayles saying that the right needed their own media
He was a political consultant? It could have been him
This a good representation of what has happened. It is important to remember the information advantage of MAGA has been built up brick by brick for half a century. Being able to counter the right wing propaganda machine and the sane washing corporate media will not be an easy task.
And this has been followed by gunfights breaking out in the check-out line at Wal-Mart in Tennessee. Because dumbed-down media leads to dumbed-down people feeling empowered to do dumbed-down things...
Yes! Reagan Republicans opened Pandora’s box and unleashed evil, ills, greed, and corruption upon the USA because he/they deemed the truth was not important.
He also ushered in neoliberalism, which failed to deliver for anyone except the already rich, and this stoked the disenchantment which has fuelled the rise of Trump. It also resulted in the financial crisis of 2007/8.
Reagan did it for Murdoch who was integral in the whitewashing of the Iran Contra corruption and for the War on Drugs propaganda. It was nothing more than a long term psy-op that continues to this day with Musk, Bezos, Soon-Shiong and Sulzberger-own 90% of all media.
It most definitely did—check out the drop in Marginal Tax rates, starting with Reagan/ Repubs, that have been starving us of needed funding by transferring our earned income to a wealthy, well-connected few, since 1980.
Word kompromat comes from "compromising material". It's characteristic of politics of Russia
Kompromats, MAGA's GOP, heritage foundation, SCOTUS, CEOs been planning & organizing for 50 yrs to take people's civil liberties. So that billionaire's oligarch can run this country in 2025. Regeanomics
I listened to right wing radio in the early 2000s and it was just toxic as hell. It constantly dehumanized anyone left of center and convinced right wingers that liberals were enemies of the state. The net effect is that right wingers think it's a better choice to vote for a felon than a female.
The Fairness Doctrine applied specifically to licensed broadcast radio and television stations, not to print media or other forms of communication. Audiences can now access a vast array of perspectives on-demand, from news websites to social media platforms, podcasts, and streaming services.
And our country is infinitely more divided and hateful because of the disregard for truth in media. The amount of harm that the “freedom to lie through news and media” has caused is incalculable.
You make a strong point, and I agree that prioritizing truth in media is essential. Imagine the positive change we could create by encouraging accountability and fostering a culture where honesty and integrity in reporting are valued.
By promoting open, respectful dialogue and holding media to higher standards, we could work towards healing divisions and building a more united and understanding society.
Rush Limbaugh radicalized my dad. My dad is not a stupid man. But he is a hard-headed man. I don't know how that bloated POS hooked him but he's never been the same and will not listen to anything that's not a right wing hardline point. You nailed it.
Under what? There is no such thing as “an entertainment channel” or “news channel,” there’s only a channel. Fox News is a cable tv channel and not subject to FCC regulation. The “fairness doctrine” would not have applied to it anyway, the same way it wouldn’t have applied to podcasts.
Channels aren’t “registered” by genre. So there is no standard. And we have no jurisdiction over cable channels. Only broadcast media. Forcing a cable channel to air certain info is an affront to 1A. Like it or not, propaganda is free speech.
In the US, that distinction is a subjective opinion. Not any sort of official designation. The “entertainment” label grew from a civil case against Tucker Carlson in which the defense argued his show (not the channel) was entertainment, and not news.
Just one of the many “gifts” Reagan gave us along with TAXING social security, selling arms ILLEGALLY to the Nicaraguan “contras” and arming Iran. Why tf do republicans ALWAYS get away with crap? We actually impeached Clinton for a bj? smh
Well, despite the ugliness and corruption of corporate media, I think it's actually the First Amendment that gives them the freedom to do and say whatever they want.
This should be included.
It was IMHO, the precursor to and enabled what we are watching unfold and why Musk was able to drop $277 million to back Trump & other GOP candidates …
So many people say "I'm a Reagan Republican" - like that time was different, when really it was nothing to brag about. I lived it. Really disliked him.
Reagon was actor doing the bidding of the rich and corporations. Many Democrats followed along, offering their hands to the Golden handcuffs of corporate greed as they took donations from them.Now we see the consequences. Get corporations out of the government of We the People!
Yeah corporate greed & religious bigotry also played a role~
But power & a permanently poor underclass to continually enrich old wealth with economically stagnant hand to mouth wage-slave subsistence labor was the obvious goal.
Raise the retirement age, steal pensions & work em until they’re dead.
(Ok, in the spirit of full disclosure, it _might_ have affected Fascist Talk Radio, Rush et al, but that was all "entertainment programming", not "news".)
I didn’t know that. He is responsible for a lot of crap. I remember when you got in a lot of trouble for lying. Now it’s normal and acceptable unfortunately.
In 1980, 16 years after the KKK murdered 3 voting rights workers in Philadelphia MS, Reagan went there to give a ‘states rights’ speech. #PresidentMusk and VP Trump are the natural products of simmering hatred for POC. The GOP is a party of racist thugs. This cannot be denied or soft pedaled
You left out the Tea Party & people like Charlie Sykes riding on the likes of Limbaugh's coattails for ratings, 💲 & wife's nomination to Federal Court.
The issue is not Reagan himself but deregulation in general. The uncritical belief that a liberal market will solve everything lies at the core of most societal issues.
Healthcare? Deregulation!
Finance? Deregulation!
Pensions? Deregulation!
I can see your point, but politics being as it is, great policy shifts require a name and a face, and Reagan, like Thatcher, wholly bought into these ideas, promoting them and giving them validity.
You made my point by naming thatcher: it’s the idea of a liberal, deregulated market that hurts. E.g. Clinton signed the bill to no longer divide between investment and commercial banks in the 90s. One huge factor that gave leeway to the Avalanche after Lehmann happened.
When history writes the downfall of the US I hope they start here instead of with Trump. May even need to go back to Nixon but his is a good jumping off point. Parallel this with the war on drugs, welfare queens, declining union membership and states rights and the story is pretty clear.
You left out another reason, Reagan’s cuts to funding for services that supported deinstitutionalized people. The result is MAGA, Trumpsters, Muskrats, flat-earthers, and tin foil shortages.
I’ve never understood the adoration of Reagan. He did so much damage. His “government is the problem” message directly led to the decimation of the social safety net and the nihilism that now controls the country. The government of my youth was generous and kind. No more thanks to him.
Like Trump, he lied. For instance, he promised to pay for tuition for children of veterans who were injured in the war. I enrolled, and before the first semester ended, Reagan reneged, and we all had to fork up our own tuition. He was a POS.
It was the rise in popularity of Rush Limbaugh (as a result of the revocation) that got Limbaugh a tv show that was produced by...Roger Ailes. And Limbaugh's style of radio couldn't exist successfully w/ the Fairness Doctrine
Fox has become the generic term for the pearl clutching hate media. Local media, which is now run nationally by two corporations, follows the same Fox script.
Maybe. The Fairness Doctrine was never actually enforced against broadcasters, but for decades it was a norm that nobody broke. It was just assumed that some degree of fairness was required and expected. Formally removing the doctrine enabled Limbaugh and the rest grew from there.
You remember it like I do!!! A lot of people loved Reagan but he was one of the worst presidents for labor unions and the little guys but everyone except me loved him
I remember the reality of Reagan, and the damage he did to our Government, with his deregulations, anti- gov, anti-union rehtoric. His embrace of states rights, and his support of South Africa's Aphartheid Regime, the Iran contra scandel, & much more. He was no hero, as Repubs make him out to be.
He was a two-bit-'B' actor in black and white TV Westerns. His daughter claimed at one point that her dawd got most of his information from reading the conservative Reader's Digest magazine publication! He was herded along by ultra conservatives behind the curtain who now have morphed into fascists
“It all started with Reagan” could apply to the dismantling of countless protections and regulations the consequences of which we are dealing with to this day
Little known fact; heritage foundation wrote his entire platform and it was their first manifesto or “presidential mandate” akin to how they are doing the same with Trump.
For all their talk of eliminating the deep state elites…GOP voters sure can’t stop worshipping all their presidential choices
Yes, he’s the founder of Fox. However, Murdoch has created a media hellscape for not only the US but for the UK and Australia too. He shouldn't get to hide behind the corporation.
Nonsense. The fairness doctrine didn't work & didn't even apply to cable TV or computer networks. The immutable dynamics of supply & demand created this hellscape. The blame lies with the audience's wilful credulity & desire to be fed this shit.
. If Regan knew what he actually did I wonder what he’d say today. If course Trump had put the cherry on top. I wonder how much Regan was paid to deregulate the news?
I remember watching the news after Regan deregulated and we were warned not to believe anything that comes from the news media anymore. I was a bit young and didn’t understand what they meant but years of FOX I understood.
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Otherwise it's pretty accurate.
/s
During the election when he got the Iranians to hold on to the embassy hostages, until he was elected, and hours after his inauguration
Not a good man
What a hero.
Funny how he was also an actor
The simple answer is most republican voters hate this country more than they love their own family the complicated answer is they are stupid fucks who react emotionally not logically
Now, are you able to look at our male-centered language we all grew up with? Can you substitute “weakening” or “disempowering,” since that works just as well? 😐🤓
Reagan is Dead. We can’t do anything to him. All it takes is ONE smart scientist to target the Republican gene and wipe them out once and for all. If you know what I’m talking about, and you know how, don’t wait. Get in the lab and make it happen. It’s time for the meek to inherit the earth.
And he didn't end Communism it fell over on it's own...
Everybody always has the freedom to say whatever they want. And everybody else can ignore or counter the idiots saying stupid or untruthful things.
or you’re just typically argumentative in non-constructive ways?…
Not really sure you have a point.
I LIVED this particular history and your being entirely argumentative ~ but it’s all dis-info… you’re f’ing clueless… probably a google-geenyus…
almost continuously serving in one position or another related to the Middle East and official Reagan Admin arms trafficking… or in other words~ Iran-Contra
There’s a reason Republicans try to bury this history…
Calling it the “Ford Administration” is pretty much a joke… it’s an asterisk.
Cheaters are nothing but vile, filthy schittbag liars who can only move forward by shortcutting: Fvkk them.
There’s No Fool Like An Old Fool.
Trickle down economics my ass.
That’s why you don’t elect actors as President.
#notallactors
And it’s not a coincidence the original reason Nancy launched her “just say no” campaign was to distract from Ronnie’s dementia…
😭😂😭😂
Difference between them is 40’s Hollywood & 90’s reality TV…
It was written by two historians and is about the opportunities and traps that one president leaves the next. Based on Pres Library documents and interviews with their staffers.
https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/whole-ball-of-tax-historical-income-tax-rates
He was a political consultant? It could have been him
https://johnmenadue.com/how-reagan-and-us-agencies-made-murdoch-a-king/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MibBzRTnb0&ab_channel=YouTubeMovies
https://www.badfaithdocumentary.com/
Kompromats, MAGA's GOP, heritage foundation, SCOTUS, CEOs been planning & organizing for 50 yrs to take people's civil liberties. So that billionaire's oligarch can run this country in 2025. Regeanomics
Individual apathy.
Consider Federalist Society was founded in 1982. Understood?
They criticize and accuse others of using the race card while they play the racism and misogyny card every election cycle.
MAGA = Gen 4 KKK
It was IMHO, the precursor to and enabled what we are watching unfold and why Musk was able to drop $277 million to back Trump & other GOP candidates …
Sponsor sew on badges.
The “Reagan Democrats” became the ‘Evangelical Christian Nationalists’ that put MAGAs in power today.
Now they don’t even try to hide the grievances or racism
But power & a permanently poor underclass to continually enrich old wealth with economically stagnant hand to mouth wage-slave subsistence labor was the obvious goal.
Raise the retirement age, steal pensions & work em until they’re dead.
These are the people who closed all the public pools in the south instead of integrating them…
they will cut THEIR own nose off to spite YOUR face… that’s how they think.
(The Fairness Doctrine, which only applied to broadcast TV, would have had zero impact on cable-only Fox "News".)
IN
Australia....
Healthcare? Deregulation!
Finance? Deregulation!
Pensions? Deregulation!
BUT!
It was the rise in popularity of Rush Limbaugh (as a result of the revocation) that got Limbaugh a tv show that was produced by...Roger Ailes. And Limbaugh's style of radio couldn't exist successfully w/ the Fairness Doctrine
There's a direct connection - https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2021/how-rush-limbaughs-rise-after-the-gutting-of-the-fairness-doctrine-led-to-todays-highly-partisan-media/
The Fairness Doctrine merely required holders of broadcast licenses to provide some airtime for diverse viewpoints.
Limbaugh neither had nor needed a broadcast license.
For all their talk of eliminating the deep state elites…GOP voters sure can’t stop worshipping all their presidential choices
It used to be that media had to balance their news. Then came cable and Fox. The rest is history
GFYS
If Republicans are unable to reelect Speaker Mike Johnson they will be UNABLE to certify Trump's election.
🔥🔥🔥Call your Rep and urge them to vote AGAINST Johnson! 🔥🔥🔥
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republicans-fear-speaker-battle-means-they-can-t-certify-the-election/ar-AA1wpUWa?ocid=msedgntp&pc=LCTS&cvid=66b22e47d4b1441faa41313bc4395110&ei=101
#PresidentMusk
#VicePresidentTrump
Online/offline, what you say is who you are. Unless you are GOP, of course.
I won't believe him until he leave the GOP, though.