Ronald Reagan was an actor from the late 1930s until 1966. He became governor of California in 1967
A whole twelve years had passed since the end of The Civil Rights Movement when Ronald Wilson Reagan was elected President Of The United States in 1980.
White people were 80 to 83% of the total population And white people had the power to declare everybody’s rights were already equal, going so far as to declare Affirmative Action “reverse racism.” So white people, en masse, decided to roll back gains they perceived as anti-white racism. And Ronald Wilson Reagan was chosen to lead the way precisely because he was a southern strategy using, dog whistle racism specialist.
The racial inequalities were glaring. But things like the gaps in black and white poverty rates? Reagan successfully blamed that on black culture instead of white racism. And things like who was using welfare the most? Reagan straight up lied about.
 |
| This chart is from 2014. But in the early 1980s, white people were using food stamps and welfare benefits at a rate close to double all other people of color combined. Since the mid 1980s just as many whites and blacks have been on welfare. But you'd never know that to look at the evening news in the 1980s |
Reagan either coined the term “black-on-black crime” or made it so universally popular that even black folks are ashamed to this day or something that is normal; people commit crimes against people they live and work with. And since the United States is still fairly defacto segregated, crime is intraracial. White-on-white crime is upwards of 84% every year too. The only time there’s a gap in the figures is when the economy tanks—because black and brown folks always get hit hardest when the entire country’s money gets funny.
Reagan should definitely get credit for teaching his 80 to 83 percent of the country and white-wanna-bes to call black women “welfare queens” then using that term to scapegoat an entire race for whatever economic woes the country was suffering --
as he used tax law to siphoned money away from
the educated and uneducated,
predisposed to believe any "those people" comment,
poor and lower middle class
mostly white people
in favor of the
upper middle class and rich
mostly white people
Reagan said,
“In Chicago, they found a woman who holds the record,” the former California governor declared at a campaign rally in January 1976. “She used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans’ benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare. Her tax-free cash income alone has been running $150,000 a year.” **
In the 1980s “respectability politics” was sometimes called “taking responsibility for ourselves” by more simple-minded blacks (read: republican). But for the most part Ronald Wilson was pretty damn close to universally hated by black and brown folks.
Yet white folks loved him, on the left and right side of the political aisle
By playing on stereotypes, Reagan was able to get middle-class white voters to support economic policies that helped corporations and the wealthy. Haney López tells Bill, “Over the 1980s, the Reagan tax cuts transferred a trillion dollars to America’s top one percent. Yes, voters got the tax cuts they thought were aimed at cutting off undeserving minorities, but, in fact, it was a politics that was showering money on the very richest Americans.”
“We used to understand that the biggest threat in political life was the power of concentrated money… but now, Republicans for fifty years have been telling voters the biggest threat in your life is minorities are going to hijack government.”
Video
It should come as no surprise to you that in 1982 Ronald Reagan fought against Martin Luther King's birthday becoming a holiday as hard as he could behind closed doors. Reagan fought so hard that he eventually wound up having to apologize to Coretta Scott King -- about his communist comments on MLK, not his racism.
His partial exposure as a racist while he was battling against Martin Luther King's birthday as holiday is probably why grass roots protesters were able to get him to extend the Voting Rights Act another 25 years.
Yet, as much as white people love to quote King out of context, white people loved Reagan. White people love Reagan so much that even President Obama will say something in the vicinity of praise about Reagan when he needs to convince them to stop trying to slit their own throats with some GOP agenda or other.
In 1988 he vetoed the Civil Rights Restoration Act, but he was overridden by Congress. Reagan argued that the act infringed on states' rights and [white] churches and [white] business owners.
I find it absolutely incredible that Reagan was offended by being called a white racist and that his followers were offended for him -- except for the followers that Reagan called by dog whistle.
Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan are cut from the same clothe. Donald Trump is loud mouthed idiot. But he can afford to be one in today's hostile white racial climate.
Trump is quickly leading maybe 45% of the white population toward more overt forms of white racism. But Ronald Reagan slowly lead 70 to 80 percent of white people and a fair percentage of rich people of color too toward more overt forms of white racism. I have no idea why the GOP is surprised that those they've been whistling at are now trying move out front with Donald Trump as their leader.
Like I said before Reagan was good at the dog whistling and he was good at getting under the dark skin of the greedy respectability politicians as well.
Unlike today, due to the internet, Reagan could get away with some of his lying, racist, cheating ways to do things like give two totally different speeches on the same subject.
Reagan frequently elicited supportive outrage by criticizing the food stamp program as helping “some young fellow ahead of you to buy a T-bone steak” while “you were waiting in line to buy hamburger.” This was the toned-down version. When he first field-tested the message in the South, that “young fellow” was more particularly described as a “strapping young buck.”
The epithet “buck” has long been used to conjure the threatening image of a physically powerful black man often one who defies white authority and who lusts for white women. When Reagan used the term “strapping young buck,” his whistle shifted dangerously toward the fully audible range. “Some young fellow” was less overtly racist and so carried less risk of censure, and worked just as well to provoke a sense of white victimization.
Voters heard Reagan’s dog whistle. In 1980, “Reagan’s racially coded rhetoric and strategy proved extraordinarily effective, as 22 percent of all Democrats defected from the party to vote for Reagan.”
It’s important you understand this. Because Ronald Reagan may have been smarter than Donald Trump but they are pretty much cut from the same clothe when it comes to race.
White people, all people, react to their perception of what is happening. If someone tells you a silent train is coming at you from behind a mirror and you are facing the mirror, seeing nothing but sunny skies and clear train track behind you. You're might be willing to continue standing on the train track. The reality of a silent train is not what determines your action. It's your perception or your belief that makes you decide to move or not move.
In the 1980s white people were 80% of the population and they could live in any white constructed denial they wanted. Yet, they were told blacks and browns were taking everything away from them. And when the economy tanked because Reagan was redistributing wealth to those making six figures and more and giving even more to the top 1% those threats were perceived as real by white people and they became dangerous.
In 1982, 1986, and 1989 there were three incidents of white mob violence that are never counted in anybodies statistics on lynching. But they should be.
Vincent Chin was beat to death with a baseball by white people in 1982 in Michigan directly due to ethnicity/race. Willie Turks, Michael Griffiths, and Yusef Hawkins are all black men killed by white mobs in New York in the 1980s.
And they were instigated by Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Reagan went on national television and said welfare queens were stealing America blind when 2/3rd of the people on welfare were white at the time. Major network news helped him out by making sure that all the images of welfare on TV featured black and brown women
Reagan went on national television and said black people were criminals 100 different ways then tried to make himself sound sympathetic and sorrowful about how black people were killing one another, gave black pathology the catchy little name of "black-on-black" crime when he knew perfectly damn well white-on-white crime happened at the same intraracial rate.
Furthermore, 92% of the people using illicit drugs in this country were white -- which shouldn't be that surprising since whites were 80 to 83% of the population and drug usage rates don't vary much from ethnic group to ethnic group.
Ronald Wilson Reagan used Lee Atwater's dog whistle to draw targets on black and brown backs. That's why white mob violence escalated during the 1980s. Redistributing wealth upward, giving huge tax breaks to the upper middle class and wealthy, creating a bigger gap between have and have nots while blaming it on people on welfare (code for black and brown people) created even more racial tension.
In the 1980s white people were 80% of the population and they could live in any white constructed denial they wanted. Yet, they were told blacks and browns were taking everything away from them. And when the economy tanked because Reagan was redistributing wealth to those making six figures and more and giving even more to the top 1% those threats were perceived as real by white people and they became dangerous.
In 1982, 1986, and 1989 there were three incidents of white mob violence that are never counted in anybodies statistics on lynching. But they should be.
Vincent Chin was beat to death with a baseball by white people in 1982 in Michigan directly due to ethnicity/race. Willie Turks, Michael Griffiths, and Yusef Hawkins are all black men killed by white mobs in New York in the 1980s.
And they were instigated by Ronald Wilson Reagan.
'You start out in 1954 by saying, “N*gger, n*gger, n*gger.” By 1968 you can’t say 'n*gger' — that hurts you. Backfires.
So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.
And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me— because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut taxes and we want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "N*gger, n*gger, n*gger."
So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.'
~ Lee Atwater
"Lee" Atwater was an American political consultant and strategist.
He was an adviser to U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan
and George H. W. Bush
and chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Reagan went on national television and said black people were criminals 100 different ways then tried to make himself sound sympathetic and sorrowful about how black people were killing one another, gave black pathology the catchy little name of "black-on-black" crime when he knew perfectly damn well white-on-white crime happened at the same intraracial rate.
Furthermore, 92% of the people using illicit drugs in this country were white -- which shouldn't be that surprising since whites were 80 to 83% of the population and drug usage rates don't vary much from ethnic group to ethnic group.
Ronald Wilson Reagan used Lee Atwater's dog whistle to draw targets on black and brown backs. That's why white mob violence escalated during the 1980s. Redistributing wealth upward, giving huge tax breaks to the upper middle class and wealthy, creating a bigger gap between have and have nots while blaming it on people on welfare (code for black and brown people) created even more racial tension.
In 1982, Willie Turks was chased down and stomped to death by a mob of 12 whites because he was in one of "their neighborhoods" after getting off work for the Transit Authority.
In 1989, Yusef Hawkins was chased down by 30 whites and shot dead while in one of their neighborhoods.
Also in 1989, The Central Park Five, 14 to 16 years old at the time, were harassed into fake confessions by white police and jailed for a decade before the real lone rapist of the white, affluent female Central Park Jogger confessed.
(Donald Trump called for the death penalty to be brought back --- such was his respect for white women. Only Trump and other white men should be able to grab them by the p*ssy, apparently)
(George H.W. Bush wasn't sworn in until January 20 of the same year. In 1989,
this was still Reagan's America. And it was Ronald Wilson Reagan's America STILL
two years later when Rodney king was nearly beaten to death by a white mob of cops.)
this was still Reagan's America. And it was Ronald Wilson Reagan's America STILL
two years later when Rodney king was nearly beaten to death by a white mob of cops.)
White people would have you believe that these lynchings via white mob were isolated incidents. But I remember the racial climate in New York changing when he went into office. I remember hearing that the KKK had opened a new chapter in Queens New York once Reagan was elected. I remember how powerful Reagan made white racists and white people who didn't realize they were racists feel. I remember the cross on a neighbor's lawn.
Reagan made white racism so popular that in 1982 when Vincent Chin was beaten to death with a bat by two white men angry about losing their jobs to Japanese auto-workers --so they claimed-- that the white jury understood and just set the white murderers free like it was a misunderstanding.
Reagan made white racism so popular that in 1982 when Vincent Chin was beaten to death with a bat by two white men angry about losing their jobs to Japanese auto-workers --so they claimed-- that the white jury understood and just set the white murderers free like it was a misunderstanding.
The fact that the white jury understood and set Chin's killers free shows us that the murderous white mobs of 1980s were not fringe dweller freaks. They were representative of white attitudes, extreme in their physical violence maybe, but REPRESENTATIVE.
It’s important you understand how trickle down racism works when a president is involved because Ronald Reagan may have been smarter than Donald Trump but they are pretty much cut from the same racist cloth
If Ronald Wilson Reagan got all this done by KKK rhetoric reduced to dog whistling, think of what could Donald Trump from the president's chair do with his KKK-in-your-face racism and that bullhorn mouth of his?
WHEN TRUMP LOSES
I actually do think Donald is too stupid to win. He's gone too far NOT with his racism but with sexism that definitely targets middle class white women. A lot of white people thought what Trump was saying was just tacky and not-presidential right up until he hit white women with his bigoted attitude.
But the thing I really worry about is who comes from alt-Right next. The next alt-Right presidential candidate is going to be a career politician with a brain. That is, there aren't going to be any 15 year old videos with a "Grab em by the p*ssy" moment coming out at the last minute to save us.
In 2020 a Ronald Trump, Donald Reagan (whatever his name turns out to be) is going to be operating with a white population that is TRULY threatened by the knowledge that their demographic shrinking and their influence along with it
White men have been outvoted twice in a row. And with any luck it's about to happen a third time.
The Alt-right-Guy-After-Trump (ArGAT) is going to be armed with the knowledge of just how low he can go with scapegoating black and brown for white people. Only ArGAT is going to be able to draw the more than the no education / low education white people whose white skin allowed them to make a good middle class living. He's going to be able to get the same group Ronald Reagan got only ArGAT's white people are going to be a lot more comfortable with the overt racism.
Verbally, he's going to be a lot closer to Trump than Reagan. And the white mobs that start attacking black and brown people will be worse than the cops we have killing black and brown people now. Cops are the leading edge of white supremacy. But the white people they protect are the whole sword. And the more threatened the feel, regardless of any objective reality, they more dangerous they become.
IF I'M WRONG AND TRUMP WINS
If Trump is elected? I don't even want to know what the next presidential candidate from Alt-Right is going to look like, much less the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. Hell, ArGAT will probably have horns AND he'll be standing on top of Trump's successes while having a brain and a road map to 1950s and earlier white supremacy.
ArGAT might be able to get a lot closer to making America white again.
CONCLUSION
We need to keep the overt white racists out of the highest office in the land. If Hillary had a penis, this would have been easier. Frankly, that's why Obama snatched the presidency from her in 2008.
For those that don't like her, it's like Oprah said, "You don't have to invite her to your house." Besides Hillary is a known quantity. The worst thing that will probably happen with Hillary in Office is that things won't change much at all. But absolutely cannot say that about Donald Trump.
The perception Trump left of himself as a violent moron have already upset stock markets based on the possibility that we may elect this man. But the thing that is worse is that allies could turn extremely nervous and might even turn into enemies.
Trump's racism and sexism could turn out to be the least of our Trump problems.
Still, after seeing what Ronald Reagan did with a racist dog whistle, we don't want to see what Trump does with a racist megaphone. And we really don't want the man after Trump to be standing on Trump's victory while the white population is feeling more and more threatened, becoming more and more vicious about their waning numbers.
Don't let the fact that white people voted for Obama fool you TOO MUCH either. White people were scared in 2008. This country was in a recession and it looked like we were headed for a depression. And some white people about to lose their homes voted for a black man. That does not mean their basic bias and straight up white supremacist attitudes actually went anywhere.
The racist who thinks he's not a racist because he found one black person or two that he feels is "just as good as a white person" are numerous in this country. And white people who think this way think they are NOT racist. That's why that "credit to your race" crap ain't gone. President Obama, for a lot of white people who are thinking of voting for Trump , is the failed "credit to his race."
Then there's that huge bunch of white people that like to say "He's half white, ya know" --reminding us that they think race is biology rather than sociology, reminding us that they think President Obama's intelligence come from his white blood. This represents a whole other set of white racists.
I won't go into liberal white racism here because this ain't about that. This is not about white people being in power and being neglectful and ignoring us. This is about stopping Donald Trump from drawing an even bigger target on our backs than Ronald Reagan even thought about -- and that @$$hole was evil.
Again, there is more than one type of white racism. Their liberal racism, conservative racism, KKK racism etc. Some of white racisms function by ignoring people of color, like the liberal racism. And then there is the conservative white racisms that like to scapegoat and keep white supremacy tasteful and stoic. But Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, both liked to dabble in the KKK racism, that good ole fashioned white mob racism.
And Donald not the racist-whisperer like Ronald was.
The white main stream press has tried to make it seem like the white cop shootings of black people and indigenous people has made 2016 as bad as 1960. I'm fairly certain that's a bold faced lie. A whole bunch of people just "disappeared" in the 1960s but look at this list of lynchings per year.
http://law2.umkc.edu/Faculty/projects/ftrials/shipp/lynchingyear.html
Look at the definition of lynching and look at the list at the link and decide if you really believe that 3 blacks and 2 whites were lynched between 1960 and 1968? And if you find a list of lynchings that goes to 2016, do you think Vincent Chin, Willie Turks, Michael Griffiths, and Yusef Hawkins will be on it?
If you believed the white main stream press, do you still believe that the cop lynchings of Trayvon Martin, Miriam Carey, Yvette Smith, and Mike Brown etc have made the 2010s as bad as the 1980s much less the 1960s?
Stop drinking the white supremacy poisoned kool aide.
I cannot stress it enough. We do not want to see what happens if Donald becomes president. Trump could literally make this country completely unstable.
Like /don't-like Hillary is beside the point. That damn "super-predator" comment of hers is so white-folks-average in the 1990s I can't even believe we're STILL talking about it. When it comes to choosing the lesser of two evils, there's no contest for the person of conscience. If Trump gets into office, the black people in jail for minor drug crimes a decade or so will think they were away at summer camp if Trump puts them in for the slightest trifle -- especially if he gets to pick the next Supreme Court Justice. I doubt we will get back to the days when black people (including black women) were put in jail for vagrancy so they can work on some white somebody's farm, or some white somebody's railroad or in some white somebody's house -- but maybe I'm being naive too.
Some of the white people on the right (and left) are rabid dog scared of decreasing white numbers relative to everyone else. They are also terrified of their decreasing ability to have a middle class life without a high school diploma as only white people out in the sticks could. We've already underestimated the power of that motive toward overt white racism which is why Donald Trump is at the top of the republican ticket-- and also why Bernie won in a lot of the same counties that Trump won.
If you vote for Jill Stein or something, okay. We really have to have a third party or a real choice someday. But maybe not today. Letting Trump be president is something people who ARE NOT already established in careers, paid-for homes, etc are going to pay too dearly for.
Get out and vote.
Do your best to make an informed decision.
* * * * * * * *
WHEN TRUMP LOSES
I actually do think Donald is too stupid to win. He's gone too far NOT with his racism but with sexism that definitely targets middle class white women. A lot of white people thought what Trump was saying was just tacky and not-presidential right up until he hit white women with his bigoted attitude.
But the thing I really worry about is who comes from alt-Right next. The next alt-Right presidential candidate is going to be a career politician with a brain. That is, there aren't going to be any 15 year old videos with a "Grab em by the p*ssy" moment coming out at the last minute to save us.
In 2020 a Ronald Trump, Donald Reagan (whatever his name turns out to be) is going to be operating with a white population that is TRULY threatened by the knowledge that their demographic shrinking and their influence along with it
White men have been outvoted twice in a row. And with any luck it's about to happen a third time.
The Alt-right-Guy-After-Trump (ArGAT) is going to be armed with the knowledge of just how low he can go with scapegoating black and brown for white people. Only ArGAT is going to be able to draw the more than the no education / low education white people whose white skin allowed them to make a good middle class living. He's going to be able to get the same group Ronald Reagan got only ArGAT's white people are going to be a lot more comfortable with the overt racism.
Verbally, he's going to be a lot closer to Trump than Reagan. And the white mobs that start attacking black and brown people will be worse than the cops we have killing black and brown people now. Cops are the leading edge of white supremacy. But the white people they protect are the whole sword. And the more threatened the feel, regardless of any objective reality, they more dangerous they become.
IF I'M WRONG AND TRUMP WINS
If Trump is elected? I don't even want to know what the next presidential candidate from Alt-Right is going to look like, much less the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. Hell, ArGAT will probably have horns AND he'll be standing on top of Trump's successes while having a brain and a road map to 1950s and earlier white supremacy.
ArGAT might be able to get a lot closer to making America white again.
CONCLUSION
We need to keep the overt white racists out of the highest office in the land. If Hillary had a penis, this would have been easier. Frankly, that's why Obama snatched the presidency from her in 2008.
For those that don't like her, it's like Oprah said, "You don't have to invite her to your house." Besides Hillary is a known quantity. The worst thing that will probably happen with Hillary in Office is that things won't change much at all. But absolutely cannot say that about Donald Trump.
The perception Trump left of himself as a violent moron have already upset stock markets based on the possibility that we may elect this man. But the thing that is worse is that allies could turn extremely nervous and might even turn into enemies.
Trump's racism and sexism could turn out to be the least of our Trump problems.
Still, after seeing what Ronald Reagan did with a racist dog whistle, we don't want to see what Trump does with a racist megaphone. And we really don't want the man after Trump to be standing on Trump's victory while the white population is feeling more and more threatened, becoming more and more vicious about their waning numbers.
Don't let the fact that white people voted for Obama fool you TOO MUCH either. White people were scared in 2008. This country was in a recession and it looked like we were headed for a depression. And some white people about to lose their homes voted for a black man. That does not mean their basic bias and straight up white supremacist attitudes actually went anywhere.
Another example of temporary white racism reduction:
The Tuskegee Airmen flew escort to white flown bombers and did a much better job than white pilots who often went looking for glory instead of doing guard duty. The white bomber pilots were grateful to the Tuskegee Airmen. But the thing that I know is that while some of those white bomber pilots might have had a real change in attitude, most of them went on just as firmly entrenched in white supremacy as they ever were EXCEPT that they believed that they had met a few black male pilots that were "a credit to their race."
The racist who thinks he's not a racist because he found one black person or two that he feels is "just as good as a white person" are numerous in this country. And white people who think this way think they are NOT racist. That's why that "credit to your race" crap ain't gone. President Obama, for a lot of white people who are thinking of voting for Trump , is the failed "credit to his race."
Then there's that huge bunch of white people that like to say "He's half white, ya know" --reminding us that they think race is biology rather than sociology, reminding us that they think President Obama's intelligence come from his white blood. This represents a whole other set of white racists.
I won't go into liberal white racism here because this ain't about that. This is not about white people being in power and being neglectful and ignoring us. This is about stopping Donald Trump from drawing an even bigger target on our backs than Ronald Reagan even thought about -- and that @$$hole was evil.
Again, there is more than one type of white racism. Their liberal racism, conservative racism, KKK racism etc. Some of white racisms function by ignoring people of color, like the liberal racism. And then there is the conservative white racisms that like to scapegoat and keep white supremacy tasteful and stoic. But Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, both liked to dabble in the KKK racism, that good ole fashioned white mob racism.
And Donald not the racist-whisperer like Ronald was.
The white main stream press has tried to make it seem like the white cop shootings of black people and indigenous people has made 2016 as bad as 1960. I'm fairly certain that's a bold faced lie. A whole bunch of people just "disappeared" in the 1960s but look at this list of lynchings per year.
http://law2.umkc.edu/Faculty/projects/ftrials/shipp/lynchingyear.html
Look at the definition of lynching and look at the list at the link and decide if you really believe that 3 blacks and 2 whites were lynched between 1960 and 1968? And if you find a list of lynchings that goes to 2016, do you think Vincent Chin, Willie Turks, Michael Griffiths, and Yusef Hawkins will be on it?
If you believed the white main stream press, do you still believe that the cop lynchings of Trayvon Martin, Miriam Carey, Yvette Smith, and Mike Brown etc have made the 2010s as bad as the 1980s much less the 1960s?
Stop drinking the white supremacy poisoned kool aide.
I cannot stress it enough. We do not want to see what happens if Donald becomes president. Trump could literally make this country completely unstable.
Like /don't-like Hillary is beside the point. That damn "super-predator" comment of hers is so white-folks-average in the 1990s I can't even believe we're STILL talking about it. When it comes to choosing the lesser of two evils, there's no contest for the person of conscience. If Trump gets into office, the black people in jail for minor drug crimes a decade or so will think they were away at summer camp if Trump puts them in for the slightest trifle -- especially if he gets to pick the next Supreme Court Justice. I doubt we will get back to the days when black people (including black women) were put in jail for vagrancy so they can work on some white somebody's farm, or some white somebody's railroad or in some white somebody's house -- but maybe I'm being naive too.
Some of the white people on the right (and left) are rabid dog scared of decreasing white numbers relative to everyone else. They are also terrified of their decreasing ability to have a middle class life without a high school diploma as only white people out in the sticks could. We've already underestimated the power of that motive toward overt white racism which is why Donald Trump is at the top of the republican ticket-- and also why Bernie won in a lot of the same counties that Trump won.
If you vote for Jill Stein or something, okay. We really have to have a third party or a real choice someday. But maybe not today. Letting Trump be president is something people who ARE NOT already established in careers, paid-for homes, etc are going to pay too dearly for.
Get out and vote.
Do your best to make an informed decision.
* * * * * * * *
**The welfare queen story was 80% lie. The woman he was talking about was a straight up thief not just some random welfare recipient. Some years later they found thousands of dollars worth of stolen jewelry in her apartment. And I've read that witnesses who'd come across her at one time or another were hoping she was dead --- apparently this con artist/thief who could pass herself off as black, latinx, or asian was actually dangerous.
In other words, this woman who had a fraction of the money and aliases Reagan listed was no where near representative of a welfare recipient --- first because she wasn't white, second because she was mostly a criminal.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
A poverty rate of 10% or 1/10th for white people when they were 80% of the population meant the white poor out numbered everybody else's poor. But Reagan made sure all the images of "the poor" (which he deliberately conflated with "the lazy" and "the criminal" ala Atwater's plans were all made to look black and brown on the television news.
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