As MAGA Slowly Repeals the Reagan Legacy

Berlin, June 12, 1987

“I don’t think he would address his party’s front-runner at all. I think he would focus on the people who cheer at that candidate’s rallies. He would point out to them that dictatorships aren’t created by one person; they’re created by all the people who fall in line and say yes.” 

Ronald Reagan’s daughter, Patti Davis, in a February 11th essay in the New York Times entitled, 

“My father would weep for America.”

Let’s start with President Ronald Reagan’s understanding that labor from undocumented workers was an essential component of our nation’s economy. Yet, during his tenure, Reagan did not even face the current contraction of birth rates in the United States, today effectively resulting in restraints on growth, a reduction in our incumbent population, a contraction of the labor pool and a surge in pay for a huge segment of lower paid agricultural, construction, factory and hospitality workers… a major component in our inflationary increases. Immigration would counter that trend.

Early in Reagan’s presidency, he issued his “Statement on United States Immigration and Refugee Policy,” which praised the continued American tradition of welcoming immigration and suggested offering a path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented workers who were the part of our labor force. That statement is the exact opposite of the Trump/MAGA effort to remove and displace this undocumented labor force, denying any possibility of citizenship (even for the DACA children who have never really lived overseas), instead blaming this hardworking cadre of undocumented workers for most of America’s ills, including obviously our self-inflicted harms. For an example of such self-infected harm, see my recent The State Most Behind the Massive Influx of Desperate Immigrants on Our Southern Border: Texas blog.

As recited in boundless.com, “On Nov. 6, 1986 Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, the most far-reaching immigration law passed during his presidency. The Act’s most significant effect was that it allowed immigrants who had entered the U.S. illegally before Jan. 1, 1982 to apply for legal status, provided they paid fines and back taxes. This provision — which Reagan himself referred to as ‘amnesty,’ allowed around 3 million immigrants to secure legal status after paying $185, demonstrating ‘good moral character’ and learning to speak English.

“Although the bill was supposed to toughen sanctions against employers who hired undocumented immigrants, a provision exempting employers from penalties if their workers had presented relatively convincing fake documents meant that the sanctions were ineffective… Between 1980 and 1990 — a span that included the eight-year Reagan administration— the foreign-born population of the U.S. increased from 14.1 million to 19.8 million. This change included 4 million more Latin American-born residents and 2.4 million more Asian-born residents — and nearly 800,000 fewer European-born residents.” Next: our massive international misstep.

Since the end of WWII, the core of American foreign policy was the containment of communism, but more particularly the litany of Russian dictators, armed with nuclear missiles as then the second most modern military on earth and as the de facto shot-caller for all of Eastern Europe, enlisting other nations – from Cuba to Vietnam, from Nicaragua to Angola, from Egypt to North Korea – to join its opposition to all things American or Western European. While communism collapsed, eventually Russia’s replacement dictator, Vladimir Putin, continued, even accelerated, Russia’s commitment to contain and destroy the United States, both internationally and even within its own borders. Nothing has changed except the increasingly brazen attempts of Putin to deploy his military in a program of territorial expansion, regardless of the cost.

That American effort to contain a Russian dictator came to an abrupt halt, even a total reversal, under the autocrat-loving Donald Trump. He thoroughly eviscerated the Republican Party replacing it with a MAGA agenda, which not only embraced foreign dictators but sought to replace our own representative form of government, which Reagan worked so hard to preserve, with a Trumpian dictatorship (“I just want to be a dictator for one day”). Knowing that a withdrawal of American support for Ukraine, a Western European nation fighting a Russian invasion with annexation as the goal, would be the most profound gift to dictator Putin, MAGA is pulling that support as a their policy platform.

The results of a MAGA-controlled House of Representatives have been horrific: “For two years, Ukraine has relied on American weapons to fight Russian invaders. It has bombarded Russian lines with U.S. artillery, destroyed tanks with Javelin missiles and stopped aerial attacks with Patriot launchers… But American support has sharply declined. House Republicans have blocked additional aid to Ukraine, and the Biden administration cannot send many more weapons. (The $300 million package announced this week will likely help Ukraine for only a few weeks.)

“Ukraine has already felt the consequences. Over the past month, Russia made some gains after it took the eastern city of Avdiivka, once a Ukrainian stronghold. Intelligence officials warned Congress this week that Ukraine’s losses signal what is to come from an undersupplied war effort.

“Ukraine retreated because it ran out of artillery shells, the Biden administration said. These weapons have played a major role in the war; Ukraine has used them to deter and weaken Russian attacks before close combat. But with limited supplies, Ukraine’s leaders sacrificed Avdiivka to save munitions for more strategic territory, such as the Black Sea coastline and the country’s northeast. The chaotic retreat that followed left Ukrainian troops and civilians vulnerable.” German Lopez writing for March 14th The Morning (NY Times).

It is small wonder that clandestine Russian operatives are working overtime, using social media and robotic communications to tilt the upcoming US election in favor of their ally, Donald Trump. Trump’s victory, which would profoundly undermine NATO itself, would be a de facto invitation to Russia to continue its goal of territorial expansion and for China to feel free to occupy Taiwan. MAGA has become a rather pure white Christian nationalist party, looking a whole lot more like the Nazi party of WWII than Reagan’s Republican Party.

I’m Peter Dekom, and perhaps we should stop calling this MAGA takeover as the “Republican Party,” since it appears that they are the real RINOs (Republicans in name only).