There's something happening here

       As the RNC winds up tonight with yet another divisive speech from Cheetolini to his base, those of us on the outside looking in at the GOP's nominating convention have to wonder how did the nearly 40% of Americans who support this cult of personality get so far from the rest of us ideologically?   There are dozens of books on the subject, but I think Rick Perlstein's new book "Reaganland" comes closer than most.

      Perlstein, who has chronicled the rise of the conservative movement since Nixon says the republican party of the 60s and 70s realized that its mantra of small government and tax cuts for the rich was not echoing with enough people to deliver electoral results.   However, social issues that emerged in the 60s, like civil rights, gun control and gay rights, seemed to separate rural areas where progressive issues were unpopular from the big cities, which were seen as incubators of these policies.   Reagan, who worked for the AMA against medicare  when it was being debated in congress was the perfect candidate to exploit the growing divide on social issues.

      While the hagiography of St. Ronnie is such that most of us don't realize he was a liar almost on a par with tRump, the media allowed him to get away with much of it.   He was truly a great communicator who apparently could charm the birds out of the trees.  His message to disaffected working class democrats was the GOP was here for you and will allow you to express your revulsion of the hippie ethos supposedly being jammed down your throats.

     Republicans have been using that message to appeal to working class whites and rural voters ever since with varying degrees of success.   The message seems particularly clueless today when Cheeto Jesus tries to paint Joe Biden as some wide eyed radical, but as the polls have shown, these attacks resonate with the base.   That 40% of the electorate will never be OK with the push for rights for women, blacks, LGBTQ people or anyone else who is not a white man.   The rest of us have just got to put on our big boy/girl pants and vote.