Mind games…Part II

Soviet Communist Party Leader Mikhail Gorbachev was a shrewd politician. Rather than admit defeat, he provided Ronald Reagan with a golden opportunity. As Gorbachev began to allow Russians more political freedom, the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union was credited undeservedly to President Reagan. The result was a new round of chest thumping for those on the Right. For more than 20 years, Reagan has been touted as the man who took down the Soviet Empire. This would serve as rocket fuel for the Republicans for years to come.

The Republican Party added a new dimension to their arsenal of political division and accusation tools – religion. They worked carefully with those on the religious right, fundamentalist Christian leaders to make Republican values and Christian values synonymous. The “silent majority” morphed into the “moral majority.” It was a clever move, and both used the other. Religious leaders like Jerry Fallwell, Pat Robertson, and later James Dobson would gleefully look the other way as the party did many un-Christian things in exchange for the unprecedented access they would gain to the White House and party leaders.

George H. W. Bush ascended to the Presidency for two reasons: Ronald Reagan and Willie Horton. While Bush could probably have ascended to the presidency solely on the coat tails of Reagan, the party took nothing for granted. They set out to discredit his opponent Massachusetts Governor Mike Dukakis as a candidate who was soft on crime, soft on defense, and soft on moral virtues. One of the most controversial political ads of all time was aired coast-to-coast, telling the story of Willie Horton who had been paroled with the Governor’s approval. Horton reoffended by raping and killing a woman. The ad was powerful and many argue that the ad itself cost Dukakis the election. Again, through division and accusation, the Right prevailed in it’s effort to maintain political power.

Unable to compete with the charisma of Bill Clinton, the election of 1992 went to the Democrats for the first time in 12 years. Clinton had wisely chosen to focus on the failing economy. It worked. And despite the Republicans efforts to highlight on Clinton’s alleged moral infidelity and corruption, they were unable to keep the White House.

The Republicans immediately set about to defeat Clinton from the day he took office. Two years after his election, the Republicans took control of both houses of congress using the same basic strategy they had employed with Richard Nixon – that America was based on old fashioned morals, and it was time for the “silent majority” to rise up again.

In Clinton’s second term, his own personal failure played perfectly into the hypothesis that had been incubated for nearly 30 years – Democrats are immoral. Though few would put it so simply, that was the inference drawn by millions of Americans, particularly those among the Religious Right.