Here’s a montage of an American president — and a Republican — making jokes at the expense of the Soviet Union. The one about the three dogs is my favorite.
The Republican Party was a different organization in the 1980’s, ladies and gentlemen. It was a different time.
“It was C. S. Lewis who, in his unforgettable Screwtape Letters, wrote: The greatest evil is not done now in those sordid `dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint. It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.”
“Well, because these quiet men do not raise their voices, because they sometimes speak in soothing tones of brotherhood and peace, because, like other dictators before them, they’re always making their final territorial demand, some would have us accept them at their word and accommodate ourselves to their aggressive impulses. But if history teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.
“So, I urge you to speak out against those who would place the United States in a position of military and moral inferiority. You know, I’ve always believed that old Screwtape reserved his best efforts for those of you in the church. So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride — the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.”
— President Ronald Reagan, addressing the National Association of Evangelicals, March 8th, 1983
When I was a boy, we had a Republican president who stood ready, if necessary, to defeat the Russian Bear.
Now we have a Republican President who seems willing to kneel, if necessary, to fellate the Russian Bear.
I realize this is the punchline for a very old joke, but … WE WERE THANKFUL FOR WHAT WE HAD.
For further illustration between the two men’s dispositions where Russia is concerned, consider the following:
“Trust but verify.”
— Ronald Reagan, repeatedly between 1984 and 1987, during nuclear disarmament negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev. The phrase is actually a Russian proverb; it had been taught to the president by a writer in Russia, Suzanne Massie.
“Well, I think it was Russia, and I think it could have been other people in other countries. Could have been a lot of people interfered. Nobody knows for sure.”
“I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it. I’ve already given my opinion …”
— Donald Trump, 2017, about the FBI, CIA and NSA conclusions that Russia interfered in the 2016 Presidential election. The latter quote was a tweet.
Let me close by sharing something a friend of mine from college said to me tonight:
“I miss Republicans. Family values, free trade, strong alliances against the Kremlin. Whatever happened to those guys?”
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 