I didn't write this but I wish I had

[padah513]

Some guy named Charlie on yahoo news posted it, but I don't think I've ever heard more truer words. "As long as the right can be scared in to thinking that Dems want to take away their guns, Gays want to convert their children, LGBT want to molest them in bathrooms, they will never learn. Trump has built a wall around their brains - no intelligent thought can enter and no stupid thought can leave."

[defacto7]

1. Trump isn't solely responsible for that. That thinking goes way back.

The GOP has weaponized it over the last 10 years.

[chowder66]

2. This! nt

[Wounded Bear]

3. Closer to 40 years...nt

[KPN]

4. Started with Reagan -- "welfare queens". He had

no fucking idea what he was actually doing.

[Caliman73]

7. Nixon. Not Reagan, Nixon.

He was the guy who created or at least ran with the idea of the "silent majority". He galvanized the right wing reactionaries who were afraid of the various revolutions (civil rights, anti-war, environmentalism, and sexual revolution) that were happening throughout the 60's. Don't get me wrong, Reagan took what Nixon did and put that Hollywood magic into it, but it was actually Nixon that got the ball rolling in a major way. He was able to make the protests against Vietnam, which were gaining steam during the 60's, turn and sour. He stifled some of the environmental action by signing the clean water and air acts and developing the EPA. Nixon was a right wing savant and while he could not escape his own personal demons, which eventually brought him down, he certainly set the table for Reagan to come in 6 or 7 years later and implement the right wing take over of government, that was only temporarily slowed by Presidents Clinton and Obama.

Also Reagan did know what he was doing initially. He certainly surrounded himself with the most right wing people of the era. Later, when he was suffering from dementia he didn't know, but he certainly came in knowing what he had to do.

[JudyM]

10. +1.

Good post.

[Wounded Bear]

11. Nixon and his gang were also the architects of the Southern Strategy...

After Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act, and many of the racists fled the Democratic Party and went Republican, Nixon started the process of quietly promoting white supremacy. They tried to hide it and pretty it up a bit, but the racism was always bubbling just below the surface. As our black friends will attest, discrimination hasn't gone away, it was just muted for a while. Trump has ripped the scab off the festering sore that is white nationalism and it is oozing its vile pus out in the open now.

In so many ways, Trump is just the culmination of what the Repubs have been doing for decades.

[elleng]

6. MORE than 10 years.

[defacto7]

9. Yes, the thinking goes way back more than 10 years.

But it seems the "weaponization" became the tool of choice about the time Obama thwarted their advance. As I see it the right wing went into panic mode tossing out any remnant of ethics in exchange for a scorched earth policy. The twisted thinking was already planted over the years but the missile took off later.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

5. This is true. The worst inside people has awakened.

It's very sad. And the trump freight train moves on and his approvals are up. Will anyone or anything reverse this?

[lunatica]

8. The Gays, illegal immigrants and abortion have been wedge issues since I can remember

I’m 70 years old. That’s a lot decades.

[FiveGoodMen]

12. Trump did not build that wall around their brains

He sure is taking advantage and piling on, but hate radio and the mega-churches built the wall in the first place.