Define for me "Reagan Democrat" please

[Lost-in-FL]

I am hearing this theme too much lately and I cannot comprehend how these too words can be placed together to make a coherent argument.

[fascisthunter]

1. Conservative, Pro-Tax Cut Bomb Iran Dem?

DLC?

[Sundoggy]

2. You must be very young ;)

A Reagan Democrat is what it says it is. A former Democrat who lost their minds and decided what the country needed was a washed-up actor for president.

If you were there it was a phenomenon that was hard to believe. It was like some kind of mass hypnosis.

[Lost-in-FL]

14. Not really that young...

just slapped in the face a few times by bad policy which forced me to get more involved in politics. :hi:

[lolly]

22. Sons and daughters of union members

After unions fought the hard work in the 30s, 40s, and 50s of getting decent wages and working conditions, their children began to take these things for granted. It didn't occur to them that all the middle class comforts that they had had been fought for--often literally and violently. They didn't remember a time when Republican businessmen hired thugs to terrorize workers and keep them in their place. They forgot who their real enemies were, and started listening to Uncle Ronnie and his ilk, who convinced them that brown people were taking away their jobs and ruining their neighborhoods. So they started voting Republican.

[GOPBasher]

32. Very well stated!

:thumbsup:

[FiveGoodMen]

3. Turncoat son of a bitch

[Freddie Stubbs]

4. Traditionally Democratic voters, especially white working-class Northerners, who

defected from their party to support Republican President Ronald Reagan in both the 1980 and 1984 elections.

[TBF]

27. You forgot the synonyms part of your definition. I'll help:

Synonyms for "Reagan Democrats": Idiots, Bigots, Thugs

[dchill]

5. Here you go:

Reagan Democrat: A mythical being from ancient right-wing folklore, supposedly a pro-war, anti-tax white Democrat who is willing to vote for a thug for "ideological" reasons. Not to be confused with any real, living creature.

[Lost-in-FL]

15. lol...

This "Reagan Democrat" was probably coined by a neo-con.

[Mudoria]

6. Centrist to Center-right Dems...

plenty of those in the Democratic Party.

[tjwash]

7. A lying SOB who claimed they "used to be a democrat"

[ellie]

8. A big dummy

Really. What were these idiots thinking? Reagan?

[Benhurst]

9. Precursors of our current "Blue Dog" Democrats.

[RaleighNCDUer]

19. I have disagreements with, but no problem with, blue dogs.

As long as they DON'T vote Republican.

I'd trust a good blue dog over a DLCer any day.

[Dogtown]

10. Zell Miller

and Turncoat Joe?

[devilgrrl]

11. Blue Collar Whites who hate Blacks, Gays and Jews

nt

[Lost-in-FL]

16. ouch, n/t

[Zywiec]

12. Here: see for yourself - 1984 election results

[Lost-in-FL]

17. Holy moth... n/t

[ColbertWatcher]

25. But then, this happened...

[Bigmack]

13. A Raygun Democrat is a person...

from either party who consistently votes against his/her own self interest out of willful ignorance.

Ignorance and pride in that ignorance is the hallmark of the species.

[Smarmie Doofus]

18. In many ways, Reagan was an historical accident.

Had the Ayatollah not allowed the American hostages to be siezed and held for a protracted period, Carter would have coasted to victory, crippled economy or no.

Reagan DEMS were those elements of the FDR coalition that bought into the flag-waving mania that overtook the country in the wake of the hostage crisis. Doesn't matter that some of the hostages were spies; doesn't matter that the US embassy had helped overthrow the Iranian democracy and installed a dictatorship; doesn't matter that the embassy and some of it's personnel were involved in training Iranian secret police who tortured and shot dissidents.

Iran had to be punished. Reagan was tough enough to do it. Besides, history is boring and football is much more fun.

[CANDO]

20. White working class folks who....

fell(hard) for the backlash politics(against affirmative action) pushed by the cons since the late seventies. I work with many fellow Teamsters who bought into the Republican "machismo" brand. Liberal to them means you are a sissy. They were won over with this bullshit and they don't seem to care that they vote against their own economic interest. Being "tough" means more to them than being "smart".

[TexasObserver]

21. Reagan Democrats = Democrats who couldn't vote for Mondale

Beyond that, it's largely a fictitious term used by pundits about something that never really happened. There's a concerted effort to make Reagan more than he was. This is part of that effort.

Reagan was a more attractive candidate than Carter or Mondale for a variety of reasons, but the main reason had to do with simple likeableness. Carter had his problems by 1980, and we had two major problems that made him look bad: the economy and Iran. Mondale was a hopeless geek with an annoying and unqualified VP candidate. They got beat badly because THEY were considered lousy candidates. Everyone working for the Democratic party in 1984 knows this. We won some key US senate seats in spite of being weighed down by Mondale and Ferraro at the top of the ticket.

Reagan Democrats are therefore Democrats who couldn't stand Mondale and Ferraro as their nominees in 1984, and who wouldn't vote for them. It was an epidemic, and it was nationwide. THEY were the reason we have the term Reagan Democrats, because they were such lousy candidates.

[ismnotwasm]

23. Reagon started out a Democrat

Then took his crazy ass over to the dark side. He's part of what the stage for what's happening now as a matter of fact.

I know that doesn't answer the question, but I can't be civil when it comes to Reagon.

[ColbertWatcher]

24. Ideological descendants of "Dixiecrats".

The members of the Democratic party who left because the party was trying to movie away from their racist past.

They created their own party the "States Rights" party before joining the GOP.

For more on this topic, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixiecrat">Wikip*dia

Their most famous member was Strom Thurmond (pictured below).

[SoCalDem]

26. children of FDR dems..they are republicans

they came of age around the time Reagan ran, and since they were raised in a DEM household, they "called themselves" dems.. but they WERE and ARE republicans.. their parents & grandparents idolized FDR for saving them during the depression & war years, but they ended up raising republivan children who bought into the reagan ME ME ME ME MINE MINE MINE ..no taxes..no regulations crap..

They are republicans..

[Beregond2]

28. Oh there were plenty of them, including my stupid brother.

Basically, they bought into the "if we cut taxes you will all get rich" crapola. And they were disgusted by Carter's failure to bring the Iran hostages home. The truth about that didn't emerge until much later, and to this day most people don't know it.

[lunatica]

29. My neighbor at the time

Bought totally into the flag waving in slow motion superimposed on a shot of Reagan with that macho squinty look of the cowboys he used to play looking up and out onto the horizan in obvious deeply patriotic love for his country and how he would save America from the Ayatollah of Iran and the Evil Empire and would bring Reaganomics and save the Americans from having to face themselves.

At about the time all that trickle down money made a u-turn I asked him why he voted for Reagan. He gave me the same simpering whiny little answer every Democrat who voted for Reagan did. "I vote for the best candidate"

[IamyourTVandIownyou]

30. NASCAR folk with no internet.

.

[KillCapitalism]

31. White trash n/t

[DU GrovelBot]

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[GOPBasher]

34. Blue collar people who voted against themselves, b/c

they believed a lot of bullshit.