Mr. Coffee Nerves: Republicans really lost their minds when the U.S.S.R. collapsed. Without that monolithic enemy to fear and hate, the GOP turned that fear and hate onto their countrymen.

Indeed. I think I've mentioned this piece a few times before, but it's still relevant:

There has always been tension between the Republicans' constituent wings. What long masked it was the Cold War. The Reaganite party was never a two-part but always a three-part coalition, of social conservatives, economic conservatives, and foreign-policy hawks. The hawks' group was minuscule, but it happened that their passion (anti-communism) was shared by Christians and capitalists alike. This was a passion that Democrats -- with a few notable exceptions, including Senator Scoop Jackson, of Washington -- were renouncing by the mid-1970s.

Foreign-policy hawkishness became a permanent electoral advantage for the Republicans, but just as important, it became the party's internal glue. When the Cold War ended, the coalition lost its last point of common ground. As one Republican consultant says, "In 1992 we go to Houston, and Jack Kemp and Pat Buchanan look up at one another and say, 'What the hell are you doing in my party?'"

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1998/06/the-southern-captivity-of-the-gop/377123/

Fooshards: monsatano: Mr. Coffee Nerves: Republicans really lost their minds when the U.S.S.R. collapsed. Without that monolithic enemy to fear and hate, the GOP turned that fear and hate onto their countrymen.

USSR: Godless communists = bad
Russia: Christian fascists = good

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I love how the "godless russian commies" was the cultural identity that stuck in the USA.  Meanwhile in actual russia, their orthodox church is blaring the propoganda that God is on their side, fighting holy wars, etc, basically all the crap our current Fox News Christians are starting to use to justify hate.

Weren't the oligarchs greedy crooks running things the whole time? The kleptocracy is just more overt now.

phalamir: Mr. Coffee Nerves: Republicans really lost their minds when the U.S.S.R. collapsed. Without that monolithic enemy to fear and hate, the GOP turned that fear and hate onto their countrymen.

I take it you were born in 1992 or later and/or never set foot inside the Us and/or studious avoid any American history whatsoever.  Because the Republicans pretty much accused every person in America to the left of Bull Conner of being anti-American and deserving of extrajudicial execution (and for many people, they did just that).  The fall of the Soviet Union didn't change anything except to change nothing

Old school:

But Mr. Buckley's magazine stood firm. A book review from the July 13th issue of the same year - 1957 - by Richard Weaver was called, "Integration is Communization." Mr. Weaver found Carl Rowan's Go South to Sorrow "a sorry specimen of Negro intellectual leadership," and went on to express deep suspicion about the whole integrationist enterprise:

'Integration' and 'Communization' are, after all, pretty closely synonymous. In light of what is happening today, the first may be little more than a euphemism for the second. It does not take many steps to get from the 'integrating' of facilities to the 'communizing' of facilities, if the impulse is there.

He concluded with a restatement of the principles of voluntary association. "In a free society, associations for educational, cultural, social, and business purposes have a right to protect their integrity against political fanaticism. The alternative to this is the destruction of free society and the replacement of its functions by government, which is the Marxist dream."

/Ideas have consequences!

monsatano: CCNP: Scorpitron is reduced to a thin red paste: Mr. Coffee Nerves: Republicans really lost their minds when the U.S.S.R. collapsed. Without that monolithic enemy to fear and hate, the GOP turned that fear and hate onto their countrymen.

Reagan was stoking that hatred already. He had a lot of help.

What Reagan stoked hatred looks like.

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"What was I supposed to do, vote for that dorky guy in a tank?"

The guy in the tank lost to Bush Sr. four years after the Reagan landslide shown in that map.

realmolo: CCNP: Scorpitron is reduced to a thin red paste: Mr. Coffee Nerves: Republicans really lost their minds when the U.S.S.R. collapsed. Without that monolithic enemy to fear and hate, the GOP turned that fear and hate onto their countrymen.

Reagan was stoking that hatred already. He had a lot of help.

What Reagan stoked hatred looks like.

[270towin.com image 825x625]

Well, yeah.

It was a weird time. And don't underestimate just how incredibly unappealing Mondale was.

The Democrats still have a hard time with accepting that winning a Presidential election is almost entirely about personal charisma. Bill Clinton and Obama had it. Even Carter had it. But the other Democratic candidates in my lifetime haven't.

I still think the Democrats should just draft popular liberal Hollywood actors and run them. I mean, fark it. They'll win way more elections that way.

The Wu is comin' through, the outcome is critical
Farkin' wit my style, is sort of like a Miracle
On 34th Street, in the Square of Herald
I gamed Ella, the biatch caught a Fitz like Gerald-
Ine Ferraro, who's full of sorrow
'cause the hoe didn't win but the sun will still come out tomorrow
And shine shine shine like gold mine
Here comes the drunk monk, with a quart of Ballentine

wademh: WWII did have some "unite against a common enemy", but it also had a giant mixing pot going on among those drafted into the services. It didn't mean people liked each other, but they learned to mostly get along, and they learned that people from outside their limited experience weren't all bad.

Many people no longer mix. The less they mix, the more likely they are to become entrenched in their polarization. That polarization is usually full of misconceptions. We need people mixing.

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Yeah, there was a whole new battle against domestic evil that followed the victory in WWII...



https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/events-african-american-history/the-double-v-campaign-1942-1945/

It was the next logical step, but it became a little bit divisive...