Difference between revisions of "2004-09 Ronald Reagan's Effort to Prevent the Enactment of Medicare"
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<let name=data index=Author>Larry DeWitt</let> | <let name=data index=Author>Larry DeWitt</let> | ||
<let name=data index=Source>Larry DeWitt</let> | <let name=data index=Source>Larry DeWitt</let> | ||
| − | <let name=data index=Topics>\Ronald Reagan\Medicare\Social Security\1980 US presidential race\Operation Coffeecup</let> | + | <let name=data index=Topics>\Ronald Reagan\Medicare\Social Security\1980 US presidential race\Operation Coffeecup\welfare queen</let> |
<let name=data index=URL>http://www.larrydewitt.net/Essays/Reagan.htm</let> | <let name=data index=URL>http://www.larrydewitt.net/Essays/Reagan.htm</let> | ||
<let name=data index=Title>Operation Coffeecup: Ronald Reagan's Effort to Prevent the Enactment of Medicare </let> | <let name=data index=Title>Operation Coffeecup: Ronald Reagan's Effort to Prevent the Enactment of Medicare </let> | ||
<let name=data index=TitlePlain>Ronald Reagan’s Effort to Prevent the Enactment of Medicare </let> | <let name=data index=TitlePlain>Ronald Reagan’s Effort to Prevent the Enactment of Medicare </let> | ||
| − | <let name=data index=Text> | + | <let name=data index=Text> |
| + | <blockquote>[[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] was notorious for taking a real event and transforming it into a mythical story, which he then repeated over and over, making of it an archetype for some political principle he held. When a welfare recipient in Chicago was publicly exposed in 1977 for having defrauded state welfare programs out of $8,000 by using two identities, Reagan transformed the news report into a story regarding a "[[welfare queen]]" who drove a Cadillac and who collected an annual tax-free income of $150,000 by using "eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and . . . collecting veterans' benefits on four nonexisting deceased husbands." Reagan repeated this story of the Chicago welfare queen multiple times over the years, growing it like some kind of political fish-story with each re-telling. In the end, it seems clear that he could not distinguish his own mythical version from the historical one.</blockquote></let> | ||
<let name=data index=TextShort>[[Ronald Reagan]] may have crystallized, in the minds of [[US Republican|Republican]] strategists, the political ability of [[popular myth]] to be more powerful than the [[truth]] – as exemplified by his well-documented history of working against [[social program]]s ([[Medicare]], [[Social Security]]) while convincingly denying it in debates with [[Jimmy Carter]].</let> | <let name=data index=TextShort>[[Ronald Reagan]] may have crystallized, in the minds of [[US Republican|Republican]] strategists, the political ability of [[popular myth]] to be more powerful than the [[truth]] – as exemplified by his well-documented history of working against [[social program]]s ([[Medicare]], [[Social Security]]) while convincingly denying it in debates with [[Jimmy Carter]].</let> | ||
</hide><if not flag=including><let name=docat val=1 /><noinclude>{{:project:code/show/link}}</noinclude></if> | </hide><if not flag=including><let name=docat val=1 /><noinclude>{{:project:code/show/link}}</noinclude></if> | ||