On This, Ronald Reagan's Birthday

This Blogger met Ronald Reagan once; in an anteroom of the Bel Air Presbyterian Church.

This Blogger was surprised at how big he was, thick; not fat, not muscle bound like gym freaks but working man thick, stoker thick.

They chatted, about a man they mutually admired, Eric Hoffer, the Stevedore Intellectual.

Reagan's political enemy, Michael Dukakis, once said he had never met nor seen a man more comfortable in his own skin that Ronald Reagan. And why not? As a life guard, he had pulled 77 people from the water, many of them lovely young ladies. And while at Warner Brothers Movie Studios, as a contract player; he had received more fan letters than Errol Flynn.

As the chat wound down, he asked this Blogger one question: "What did the Soviets make of him?

 This Blogger told him the truth; they thought he was an idiot savant, sent by God to destroy them.

 This Blogger  was alive when the Soviet Union collapsed, without the need of a cataclysmic World War III.

Revisionist Liberal thinking attributes the collapse to the good intentions of the Soviet Communist Leader Mikhail Gorbachev. That thinking is specious.

The Soviet Union collapsed because of one man, Ronald Reagan. This Blogger knew some Russians; knew some Russian Communists; knew  some Russian Communists with a voice in their nation’s future.

Ronald Reagan paralyzed their rationality; they were irrationally afraid of him.

Reagan demagnetized their will to win; he soaked up all their self-confidence; he was a giant parasite on their Communist spirituality.

Why?

One, Reagan showed Stalinist pragmatism and ruthlessness; when he fired all the striking air traffic controllers from the PATCO union; which had supported him in the 1980 election. When this Blogger informed them, that Reagan had been head of a Union, before entering politics; that cemented their respect for his Stalinist ruthlessness.

As one Russian Communist told this Blogger:” What ingratitude, what ruthlessness, only our Stalin would have done that.”

Second, they truly thought Reagan was an idiot savant; specifically sent by God to destroy them. They knew that he had a failed acting career, centered around playing second lead to a chimpanzee, in the epic film, BEDTIME FOR BONZO; yet there he was, doing what Churchill and Hitler could not do, destroying them.

To them, he was a force majeure and that depleted all their Marxist spirituality and self-confidence

When this Blogger was a student at the University of Southern California, he was dating a hot coed; who wrote for the student newspaper, THE DAILY TROJAN.

Reagan was Governor of California at the time; he has just broken his promise not to raise taxes, forcing the largest tax increase in California's history, through the legislature.

The coed thought it would be wonderful journalism to go into Reagan country and ask his mad dog supporters what they thought about his betrayal.

She picked Taft, California for that intrepid journey.

At the time, Taft was a tough town, an oil town, some cotton….many racists.

She asked this Blogger to ride shotgun for her, and to  wear, his purchased in the Oklahoma panhandle, cowboy hat.

This Blogger did.

They drove up the Grapevine, to Taft; and she spotted what she wanted. An old general store, with a Coca Cola water cooler on the front porch, with six troglodytes members of the male gender sitting on the porch, fanning themselves. A California version of Faulkner’s South.

She pulled into the gravel parking lot; and in her miniskirt and white  gogo boots approached the supposed Reagan devotees.

They did not move, nor greet her.

She informed them that she was a reporter for the DAILY TROJAN; she asked how many of them had voted for Ronald Reagan for Governor.

They all raised their hands in affirmation.

She then asked:” What do you think about Reagan breaking his word and reneging on no tax increases?”

They were all quiet.

They looked peeved.

Then,  an old, old oil rigger said: “I like your football team…..and if Governor Reagan thinks California needs new taxes, then we are all for it. Governor Reagan knows what he is doing.”

Ronald Reagan was a leader one would follow, for his beliefs, not yours. The Soviets never had a chance.