Reagan Scared Us Into Action: Will That Happen With Trump?
A frank talk about the past, present, and future...and the power that we have...
My first political gut punch was Ronald Reagan’s 1980 election of president. I was a politically aware, fifteen-year-old punk rocker and the words “President Reagan” scared the shit out of me and millions of others. Though he was former governor of California – where I live – I was too young to have experienced his reign; but I did listen to what he said on the presidential campaign trail and it was frightening.
In his 1980 run, Reagan obsessed on the Soviet Union and expressed that obsession in ominous terms, darkness which the media lightened up and dismissed as “campaign rhetoric.” The media personified the fascist slogan “Strength through power” was as a brawny, tough young man, the kind of American who built this country from scratch, while battling the evils of Geronimo, Hirohito, and Hitler. Now, they demanded, we must use our power to stop the Godless Commies from turning the world into a feminist, homosexual paradise where we are all forced to share everything.
The problem, we were told, was government - a bunch of over-educated, elitist, pinko pinheads who knew nothing of the plight of the common man, including the workers – who hated “us” simply because we were patriots, code for White, male, and working class. We must turn this horde back, recapture our country, and rebuild our greatness to become, once again, the “shining city on the hill.” And to do that we will use the Bible and brawn. No one is going to push us around anymore. No one. That’s what they said and what the media uncritically repeated.
Sound familiar? The main difference between Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump is not their authoritarianism or style (though Trump’s style while crude, clownish is closer to Reagan’s than it is not). The difference is that Reagan was enamored with nuclear weapons and the military. He fetishized war, talked force, and promised to stockpile so many weapons that the concept of “mutually assured destruction” would keep the peace, and, if not, well, we have plenty of “young patriots” – my cohorts – to wipe the commies out, and plenty more, after that to fight what they later called the Red Dawn that would come the Day After.
As late ‘70s/early ‘80s punk lyrics teach us, the world’s youth, especially Americans, were worried about Reagan sending American troops to Central America and Afghanistan – “another oil company scam” – fears that were topped by the daily dread of nuclear war.
To be young and aware during the Reagan years was to feel constant, unyielding fear that you would not make it to adulthood or college graduation or marrying and family-making age. If we weren’t wiped out by nukes, certainly we’d be drafted to fight Reagan’s wars. For me, the fear was so profound that, when I was 17, I enlisted in the US Coast Guard, thinking that the Coast Guard, with its peacetime mission of search and rescue, would be a good place to escape the impending draft. Shallow thinking based on youthful ignorance – during times of war, the Coast Guard becomes part of the Navy and “Coasties” are used to patrol river deltas, such as the Mekong, so not exactly the safest place!
Of course, while the Cold War continued, the United States and the Soviet Union did not engage in a nuclear or a hot war. Reagan wasn’t able to push us into Afghanistan or take revenge out on Iran. Aside from a handful of “advisers,” there were no US troops in Central America. Instead, Reagan used proxies to fight the Soviet’s proxies. Other conflicts were waged in darkness, mainly through the CIA, conflicts that most Americans, outside foreign policy circles and the Left, were ignorant of.
That we avoided nuclear war, full-on invasions of Afghanistan and Central America, and escalation of the CIA’s wars was not thanks to Reagan and “strength through power/peace through strength.” It also didn’t just happen or happen by fluke. No, Reagan was stopped because millions of Americans – self included – turned our fear into action. We organized on high school and college campuses, in churches, at union meetings, and on the street. We held protests and rallies and we marched. We had an inside/outside. We elected people to represent us who served as our insiders, using legislation to stop Reagan (or force him to break the law, i.e. Iran-Contra), and this while, economically, the Democratic Party was becoming much more conservative. And this while we were all convinced that we were minutes from nuclear annihilation.
This was true resistance, resistance that extended into culture – punk rock, yes, but also hip hop and heavy metal. Underground culture became so relevant that it profoundly influenced the mainstream (USA for Africa’s “We Are The World” and similar efforts are the watered-down mainstreaming of the underground’s message, same with the populist messaging of Bruce Springsteen and U2). And as the underground became more relevant it grew and created what the Wobblies called “a society of the new within the shell of the old.”
By the 1990s, the punk rock, hip hop, and metal underground had created a vast DIY network that relied on mutual aid. Not only did artists use the network to propel themselves into mainstream through “the industry,” but they were able to bring the mainstream to them by simply staying put (and working their asses off).
The prime example here is Minor Threat, Fugazi, and Dischord Records – a gang from Washington DC that refused to “sell out” to the industry by using and giving back to the underground while producing good music and treating people fairly. By example, these DC “kids” influenced a generation or two of cultural workers and others, which helped bolster the underground and made it a cultural movement. They also made a lot of money, much of which they directed to strengthening the DIY infrastructure and other good causes (much like what the Grateful Dead did during their existence).
While success and digital technology hurt the DIY movement, though fractured, it still survives today. What I’m doing now is the direct result of this movement. While the Substack platform is not a DIY venture, what I do here (and with Record Time, my old record labels, bands, community newspaper, zines, and even political consulting) is part of the DIY movement, if not concretely at least in spirit.
President Ronald Reagan scared the shit out of me and for good reason. He nearly brought us to war several times. He killed millions by ignoring the AIDS crisis and refusing to address the “homeless crisis,” something that started in his presidency and which could have been averted with little effort had he acted. Reagan got too many Americans to believe that government “is the problem” and that our salvation lies in corporate America.
Without Reagan, there’s no George W. Bush or Donald Trump. There’s also no Bill Clinton and the New Democrats selling out working class Americans (another thing making Trump possible). Reagan also built the foundation on which this basket case of a country sits.
As or more important to me is that without Reagan, I don’t activate myself and start my resistance, first through my teenage punk zine Spamm, then by performing bad “revolutionary” poetry, then through protest, organizing protests, engaging in direct action, creating solidarity among activists, researching, writing, publishing, working on political campaigns to get good people into office, and so on.
And without millions like me, there’s no mass resistance to Reagan and DIY culture doesn’t become a movement. We don’t stop the worst from happening. And we create a foundation to resist the shitty things our presidents propose and try to do. We keep things from going to total shit, and sometimes we win and move things forward.
Donald Trump’s second term does not have to be the end of us. It can be the beginning of a new resistance, a new DIY culture, and, hopefully the foundations of a new society based on compassion and solidarity. Reagan had no say in how those of us who feared his reign reacted to his presidency; same with Trump. Hell, I’d say that’s the case with every president – goodish or bad. We are in control of our reaction. We chose what we do with our fears. What we do and build (or don’t) is up to us both collectively and as individuals.
As I’ve written a hundred times before, there is no “man on a white horse.” No one is coming to save us. We can’t outsource the “resistance” to late night talk show hosts, celebrity politicians, special prosecutors, the courts, or anyone other than ourselves. That is a good thing. Hell, if we are to be true to small “d” democracy, that is the only thing. Trust me, I’m not downplaying Trump or the threat that he and his people are. I am frightened for me and others, especially women, queer folk, people of color, and immigrants. But I will not succumb to fear. I will work to not just stop the Far White, but to flip this fucker over. Will you join the fight?