The Average Joe

Over the last decade, many in the GOP have created this myth of Ronald Reagan as the savior of the United States and American way of life after the Vietnam Era, high inflation, high unemployment and the gas shortage.  From this, he has become the embodiment of the Republican Party.  For every Republican I can think of, Ronald Reagan is their role model. Is their image of Ronald Reagan accurate ?  Unfortunately, this is a false image as history has proven…should you dare to challenge the status quo. It is worthwhile to find out how images are created.  More importantly, how false images come into being.  Many Americans have grown up accepting, with little question, certain images as accurate portraits of public figures.  As a historian, it is my duty to question whether or not these images are true to the original.  Because of the spotlight that is centered on their every move, presidents seem to fall perfectly into this category. Popular President? Many in the GOP ref

In looking back, I do not know when or how it happened.  Did it happen all at once or was this a slow and steady change?  If I had to, I couldn’t even point out a specific time, a certain instance in where or how it all changed.  I just do not know when the GOP became part of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.  In fact, while watching the GOP debates, I feel as if I am a little kid at the circus with cotton candy and popcorn.  Almost all of them appear to be the insane clown posse.  Due to longer believing in what the Democratic Party stood for, in 1962, Ronald Reagan said “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the party left me” .  Using that same logic, I can now say that I didn’t leave the Republican Party, the party left me.   I am now changing my membership to the Independence Party here in NY.  I have been feeling this way for a while, but after watching these clowns on stage at the GOP debates, it is clear that they do not have a clue on how to govern, cannot