Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Ronald Reagan on Immigration (1989) (and also Trump on Immigration (2024))

Saturday, March 30, 2024

There was a time not too long ago (read, “Thursday”) that I would have died before ever placing a quote by the notoriously cold, homophobic, and generally awful former president Ronald Reagan on a profile I use. That man let a generation of gay men die from AIDS. Rather than taking any action at all, his administration literally laughed in reporters' faces about the epidemic. (Look it up.) In fact, Ronald Reagan’s is a grave I would gladly dance upon.

But his quote on immigration struck me as worth sharing.

Of course I don’t believe he meant a word of it; he was as racist as he was homophobic. This was an act, and he was an actor, trained to say what sounded right and believable, using recitation to temper overt discrimination and harmful policy. But he did say it, so I am using it.

I’m using it to show you in what contrast it stands to the fascist rhetoric of today’s GOP. To show you how, in less than a lifetime, the GOP has gone from embracing leaders who espoused to see the country as a “land of opportunity” where immigration allowed us to “continuously renew and enrich our nation” to leaders who espouse that immigrants are “murderers and thugs,” “not really people,” and “poisoning the blood of our country.”

Y’know something? Diversity, equity, and inclusion are aspirational ideals, not profane handicaps. They are values embraced by most of the country. They are values that soldiers were willing to and have died for since our bloody founding. But the short-sighted, narrow-minded, cheating and lying GOP of today claims otherwise hawking implausible arguments that their base uncap and swallow like snake oil.

It’s the way of the MAGA Republican. And a MAGA Republican is simply a Republican.