"... In the popular imagination, at least among right-wingers, Ronald Reagan
is seen as a magisterial figure. He isn't remembered for the Marine
barracks bombings in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. servicemembers and led to a withdrawal of U.S. servicemembers from Lebanon. (Reagan won a 49-state landslide when he ran for reelection a year later.) The admirers of Reagan also shrug off Iran-contra and the massive deficits created by his tax cuts.
"Pre-Trump Republicans got mulligans when things went wrong on their
watch because many Americans see them as manly defenders of Right and
Truth and Good. When bad things happen under a Democratic president,
these voters cast blame and see weakness -- but when bad things happen
under a Republican president, they see it as a sign that we need a
strong, steady, Republican hand on the tiller, even if that was the hand
on the tiller when the crisis happened in the first place.
"Trump failed during the pandemic, but he always acted as if he was a
strong leader getting the job done. Polls consistently say that voters
think he's a stronger leader than Biden -- mostly, I think, because he
postures like one. So I'm not surprised that he's getting away with
godawful crisis management. Republicans often do. " -- Steve M., at No More Mister Nice Blog, on the phenomenon of Republicans getting so many mulligans for their mismanagement from the American public. If this gauzy, disastrous amnesia continues, it'll be the end of our democracy for good.
