44 Year Ago, Americans Celebrated Defeating Russia on Ice
Today one of the two major parties openly sides with Russia against the United States
Some of us are old enough to remember the "Miracle on Ice" on this day in 1980. The rag-tag amateur US hockey team was given zero chance of beating the Soviet team, the best in the world, in the Winter Olympics. Yet, somehow, the Americans won.
Almost the entire nation joined in wild celebration. "USA! USA! USA!" Ronald Reagan ran on that feeling (not, to be sure, only from the hockey game) and was elected president.
How unbearably sad it is that 44 years later an entire major political party in our country – the party that was Reagan's but is now entirely opposed to what he stood for on the international stage – is, in effect, cheering, "Russia! Russia! Russia!" and supporting a brutal Russian dictator against the United States, and the authoritarianism Reagan so opposed over the democracy he championed.
That is more unbelievable than was the thought that the US hockey team could beat the Russians in 1980.
The designation “R” after an officeholder’s or candidate’s name plainly no longer means “Republican,” because they are opposed to a republic. In the 1980s, the “R” could have meant “Reagan.” Today, it clearly stands for “Russia”: Mike Johnson (Russia, LA); Ron Johnson (Russia, WI); J.D. Vance (Russia, OH); Ted Cruz (Russia, TX); Marjorie Taylor Greene (Russia, GA); Elise Stefanik (Russia, NY); Matt Gaetz (Russia, FL), and so on and on and on, all the way to the top – make that the bottom – Donald J. Trump (Russia, FL).
The party gleefully disseminates Russian disinformation to the American public. Tucker Carlson, one of that party’s favorite fake newsmen, goes to Russia and makes a propaganda commercial for Putin telling Americans how wonderful everything is behind the rebuilt Iron Curtain that Reagan helped to tear down – The subways are clean and beautiful! The grocery stores have carts! And great bread! And everything is cheap! No foul smells! Nicer than anything in our country! No one is homeless or hungry! The streets are orderly! “Coming to Russia will radicalize you against our leaders!” Carlson “informs” us. Freedom? Who needs it? Tyranny for all!
It is incomprehensible.
If you supported Ronald Reagan or cheered for the 1980 US hockey team or supported freedom and democracy in the Cold War – or you would have if you had been alive then – there is no way you can support the erstwhile Republican Party that is now the Russia Party in 2024.