Reply #24: Reagan definitely encouraged the nuts [View All]

[Lydia Leftcoast]

I grew up in a town where nearly everyone attended a church of some kind, but teaching evolution was controversial only among the Jehovah's Witnesses, and we NEVER had school prayer. (This was in the 1960s.)

All of a sudden in the 1980s, with Reagan in office, there were calls for the "reestablishment" of school prayer (which had never been established in Minnesota in the first place) and really vehement "pro-life" protests, not to mention anti-gay initiatives.

I believe that the Republicanites specifically encouraged the nuts as a distraction from the severe economic problems that they were causing.

It doesn't work only with Republicans. Note how a thread on some pop culture scandal gets more responses than a serious discussion of some political principle here on DU.