Reagan: Rather Than Making Mexico Put Up A Fence We Should ‘Open The Borders Both Ways’ (Video)

Hey, Donald Trump! Your Republican hypocrisy is showing!

“I was a big fan of Ronald Reagan,” Donald Trump told Fox News in November. “I thought a lot of him. And I would have to add the word Republican because I am. I’m a Republican. But I’m a Republican conservative. And we have to throw Reagan in there because, you know, I just — I believed in him.”

In a 1980 GOP presidential debate, George H.W. Bush faced Ronald Reagan. Reagan of course would go on the be elected president and take Bush as his VP.

But the language both men used then was far different than anything you will ever hear any Republican saying today, just 35 or so years later.

On Mexico, here’s what Ronald Reagan said in that debate:

“I think the time has come that the United States and our neighbors—particularly our neighbor to the south—should have a better understanding and a better relationship than we’ve ever had. But I think that we haven’t been sensitive enough to our size, and our power,” Reagan reminded the GOP.

“They have a problem of 40 to 50 percent unemployment. Now this cannot continue without the possibility arising—with regard to that other country that we talked about, of Cuba and everything it is stirring up—of the possibility of trouble below the border. And we could have a very hostile and strange neighbor on our border.”

And here’s the part that makes Trump’s glaring hypocrisy, and that of every one of Trump’s supporters who claim they love Saint Reagan:

“Rather than making them, of talking about putting up a fence, why don’t we work out some recognition of our mutual problems, make it possible for them to come here legally with a work permit, and then, while they’re working and earning here, they pay taxes here?,” Reagan said.

“And when they want to go back they can go back, and cross. And open the border both ways, by understanding their problems. This is the only safety valve they have right now, with that unemployment, that probably keeps the lid from blowing off…And I think we could have a fine relationship.”

Trump of course has repeatedly made Mexicans the target of his presidential campaign from day one, saying of Mexicans coming the the U.S., “They’re not their best people. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing rapists.”

In October, Trump said, “We’re going to do a wall; we’re going to have a big, fat beautiful door on the wall; we’re going to have people come in, but they’re going to come in legally.”

“Mexico’s going to pay for the wall,” Trump insisted.

Republicans, your hypocrisy is showing.

There’s yet another GOP debate this week, on Thursday in South Carolina. Fox News is hosting. They asked a lot of tough questions of the candidates during the first debate they hosted. This video should be played and each and every candidate, starting with Trump, should be forced to explain why they think Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of today’s GOP, was wrong. 

 

Image via Wikimedia