QandO: "Ronald Reagan: punk-rock icon"

June 18, 2004

"Ronald Reagan: punk-rock icon"
Posted by Jon Henke

The punk movement has long been loudly anti-Reagan, and his death hasn't changed that very much. Mark Holmberg, an excellent writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, takes in the punk reaction to Ronald Reagan's passing.

...one of the few places where you could get a solid handle on the Great Communicator's influence on American punks was at Nanci Raygun, the Richmond extreme-music club named after the former president's wife.
[...]
A lot of punk bands made a lot of good records out of hating him," said Robert Collins, bassist for the Wisconsin- and Seattle-based punk band Artimus Pyle...
[...]
What was it about Ron that drove the punks wild?

First off, he was old and Republican, a quintessential establishment fat cat, some of the young punks told me Thursday night while we waited for a Richmond band called Are You [expletive] Serious to take the stage.

He exuded authority, said 29-year-old Brandy Schofield.

"And morality," chimed in another young woman. She said he embodied the kind of Puritanical overlording that "represents everything punks are against."

Up to this point, my reaction is simply: ah, the banalities of youth. It's a good thing they (mostly) grow up one day. But the rest of the story reveals the alternate factual universe the punks appear to occupy, and it's a bit more disturbing...

Collins, the bassist, said Reagan's "economic policies thrust us into a recession we still haven't gotten over."

I certainly can't speak for Collins' economic circumstances--he very well may be in a personal 20-year recession--but the idea that the 80s and 90s, the two longest peacetime growth periods in US history, constitutes a "recession" is laughable. Actually, it's a lot worse than laughable. In order to buy into his assumption, we have to believe that Reagan's economic policies ruined the good times we were experiencing prior to Reagan's Presidency.

You know...the 1970s.

He also recalls fearing, as a child, being obliterated in an atomic blast. "He scared my parents into thinking we were on the verge of nuclear war."

Only, you know, you weren't obliterated. And we're not on the verge of nuclear war any longer, due to the, er, end of the Cold War. Hard to believe these kids blame Ronald Reagan for a war he helped end.

Wait...maybe it's not so hard to believe....

Jesse credits the school of punk rock. "I definitely think it educated me on U.S. and world history," he said.

You don't say.

Before it's over, though, Mark Holmberg makes this pointed observation...

As it turned out, Winkworth's band wasn't even supposed to play in Richmond on Thursday. They've been touring the East Coast and found themselves without a place to play that night. So they rolled into the city and talked their way onto the bill at Nanci Raygun. "That's what you've got to do" if you want to make it, he said.

Wait a minute . . . hustling, pushing yourself, not asking for handouts, charting your own destiny . . . that sounds a lot like classic Ronald Reagan Republicanism, right?

Winkworth thought about that for a moment.

"I guess so," he admitted.
[...]
Yes, a punk-rock icon was buried Friday.

Let the record show that Reagan shared the same stand-for-what-you-believe-in ethic that underpins countless punk songs.

In fact, some of the Great Communicator's statements would fit right into a high-speed, four-chord collision.

"The house we hope to build is not for my generation but for yours. It is your future that matters. And I hope that when you are my age, you will be able to say as I have been able to say: We lived in freedom. We lived lives that were a statement, not an apology."

Oy.

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Comments

He also recalls fearing, as a child, being obliterated in an atomic blast. "He scared my parents into thinking we were on the verge of nuclear war."

He has a rather curious view of history. Reagan never told people that we were on the verge of nuclear war; rather, he was confident that we would win the Cold War.

I distinctly remember the very leftist Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, with their little Doomsday Clock. The day Reagan was elected, the BAS moved their Doomsday Clock forward another minute (to either 2 or 3 minutes till midnight), signifying that just the election of Reagan meant we were closer to nuclear war. (It's ironic that Reagan did more to set that clock back than any other man, certainly more than the whole BAS combined.)

It was the left that was scaring people into thinking we were on the verge of nuclear war, not Reagan.

Posted by: Steverino at June 18, 2004 06:35 PM