Would Alex P. Keaton be a Trumpist today?

Cafe Society
41

This is how Reagan conservatives saw themselves, though. They were superficially anti-racist in the abstract shallow way of declaring “racism is wrong”, but the truth would become immediately obvious when there was a need to support any real-life legislation.

Then their line would become “I’d love to support this anti-racist policy, but this isn’t the role of the federal government. If this is important enough, surely the states will address it. I have no doubt that the people of Mississippi will act vigorously to safeguard the rights of all its citizens equally.”

That of course was a fig leaf that held up through the 90’s and the early 00’s, and has since morphed into “of course I’m against racism, by which I mean reverse anti-white racism, which is the only kind of racism that exists now.”

42

I happened across a paper on the psychology of child bullies in Japan, once, when I was in college.

What the researcher had determined was that the best predictor of becoming a bully was whether the kid thought that he had opportunities and choices when he grew older. And that was largely based on how others treated him. If his parents and family were like, “Taro, you’re an idiot. Don’t bother trying at school, you’re not going to get anywhere, anyways.”

And that would convince Taro. It didn’t convince him that he was an idiot, but it did convince him that no matter what he did, it wasn’t going to change what people thought of him so he may as well live up to their expectations and be the very person that everyone viewed him as.

People absolutely hate it when you dismiss what they’re telling you, when you’re forcing them to be someone that they don’t hold themselves to be, and when they know that they’re being railroaded into something that society has already set aside for them.

So I can tell you now, your decision to disbelieve people when they told you what they believe, and replace it with your own view, is exactly what has brought you MAGA.

If you look at surveys of racism, they improved, improved, improved, all through the country - including the middle and rural parts of the land. Racist people were - at least in everyone’s own mind of themselves - effectively eradicated. But what did that bring us, so far as everyone in the countryside could see? Every TV show and movie would show some person from the city going 10 feet into farmland and getting hit with KKK wannabes and incest babies.

Glenn Beck and Tucker Carlson created the world that you see, today, because the left chose to disbelieve what people were telling you, found your strawmen and amplified their message, and spent the rest of your time vilifying anyone who had a different view of how to repair things and telling them to just listen to Beck and Carlson to find out what they should really believe.

People can and do legitimately believe that you can’t pass a law and make racists disappear. All you can do is shut down laws that are racist, and give people the opportunity to prove themselves. That was true, before billions of dollars of TV spending and decades were spent to crush that viewpoint.

Sure, there will be racists who get in the way of certain individuals accomplishing their utmost sometimes but the more that people prove themselves against those racists, the more that racist ideologies are disproved and shrink in the eyes of all witnesses. You truly defeat racism. The more that people see government agents rushing in and putting their boot on the neck of every business owner, teacher, and dean to force through people who maybe have / maybe haven’t proven their true abilities, the more doubt that there is that everyone really can succeed on their own merits. The more that you just give racism the cover that it needs to keep alive and take over again - like it has.

And that’s the worst case. Most people will go to places that treat them fairly and be able to do as well as they should.

A lot of Trump’s followers do wrong every day by hearing the guy say things like, “I would sell you out to the highest bidder to get the Presidency.” And deciding that he’s just joking. And a lot of lefties did wrong for many decades by doing the same to Republicans, refusing to listen and replacing what you were told - simply and honestly - with your own imaginary, unpredicated fantasies.

You have reaped as you have sown.

43

I strongly disagree with that.

Reagan Republicans were in favor of small government (I’m sure Alex would quote Reagan’s “I think you all know that I’ve always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help” off the top of his head) Modern Democrats still favor a larger government and more oversight.

Reagan Republicans favored Reagan’s “trickle down” theory. You pump money into the top of the economy and it will trickle down so that everyone throughout the entire economy will benefit. This policy faced a lot of criticism in Reagan’s later years. I recall a comedian saying that the Trickle Down theory meant that rich people just piss on the poor. Modern Democrats definitely do not follow Reagan’s economic ideals.

Reagan Republicans favored businesses, where Reagan-era Democrats favored the working man (at least in the Eastern U.S., not so sure about the Western side). The Republican Party has always favored businesses, ever since its formation. The Republican Party of the 1850s formed out of the Whigs (business folks, especially northern industrialists) and the anti-slavery folks joining forces. Blacks left the party several decades later, but the business focus still remains. The Democrats are no longer the working man’s party, though. Many working class folks left the Democratic Party due to its focus on environmental issues (which cost them jobs) and social issues, which many working class people viewed as favoring illegals while discriminating against working Americans. The Republican racism appealed to a lot of these working class folks. The modern Democratic party is still not pro-business, and the working class is split between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. This puts the modern Republican Party in the odd position of favoring both the business folks and the (racist) working class folks, despite the business folks still favoring screwing over the working class to make things better for businesses and the wealthy. It makes for interesting politics. But the Democratic Party clearly does not appeal to Reagan-era Republicans as far as the wealthy and working class split is concerned.

Reagan Republicans were also largely conservative and also largely Christian. The “Moral Majority” held a lot of political power in the Reagan era. The modern Democratic Party strongly favors separation of church and state, while the modern Republican Party is leaning heavily into Christian values and enforcing their Christian ideals (just like the Moral Majority did in the 1980s).

I personally don’t see too many similarities between Reagan Republicans and modern mainstream Democrats.

This is why I firmly believe that Alex would not have switched parties. He would still be a Republican.

44

Hey, has anyone asked Michael J Fox?

45

Back in 2020, yes.

ETA:

Poking around on Google I found this from 2023:

On one hand, Michael played Alex for years and probably has more insight into his character than anyone here just because he focused on the character for so long.

On the other hand, Michael is very anti-Trump and I don’t know how much that opinion biases his thoughts on how Alex would respond.

46

Your thesis fails here IMHO. Because bullshit it was. It was better, but the degree to which it was could be pretty variable. As a White guy (albeit with non-White relatives by marriage) living in mostly liberal areas I’ve seen racism my whole life. Open, public racism became impolite in broader society and things were moving in a usually haltingly forward direction. But eradicated?

Bullshit.

47

I believe this is the most accurate breakdown.

48

Well, that is the story they like to tell but the reality of Reagan’s “Small Government Conservatism” but the national debt tripled under Reagan from US$900B to over $2.6T (the largest peacetime percentage change although not the largest total change even when adjusted for inflation, which would be Obama and George W Bush) and the largest change and government employment increased by 8.3% even though population inly grew by 7.6%.

Stranger

49

They should do a reboot that inverts the original concept, with Alex as a former Republican turned Obama Democrat, while his aging Boomer parents fell down the Fox News rabbit hole and are now die-hard Trumpers.

50

I imagine he’s been firmly in that camp ever since Trump mocked the disabled reporter.

51

Kirk Cameron can play the wacky neighbor next door who pops in to espouse baseless conspiracy theories and perform simulated sexual acts on various items of produce. It can be paired with a revival of “Heil Honey, I’m Home!”.

Stranger

52

I apologize if I misrepresented your statement. Let me re-state

Trump may have incited chants like “Drain the Swamp” and “Lock Her Up”, but none of his stated proposals were especially anti-corruption, and his actions proved that out.

53

The big question for me is would he have voted for Trump? I think there’s a hellova lot of Republican voters out there who don’t personally like Trump, but take the attitude of “he’ll do less damage as President than his Democratic counterpart.”

54

That’s a really cute just-so story, but it doesn’t change the fact that Reaganites very much did give lip service to anti-racism and then oppose efforts to fight it legislatively. Was that supposed to keep going on forever without comment?

The Reagan-era era of bipartisanship depended entirely on everyone agreeing to say Republicans were nice people, and not talking about what they did behind the scenes. This emboldened Republicans to keep pushing the limits until they nominated Bork, the guy who tried to clean up Watergate. At that point the pretense couldn’t be maintained, and Democrats had to push back.

That’s what got us MAGA. They’re pissed that the charade ended. We were supposed to pretend they were nice and reasonable people forever while they smiled away and chipped away at the foundation of a civil, just, and equal society, rolling back everything we fought for in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s.

And then people like you have the unmitigated gall to blame fascism on the people who called out fascists, rather than on the actual fascists? The only response to this belongs in the Pit.

55

yes, but that is only half the equation. With the Reagan tax cuts, they also collected a lot less. So the real question was did the US government spend more during his time? It certainly may have, but I bet a lot of that went to miliary spending and cuts were made in other areas. I don’t know for certain though.

56

No no no, we have MAGA because Black people weren’t grateful enough for the small gains White folks deigned to dole out so White people have up and decided that they might as well be racist anyway if they don’t get the gratitude they deserve.

It’s certainly not because Republicans en masse agree with MAGA principles no sir.

57

We have MAGA because of slavery. They are just the latest incarnation of what started as the pro-slavery movement in the South, an evil America built into its foundations at the beginning by letting in the slave states.

58

Is this really true? Let’s take a brief survey of 80’s TV shows to see how they portrayed conservatives and rural people.

Starting with the OP of this thread, we have a clever teenager with his upstart clever conservatism as a foil for his lame boomer parents.

  • Dallas - cowboy oilmen playing sophisticated power games.
  • Cheers - affable working-class stiffs
  • Highway to Heaven - a literal angel of Jesus
  • Designing Women - set in Atlanta, sophisticated southern women
  • Matlock - Andy Griffith as a folksy down-home detective using his cleverness to solve crimes
  • In The Heat Of the Night - Black and white people working hand-in-hand to solve crimes
  • The Waltons started in the 70’s but ran well into the 80’s. Decent rural white family show.
  • The Dukes of Fucking Hazzard - Heroic good-old-boys who were allowed to break the law because they’re just so darned good.

I could go on, but I think that’s enough. The supposition that rural people and southerners were always portrayed negatively is plainly an overflowing crock of shit. Past, present, and future, there have always been abundantly positive portrayals of rural and conservative people, they get their share of fawning media portrayals.

MAGA’s negative reaction is entirely based on the fact that these are not the only portrayals of them. They want a world where they’re universally adored and never criticized. When anyone pokes the slightest amount of fun at them, they think the entire media world is falling down around their ears.

They don’t think anyone should get to say anything about them. They don’t think anyone should get a say except them. They don’t want to share the public square. That is entirely where MAGA came from.

59

Please color me embarrassed. I don’t know how I forgot the earlier thread. My current thread was inspired by a comment made by my wife while she was watching Family Ties. The question of Alex and Trump had stuck in my head for the rest of the day. I honestly thought it was an original question. When I typed it up, similar threads did not appear, so I thought it was new. I can’t believe that not only is it a recycled conversation, but that the original thread was also initiated by me!

Ugh.

60

Probably at least as much as what many participants in this thread feel for what Alex represented in the 1980s does. The Alex Keaton character was portrayed as a caricature of a Young/College Republican of the 1980s, for a 1980s audience, but not as a villain of evil heart. He was to be contrasted his parents’ caricature of yuppified white hippies and his sister’s caricature of fashionable teenagerhood, and to be mocked for how ridiculously he took his conservatism but not hated. People in this thread now in 2025 look back and what they see is someone who was standing for all the wrong things then that lead to where we are now, and some figure that of course he would keep getting worse going all the way, while some others will think that at some point he would have done a Romney and said OK this is messed up here’s where I get off this bus but NOT turn D.

And I’m sure some of the 2025 public may even retroactively have a problem with Alex receiving any positive portrayal to begin with, even by the standard of the time, or with not having a “contrition-redemption arc” that makes him see the light and turn liberal. Well, that was not the story they were writing.

But portraying liberal-leaning positions and tropes. Sophisticated southern ladies from “good families”… whose characters would all probably fundraise for Clinton as did creator Linda Bloodworth-Thomason. So not really what reached to that audience.