ambition politician named ronal reagan who took that issue from the fringe and decide today mainstream it into national m n mainstream republican politics. he based his presidential campaign in part on this insane idea that the panama canal was basically an american state that we can t let the communists steal this american thing from us. he mainstreamed this paranoid far right fantasy that if we went along with our treaty obligations to let panama run its own canal, then america would seize to exist. we would be destroyed as a nation. if panama got control of the panama canal, that would be the beginning of a very quick and bloody end for america. this worked great for ronald reagan in political terms. this was one of the main issues he rode to power on in the 1970s. even as people in his own party, even his own friends, saw what he was doing as disgusting and
mainstream republican politics. he based his presidential campaign in part on this insane idea that the panama canal was basically an american state that we can t let the communists steal this american thing from us. he mainstreamed this paranoid far right fantasy that if we went along with our treaty obligations to let panama run its own canal, then america would seize to exist. we would be destroyed as a nation. if panama got control of the panama canal, that would be the beginning of a very quick and bloody end for america. this worked great for ronald reagan in political terms. this was one of the main issues he rode to power on in the 1970s. even as people in his own party, even his own friends, saw what he was doing as disgusting and craven and bad for the country. quoting from a book about this chapter of history that i wrote, while william f. buckley and america s beloved tough guy, john wayne, yes that john wayne, campaigned full on for the rat faction of the treaty, reagan sa
the fringe and decide today mainstream it into national mainstream republican politics. he based his presidential campaign in part on this insane idea that the panama canal was basically an american state that we can t let the communists steal this american thing from us. he mainstreamed this paranoid far right fantasy that if we went along with our treaty obligations to let panama run its own canal, then america would seize to exist. we would be destroyed as a nation. if panama got control of the panama canal, that wnning of a bloody end for america. this worked great for ronald reagan in political terms. this was one of the main issues he rode to power on in the 1970s. even as people in his own party, even his own friends, saw what he was doing as disgusting and craven and bad for the country.