6-5 ~ The Impossible Divide 3.19 ~ One President, Three Letters

After an understandable break in lieu of my series-within-a-series known as Squelchistan’s Forgotten Persian Incursion, I’m back and ready to continue on the Impossible Divide series in discussing the Republican political party’s history. Here is the recap…

Part 1 – A Greater Appalachian Spring

Part 2 – The Only-Jesus Club

Part 3 – Juniors & Seniors (Including The Mint Variety)

Part 4 – A Mostly Expected Counter-Counterculture Response

Part 5 – The Despot Heart & Vassal To Two Confederacies (Section A)

Part 6 – The Despot Heart & Vassal To Two Confederacies (Section B)

Part 7 – New Coke? More Like New Crud!

Part 8 – It’s Pray-Back Time (And With A New Friend To Boot)

Part 9 – The Making Of A Squelchistani Political Messiah (At Least For Conservatives)

Part 10 – How The Gipper Nearly Destroyed Our Planet & Almost Certainly Screwed Up My Mind Before Birth (Section A)

Part 11 – How The Gipper Nearly Destroyed Our Planet & Almost Certainly Screwed Up My Mind Before Birth (Section B)

Part 12 – A Gipperistic 1984 (Section A)

Part 13 – A Gipperistic 1984 (Section B)

Part 14 – Squelchistan’s Forgotten Persian Incursion (Section A)

Part 15 – Squelchistan’s Forgotten Persian Incursion (Section B)

Part 16 – Squelchistan’s Forgotten Persian Incursion (Section C)

Part 17 – Squelchistan’s Forgotten Persian Incursion (Section D)

Part 18 – Squelchistan’s Forgotten Persian Incursion (Section E)

As one might imagine, the previous series-within-a-series was an exhausting project (as well as the revisions in lieu of it), though it was a necessary one. Considering that Squelchistan is now an illegitimate nation, I firmly believe that we ought to find a specific point on how this part of the world got into this mess in the first place, and the Earnest Will War and its aftermath definitely fits that bill. Indeed, when critically thinking about the subject in connection to everything that took place thereafter, it dramatically changes the general picture of the Gipper’s presidency and its legacy. This is something understood within the Democrat/RC ideology ranks, but I also believe that the political neutrals – even the conservative ones – that know of this story agrees with the sentiment (though most still tend to have a positive view of the Gipper via opinion polls).

As for the Republicans, their only response to all of this could be summed up as follows: “Well, at least it didn’t destroy GSE’s presidential campaign in 1988, and from there he managed to succeed the Gipper into the Oval Office.” Though they would probably say this halfheartedly. Some of this is in regards to the fact that they have no defense regarding the Earnest Will War and its aftermath, but most of it seems to be aimed at GSE in a general sense. But why, one may ask? In order to understand this inquiry, we have to remember the personality cult cultural facet a part of the Reagan Epoch, and GSE’s positioning within it…

When taking a look at the various personalities of the Gipperistic Era of 1981-92, there are naturally tiers in which the individuals reside in regarding their impact of the time period; for the sake of this blog post, let’s assume it’s a four-tier system ranked A through D much like a typical school grading system. It’s safe to assume that the Gipperistic Trio of the Gipper, Hulk Hogan, and Michael Jackson inhabits the A-Tier when it comes to the male personalities, to the point that it’s beyond debate (and for the record, I believe that Nancy Reagan, Madonna, and Betty White are the three most comparable women to inhabit the A-Tier regarding the Gipperistic Era personalities). By comparison, GSE seems to float in that gray area between B-Tier and C-Tier levels of cultural impact during the Gipperistic Era years, even among Republicans. Obviously the RC ideology membership hates GSE mostly for producing Atahsaia Hulagu, but they also disparage him for his role in the Gipper’s presidency as well as for elements regarding his own presidency. But among Republicans regardless of ideology, he has become a symbol of implied political promises that went unfulfilled, and from there a paradise lost, never to be regained (which is the title for future blog posts if I live long enough FYI); consequently he tends to be seen in their minds as a might-have-been. And throughout the political spectrum, both during his lifetime and in a historical analysis, GSE has generally come off as ‘unlikable’.

All of this is understandable: as a liberal-libertarian, it’s much easier for me to agree with the RC ideology’s position on GSE, especially knowing my life up to this point and the psychological problems that developed in lieu of the Republican escapades so far in the 21^st century. And I can get the general notion that GSE was unlikable, both as is and in comparison to the Gipper. The Republican position on GSE is harder for me to comprehend, but as I hope to explain in the future, it’s not completely a bunch of empty gibberish to my mind.

Still, in a way I find it a pity. I say this because he is more of an interesting figure than most people will give him credit for. And unlike the Gipper, his life hasn’t been sensationalized to the point that it feels like reading a heroic epic, meaning that it’s easier to get an accurate picture of who he was and how he operated (though it will showcase how he wound up as unlikable as he did).

\-\-\

George Herbert Walker Bush, aka George Shrub the Elder/GSE, came into our realm of existence on JUN/12/1924, making him a Chipmunk in the Primal Astrology system. Though he was born in Massachusetts, his childhood home would be in Greenwich of Connecticut, which is part of the New York City-State sub-cultural geography. This isn’t surprising because he was born into a wealthy family: both of his grandfathers were executives – one in railroad parts construction and the other in investment banking (as was his father Prescott) – and therefore had a deep financial backing to the family name, so it was only natural for them to reside in a location where the Merchant caste was strong (and with the New York City-State sub-culture geography having an approximate 65% Merchant cast influence, it was an easy choice given logistics). More fortunate for GSE was the fact that, compared to most of the world, his family was largely unaffected by the Great Depression and therefore could enjoy all of the perks aristocratic life had to offer him at the time (or as much as there was available). While this could have lead him to become a spoiled brat and therefore largely useless, GSE proved to be a capable human being during his adolescence, with a particular knack for leadership. It could best be seen during his education at Phillips Academy, where he was the President of his senior class, Secretary of the Student Council, President of the community fund-raising group, a member of the Phillips Academy’s newspaper editorial board, and the Captain of both the baseball and soccer teams.

Like many of his generation, GSE would get sucked into directly fighting in World War 2: after his graduation from the Phillips Academy and on his 18^th birthday, he formally enlisted in the Squelchistani Navy and trained as a naval aviator, eventually becoming a torpedo bomber pilot. Over the course of his military service, he would be decorated with a Distinguished Flying Cross Medal and an Air Medal, and would also receive a Presidential Unit Citation. During this time and while on leave, GSE would marry his longtime girlfriend Barbara Pierce, thereby becoming Barbara Shrub and who would become a significant personality of the Gipperistic Era in her own right (though on the same level as her husband).

After Word War 2 ended, GSE would enroll at Yale University, which had been where his father got his college education. Much like at the Phillips Academy, GSE distinguished himself among his peers as a significant leader and therefore a future power player in whatever he chose to involve himself with: for one thing, he was elected President of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity chapter at Yale he was a part of. For another, he became the Captain of Yale’s baseball program and in fact lead it to the first two College Championship Series Finals in 1947 and 1948 (though it would lose both of them, first to the University of California-Berkeley and then to the University of Southern California). Finally, he was permitted to join the Skull & Bones secret society, one of the most prestigious secret societies in existence. While this last part could be seen more as mythological than factual (especially since virtually all secret societies like to keep their membership under wraps), the Skull & Bones did acknowledge that GSE was a part of it and had given him the nickname of ‘Magog’. Whatever his successes at Yale, GSE would be a part of an accelerated degree program that condensed the typical four-year program down to 3 ½ years; he ultimately graduated in 1948 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics, which would become a major irony much later in his lifetime.

After his college graduation, GSE could have chosen a halfway comfortable professional life in following in his father’s footsteps in the realm of investment banking, and given what I have written about his baseball talents, he might have had a successful baseball career if he wanted to pursue it. Instead, GSE got himself involved in the petroleum business, first being a salesperson of oil field equipment for Dresser Industries, then launching the Shrub-Overbey Oil Development Company in 1951, and finally co-founding the Zapata Petroleum Corporation – now known as the HRG Group Inc – in 1953. In the last case, he would be named President of a subsidiary company called Zapata Offshore Company a year later and would remain directly involved in it and its sibling company until the mid 1960s. While GSE and his family spent some time in California as part of this work, most of it would be spent in Texas, with the family eventually settling in Houston.

This is an important detail to note, because in the process of this resettling in the Houston area of Texas, GSE would transform from a New York City-State aristocrat to an NBR corporate thug. This would ultimately have catastrophic consequences for Squelchistan over the long term through GSE’s offspring, but more specifically for GSE, some of the sub-cultural attitudes of the NBR that he unconsciously adopted would be partly responsible for bringing an end to his political career.

\-\-\

Speaking of his political career… GSE’s entry into the political realm effectively started in 1952: given his connections and his life accolades up to that point, he was a highly sought-out individual for the political realm by both Democrats and Republicans. But being that he wasn’t adversely affected by the Great Depression, GSE wasn’t sold on the ‘big and centralized means of governance’ that the Democrats via FDR and his pragmatic idealism-based ideology operated by, and therefore sided with the Republicans (which by the early 1950s was dominated by an ideology of pragmatic realism). The fact that his father was also a Republican helped this decision, especially since he won a Senatorship in the Squelchistani National Legislature in that same year.

More on GSE’s part, he volunteered to be part of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidential campaign in 1952; this would have a major impact on his later political fortunes in the 1970s (as I will explain in a bit). On a direct level, GSE’s political campaigns were mixed: he would win the Harris County Republican Chairman position in 1963, and he would win a seat in the Squelchistani National Legislature’s House of Representatives in 1966 and 1968, to which he would secure a position on the Squelchistani House Committee of Ways and Means. But his two Senatorship campaigns in 1964 and 1970 failed, and considering that he gave up his Congressional seat to run for the more lucrative Senatorship position in the second running, it could have effectively ended his political pursuits. What salvaged it was his earlier connections to Eisenhower’s presidential campaign and from there his VP, Richard Nixon/Tricky Dick, especially considering GSE’s support for Tricky Dick during his 1968 Republican presidential nomination.

After his second failed Senatorship bid, Tricky Dick would personally add GSE to his Cabinet and wanted him to become a senior advisor. However, in another crucial move on his part, GSE asked to be named the official Squelchistani Ambassador to the United Nations, to which Tricky Dick assented. This was incredibly important as it was GSE’s first foray into international relations, and it was through his experiences in the UN that GSE understood the nuances of global affairs and why it had been the focus of the Squelchistani National Government since the Pearl Harbor attack. In time, international relations would become GSE’s true area of expertise, something that would prove immensely valuable later on in his political career.

GSE would effectively hold this ambassador post until after the 1972 Presidential Election, when Tricky Dick named him the Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Technically speaking, GSE was responsible for the political party’s fundraising, recruitment, and media presence in this position. Unfortunately, by that time the Watergate Debacle had taken shape, and for much of his time in that position GSE was largely preoccupied with damage control, something that proved to be virtually impossible given the gravity of the story and the growing sense that Tricky Dick was behind it. For that matter, GSE was more entangled with the political scandals at the time than merely his position in the Republican political party: when Tricky Dick’s first VP Spiro Agnew became embroiled in corruption controversies, GSE tried to strong-arm the Squelchistani Attorney in Maryland – one George Beall – to drop the investigation through his brother John G. Beall Jr, a Senator from the same state, on Tricky Dick’s and Agnew’s request (his efforts failed).

After Tricky Dick resigned, and after a number of investigations on his own person thanks to his connections to the now disgraced former Squelchistani President (to which he was cleared of wrongdoing), GSE was named the Head of the Squelchistani Liaison Office in China, effectively becoming an ad hoc ambassador to that nation and which further strengthened his international relations skills. And in January 1976, President Ford named GSE as Head of the CIA, which also added to those same skills: in lieu of the Vietnam War fallout and other elements, there was a big need to find someone to restore the CIA’s tarnished image, and Ford believed that GSE was that person given his prior international relations experience. Regrettably, GSE in this capacity would preside over the early days of Operation Condor, which was a political oppression campaign by right-wing authoritarian regimes in South America to rid themselves of Marxist groups that ran between 1975-83, and to which Squelchistan was a collaborator and financier (and which is another dark spot on Squelchistan’s overall reputation during that time period). GSE might have stayed as the CIA leader if he wanted to, but after Mr. Peanut’s victory in the 1976 Presidential Election, he stepped down and decided to take a break from the political realm.

\-\-\

Away from the political spotlight, GSE would nevertheless keep himself occupied in various respects during the late 1970s: he would become the Chairman on the Executive Committee of the First International Bank’s Houston branch, spent a year as a part-time professor at Rice University’s Jones School of Business, and was a part of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Coalition.

But it was also during this time that the Republican political party saw its ideological change-over from the pragmatic realists going back to Eisenhower’s presidency to that of near-total Evangelical ideology control (with the Libertarians being a minority ideological partner). While I was unable to find much information confirming his feelings/thoughts on the matter, I have to believe that GSE wasn’t a fan of such an ideological change. A lot of it was due to the energies that the Evangelical ideology operated by and the conflicts that GSE would have experienced via the sub-cultural caste influences he had lived under: while he agreed with the corporate capitalism secondary energy that the Evangelicals were pushing as part of their political creed (and likely was unconsciously supportive of both the ethnocentric and nationalistic tertiary energies), he almost certainly did not approve of the Christian theocratic energy that was the primary force behind the Evangelical ideology, mainly because he wasn’t a Christian zealot by anyone’s standards. This was not surprising considering that the New York City-State’s sub-cultural caste influences is 65% Merchant, 35% Soldier, thereby making it almost impossible for any sort of major spirituality to take hold culturally during GSE’s childhood and adolescence. As for his residency in the NBR, as I had made mention in blog post 4-7, it would eventually settle into the 45% Merchant, 45% Soldier, 10% spiritual Sage caste influence makeup in lieu of the assassination attempt on George Wallace in 1972, but that in itself was so minuscule when considering the ideological influences in both the Democrat and Republican parties via governor and presidential influences combined that it may have not existed at all; therefore there wasn’t any real Christian influence for GSE to attach himself to during his life in Houston.

Another part of it was in regards to the John Birch Society/JBS connection. As noted extensively in blog post 4-3, the Evangelicals largely used it as a political vehicle to get their points across without revealing who they really were, and with the organization running predominantly on conspiracy theories, it didn’t take much for the pragmatic realists to see the JBS as a bunch of maniacs that needed to be silenced. GSE had been one of those politicos that directly fought against them, particularly in regards to his 1963 Harris County Republican Chairman campaign (though his support for Barry Goldwater Sr’s 1964 presidential campaign under-minded such a fight), and he was probably aware of the Evangelical connection to the JBS. Given this, there was almost certainly a major trust deficit between GSE and the new dominant Evangelical ideology during the late 1970s. This trust deficit almost certainly was magnified in lieu of the McDonald’s Satan Scare of 1978, in which I hope to describe in greater detail in a future blog post but will have Sources Cited links for those who want to learn about it more directly.

Both ways, GSE never became a Bible-thumper and likely developed significant disdain for those people. In spite of this, GSE tried his best to conform to the Evangelical ideology creed as much as he could stomach, though he could only call himself a moderate within the Evangelical framework given his life experiences and his past associations, and basically everyone else agreed with that notion. This was something that would make it hard for him to be taken seriously by the Evangelical ideology membership, and would contribute to his unlikable image.

\-\-\

As Mr. Peanut’s presidency began falling apart in 1979, GSE – like many Republican politicos – saw a grand opportunity to take control of the Oval Office and threw his hat into the ring for the 1980 Republican presidential nomination. But while said campaign started off strong, it would quickly fizzle out in favor of the Gipper. A lot of it was due to the image of the two men: on a base level, whereas the Gipper exuded a folksy grandfather persona that most people beyond the Counterculture ideology found appealing, GSE kind of came off as a past-his-prime jock that had been moonlighting in both the business and political realms since his sports days had concluded, and it made him look and sound like a hypocrite. Adding to that image issue was his past connections to the Nixon/Ford administration; given everything that had happened with the Watergate Debacle, no one wanted to have anything to do with anyone associated with that fubar episode. Finally, GSE had a vibe of aristocratic arrogance that took on a know-it-all attitude, which was most strongly noticed when GSE derided the Gipper’s economic ideas as ‘Voodoo Economics’. All of this amplified his unlikable image and ultimately scuttled his presidential bid in 1980.

However, when the Gipper needed to find a VP, he settled on GSE. And since GSE had wanted to be the VP going back to Tricky Dick’s presidency, he quickly accepted. Regarding the Gipper’s decision on GSE being his VP, he had three good reasons for naming GSE for this second-in-command position. First, the Gipper was a hardcore member of the Evangelical ideology and his advisors understood that having someone of that stature would not sit well with the greater electorate even if he did win by a landslide victory (which he did). The fact that it was a new ideology trying to take control of the Oval Office further reinforced the notion that having a purist ideological approach would cause more problems than it would solve. There needed to be a moderate presence within his administration to smooth out the rough edges, and as GSE was considered a moderate Evangelical, that was good enough for the Gipper.

Second, the Gipper needed to find a running mate to help compensate for some of his weaknesses (like all presidential candidates). In his case, it was with international relations: he had no experience in this crucial area and had a very simplistic view on how to handle it, especially in regards to the Marxist world. The Counterculture was quick to point out this weakness and were legitimately afraid he would repeatedly sucker Squelchistan into wars of his making, potentially instigating World War 3 (and as past blog posts noted, he would do so in the former case). Even if that was considered a stretch at that time, given that international concerns were the main priority of the Squelchistani National Government, this was a weakness the Gipper’s advisors couldn’t leave to chance; there needed to be someone who had direct international relations experience to guide the Gipper’s policies in such a way that it wouldn’t turn destructive for the planet. With his considerable direct international relations experience through the UN, the CIA, and the Squelchistani Liaison Office in China, GSE was considered the best man to handle this crucial administration deficiency.

Finally, it may have been that GSE was the only political candidate that wanted to be directly associated with the Gipper in the VP slot. It does feel somewhat cockeyed knowing how much the Gipper is revered among the Republican membership today, but back in 1980 it looked and sounded like much of the Republican politico membership was reticent about being associated directly with the Gipper given his political past in California – which I covered in blog post 4-10 – and in regards to the Evangelical ideology he was a part of. Indeed, the only other politico that seemed willing to take on the VP role was Gerald Ford, and only in a co-president setup he dreamed up. The Gipper saw this setup as a last-ditch effort by the pragmatic realists to get back into the Republican ideological framework, and knowing Ford’s connection to the Watergate Debacle, he didn’t want to put up with such an idea (Ford himself admitted that such a plan probably wouldn’t have worked over the long term anyway). By comparison, GSE was willing to play the second-in-command role for the Gipper without any special administrative schemes.

\-\-\

Whatever the details, GSE’s VP tenure got off to a turbulent start thanks to the assassination attempt on the Gipper via John Hinckley Jr: GSE was in Texas at the time as part of a promotional tour of the new administration (which probably wasn’t needed), and upon hearing of the attack, he was rushed back to Washington DC. Upon his arrival, GSE found the Gipper’s Cabinet and other related officials in a state of panic and rage, as it almost seemed as if they were about to launch both a political pogrom against the Counterculture ideology and go to war with the Marxist world at the same time. GSE was able to calm everyone down and keep everyone focused on their jobs, while also maintaining his own position within the administration: GSE refused to invoke the 25^th Amendment of the Squelchistani Constitution, which focuses on issues relating to presidential disability and succession, both because he knew that the Gipper’s wounds did not appear life-threatening and also because he didn’t want to look like he was trying to usurp the Gipper from the presidency. Likewise, he rejected any public appearances that would indicate such a plan.

In the end, the Gipper was incredibly pleased with how GSE handled the episode after he returned to the Oval Office two weeks later; from then on, the Gipper became the biggest supporter of GSE throughout the Gipperistic Era, let alone during the Gipper’s presidency.

Beyond that, officially GSE’s VP tenure was considered unremarkable (like most VPs): basically he tried to maintain a low profile and stayed within the constitutional limits of his position, did what he could to get along with the other members of the Gipper’s administration, and took on tasks delegated to him from the Gipper, with his two biggest delegated tasks being the head of groups dedicated to deregulation and international narcotics smuggling. Having noted this, unofficially to my mind GSE may have had a bigger impact as the Gipper’s VP than most people might otherwise believe, and in two separate ways…

First off was in regards to the Autumn of Anger (which I had mentioned here): given his better understanding of international relations, I have to believe that GSE was the primary restraint in keeping the Gipper from going to war with the Soviet Union and from expanding the Urgent Fury War. Had GSE not been the Gipper’s VP, I have to believe that World War 3 would have been launched and humanity would go extinct. In short, GSE may have been the primary individual in Squelchistan that preserved humanity into today. Of course, there is no direct evidence to confirm this, but the anecdotal evidence is solid enough to call it as close to fact as we can get.

Second, and more controversially, was in regards to the Gipper’s alleged cognitive decline in his second term as Squelchistani President: it’s a concrete fact that the Gipper was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s dementia in late 1994 and it was the direct cause of his death roughly a decade later. However, there are numerous people that believe that he was showing signs of such cognitive decline significantly earlier; indeed the Gipper’s Farewell Address video recording is sometimes used by medical professionals to highlight key signs of cognitive decline in old age individuals, among other second-term video clips. Furthermore, during his direct questioning regarding details of the Iran-Contra Affair, he would repeatedly answer “I can’t recall” or “I don’t remember” to the questions. While there were many RC pundits and adherents that openly stated that he was merely using his acting skills to help protect his administration from these inquiries and therefore was lying under oath, there were just as many that openly wondered if the Gipper was starting to go senile and therefore couldn’t uphold his duties as Squelchistani President anymore.

Certainly the White House staff and others close to the Gipper kept a close eye on him and his functionality, and none more so than his wife Nancy: being that she was the Gipper’s spouse, she had a major impact and influence on all of the White House operations, let alone with the presidency as an unofficial advisor (it’s worth noting that when one elects a politico, one also elects their spouse as part of that position [if they are married to begin with]). Regarding the alleged cognitive decline of her husband, it was said Nancy would often complain that the Gipper was being overworked and that was the root cause for his memory lapses. But given that she was born in a Bird year (specifically as an Iguana in the Primal Astrology system), I’m certain that she was smart enough to tell that it might have been something more serious than just the rigors of being the Squelchistani President. Certainly she wanted to have him checked over more extensively than normal for his cognitive capabilities, but she knew that if such was done and that the doctors confirmed that the Gipper was going senile, he would have to resign from the presidency, which would create too many complications to list in this blog post. Both for her sake, that of her husband, and that of Squelchistan as a whole, it was said that Nancy did everything in her power to make things easier for the Gipper when tending to his presidential duties, which was no small feat on her part given that she dealt with a breast cancer scare in October 1987, among other things.

But according to legend, sometime in the November-December 1987 time period it became clear to Nancy that a more rigorous solution was needed in keeping the Gipper’s presidency functional. And with GSE already eyeing to succeed the Gipper in the Squelchistani President slot, she came up with a plan to accommodate both elements: during a weekly lunch the Gipper had with GSE, with their wives in tow and in as much concealment as their bodyguards could allow them, the four individuals essentially – and ironically – agreed to a co-presidency setup where GSE would handle the bulk of the day-to-day and behind-the-scenes activities in the Executive Branch, whereas the Gipper would take care of the more public appearances in his role as Squelchistani President, as well as being the gatekeeper to any proposed actions GSE wanted to take regarding his expanded role with simple yes/no answers. This plan was passed around the White House staff and key members of the Gipper’s administration with the utmost secrecy to the rest of the Squelchistani National Government.

Like with the Autumn of Anger stuff, there is no proof that such a plan was put together, and in this case it’s hard to tell if such a plan was even dreamed up. But if it was, it helps explain why GSE came off as the most polished of the presidential candidates for the Republican nomination in 1988. True, being the VP made GSE the de-facto favorite for the nomination, yet I sometimes wonder if GSE had more hands-on experience than merely being the second-in-command in the Executive Branch, and regarding the Gipper’s alleged cognitive decline, he might have gotten it and therefore played a bigger role as VP during the Gipper’s presidency than most people might believe.

\-\-\

However, even in the best-case scenario, this was a dodgy idea considering a bizarre political quirk in Squelchistani society: historically Squelchistanis tire of having the same political party in charge of the Executive Branch for the better part of a decade; indeed they tend to start turning against them after about six years for both real and perceived reasons, one of which I will discuss later. Consequently, it would be a major uphill battle by default for the Republicans to maintain control of the Oval Office beyond 1988. This was further magnified by the fact that VPs historically have had a difficult time directly taking control of the Oval Office from their superior via an election; at the time, the last VP to directly succeed their superior into the Oval Office via an election was Martin Van Buren back in 1836. Combined with the ongoing Iran-Contra Affair and the Earnest Will War (and especially after Operation Praying Mantis), most political analysts had very low expectations of GSE’s presidential chances.

And then the Vincennes Incident took place, something I covered extensively in Section C of the Squelchistan’s Forgotten Persian Incursion series-within-a-series. With it appearing that open war was guaranteed between Iran and Squelchistan, and knowing the Midlands-dominated cultural atmosphere in place that hated all forms of conflict, many political analysts were quick to decide the 1988 Presidential Election as an assured win for the RC ideology. For that matter, GSE didn’t do himself any favors with the Vincennes Incident by refusing to apologize for it and actually took the idea as a personal insult, saying that he wasn’t an apologize-for-Squelchistan kind of person (and effectively taking a hardcore Evangelical position compared to the Gipper, who informally apologized to Iran the same day of the incident). It’s hard to tell if he really meant such things or if he was merely engaging in political posturing, but numerous political analysts – to say nothing of all RC pundits – called his commentary and stance excessively callous, combative, and crass knowing what happened and Squelchistan’s responsibility for it, something that sat poorly among everyone that wasn’t a hardcore Evangelical and further added to his unlikable image.

But when effectively the opposite happened with the end of the Iran-Iraq War and shortly thereafter the Earnest Will War, the picture towards the Gipper and his administration – including GSE – dramatically changed: as I had noted in Section D of the Squelchistan’s Forgotten Persian Incursion series-within-a-series, they collectively wound up looking like inadvertent peacemakers on the world stage, and as a result their joint reputations were almost instantly restored to levels not seen since before the Iran-Contra Affair manifested. This generated a huge boost to GSE and his presidential ticket, to such an extent that the script was effectively flipped onto its head; by October 1988 it was believed by nearly all political analysts that he was a lock for the Oval Office. Indeed, I don’t believe there was a faster positive change of face in Squelchistani political history as what GSE experienced in 1988, something I believe even surprised him, let alone anyone else.

\-\-\

Of course, what I have written above would guarantee a decisive Electoral College victory, but in order for a landslide victory to occur, GSE needed to have the opposition screw things up so badly for themselves that few people would consider voting for them. And as it was, the RC ideology somehow managed to do this in 1988. Or rather, it was their presidential ticket of Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen that did this.

On the surface it makes no sense: given what I had written earlier, there was already a mood in Squelchistan that was itching for a political change in the Oval Office, especially given the problems that had popped up or otherwise resurfaced by 1988 (some of which I hope to explain later in a future blog post). For that matter, the Democrats under the new Reformed Counterculture/RC ideology banner – one primarily influenced by the realms of Big Academia and its adjunct Big Science – looked and sounded more approachable than it ever did since the Counterculture ideology came into existence in the second-half 1960s, and as such many political neutrals were willing to give them a chance. And given everything going on with the Iran-Contra Affair and the Earnest Will War, the RC ideology had an almost limitless supply of political ammunition to use against the Republicans to cut them down to size regarding their activities on the global stage. But the Dukakis/Bentsen ticket would badly compromise their Oval Office aspirations through mind-boggling blunders and image problems that, while not as severe as that of 1984, was still strong enough to feel like hammering one’s own thumb.

In a way, these blunders/image problems started when Dukakis named Bentsen as his running mate. On the surface it was understandable, as Bentsen came from Texas and offered a better geographic balance to Dukakis, a Governor from Massachusetts, than most other potential running mates would have. In addition, Bentsen was considered a moderate RC politico compared to the more hardcore Dukakis, thereby providing more balance to the ticket. But there were two major issues this decision generated: first, because Texas was predominantly part of the New Confederacy bloc via the Greater Appalachian and NBR sub-cultures that make up approximately 75% of the state, it was a hard sell for much of the RC membership as they saw the geographic area as hypocritical to their ideological precepts. The second issue was the Jesse Jackson element (much like it was in 1984): in the Democrat presidential nomination of that year, he placed second on the ballot by a roughly 2-to-1 margin to Dukakis; afterwards both he and his supporters argued that he was ‘entitled’ to be made Dukakis’ running mate thanks to this stronger-than-expected showing. However, Dukakis disagreed with that notion, choosing Bentsen instead for the reasons I listed earlier, as well as the fact that only Bentsen officially was placed in nomination for the VP role. In hindsight, this was a mistake because it felt like a betrayal of interests given the RC ideology’s stated commitment to improving inter-ethnic/racial relations as part of its ideological precepts (in spite of the de-facto moral segregation that was still in place at that time), and from there it weakened the RC ideology presidential ticket, especially among non-European lineage individuals.

A second issue developed in lieu of a prison furlough program that had been established in Massachusetts before Dukakis became Governor (and whom he was a big supporter of): in basic it was a program that allowed prisoners through good behavior to be given temporary incarceration reprieves – typically under supervision – while still serving their sentences. Programs like this existed throughout Squelchistan at the time, and Massachusetts’ prison furlough program was technically available to all inmates, including those convicted of murder, which was a loophole that Dukakis left open thanks to a veto in 1976. Roughly a decade later, an African-lineage man named William R. Horton Jr – though he was more often referred to as ‘Willie Horton’ in the press – who had been convicted of murder took advantage of an unsupervised prison furlough and fled Massachusetts; later he would pop up in Maryland where he attacked a European-lineage couple and stole their car before he was wounded in a gunfight and then apprehended. GSE and his presidential campaign team was quick to jump on this story, as on both a crime and an inter-ethnic/racial relations standpoint, it made Dukakis look like an incompetent fool that was making both issues worse instead of better, and it made many people reconsider their support of the Democrat/RC ideology ideology presidential ticket (though when doing research, I learned that both the Gipper and GSE were also connected to prison furlough programs that weren’t any better than what existed in Massachusetts).

Yet in both cases, they were merely rain showers on the Democrat/RC ideology presidential ticket compared to the tidal wave that became simply known as ‘The Tank Ad’.

On a base level it was connected to defense/military spending, one of the Counterculture and later the RC ideology’s biggest criticisms of the Gipper’s presidency: most of the then Counterculture ideology membership legitimately feared that the Gipper’s hard-nose international relations plan would involve a big boost to the military budget as a means to bully others who disagreed with his global outlook, which proved true. After the Autumn of Anger wrapped up (namely with The Day After, which I covered extensively in blog post 5-2), it took barely a second to convince the Counterculture ideology membership that such a budget needed to be dramatically reduced in order to remove the temptation to use it in serious geopolitical endeavors; soon thereafter they made this their core international relations stance and remained so when it transformed into the RC ideology in 1985. This stance was strengthened further with Operation El Dorado Canyon in 1986 and the Earnest Will War in 1987-8, and after the Vincennes Incident, it reached the point that ANY support of the Squelchistani Military was an inexcusable abhorrence in the RC ideology mindset. As Dukakis was one of the biggest critics regarding defense/military spending at that time, it helps explain why he won the Democrat presidential nomination in 1988.

There was one problem with this stance: reducing the military budget would also likely lead to the elimination of many jobs relating to it, and while international concerns were more important than domestic concerns at that time, given the Merchant caste influence that floated between 65-80% percent in both national and state governments during 1988, it was a bitter pill Squelchistan would have to swallow and doubly so considering that the overall Squelchistani economy was generally functioning well at that time. The RC ideology, however, didn’t care about such a thing knowing the general loss of face in the global community regarding the naive warmongering that the Gipper and his administration had repeatedly engaged in. Likewise, it didn’t matter to the RC ideology that the push would create the perception of them as ‘soft’ on defense/military matters within the general Squelchistani public.

But inexplicably, Dukakis and his presidential campaign team lost their nerve over the issue as the election race wore on and they tried to convince others that such reductions in the military budget would not impact the overall Squelchistani economy, let alone the jobs relating to the Squelchistani Military, through an ill-advised military tour campaign. Unfortunately, few people throughout the political spectrum took this tour seriously, and in his visit to Cincinnati at a General Electric jet engine plant, Dukakis was badly jeered by the workers to the point that he was effectively silenced. Afterwards, according to legend RC pundits had to privately pull Dukakis aside and told him firmly to cancel the rest of the tour, noting that he was going against RC ideological precepts and therefore was hurting his position in the presidential race. Dukakis apparently refused to listen to this request, as he was adamant in completing the tour as scheduled. This included a stop at Sterling Heights in Michigan at the General Dynamics Land Systems plant, which made tanks and other Squelchistani Military equipment. Somehow some of Dukakis’ campaign advisors had been able to secure a tank ride for Dukakis as part of the tour’s visit, to which the people at General Dynamics were more receptive of idea than expected. Few people seemed to realize that this was a trap on General Dynamics’ part to make Dukakis look bad, and those that did realize this were powerless to stop it.

The tank ride itself went off without a hitch, but when photographs and video footage of the tank ride got to the press, everyone seemed to have a field day with them, especially the conservative news and propaganda sources. Indeed, when they – alongside other Evangelical pundits – saw the photos and videos, they dissolved into a fit of hysterical laughter akin to The Joker from DC Comics. When they were able to halfway compose themselves, they stated that Dukakis was a ridiculous try-hard in being something that he clearly wasn’t via his ideological associations, and that there was no way he could be taken seriously as a presidential candidate. When Republican politicos saw the same photos and videos (including GSE), they had the same reaction and came to the same supposition, and specifically the GSE presidential campaign team used the imagery to put together what would become ‘The Tank Ad’ that would be shown on OCT/18/1988 during a commercial break of Game 3 of the MLBCS/Word Series.

The effect that the ad had was dramatic: among moderate Republicans and political neutrals that were unaware of Dukakis’ tank ride (or had otherwise forgotten about it), they immediately came to the same conclusion that the Evangelical politicos and pundits came to and voted accordingly. Besides the evidence that virtually all moderate Republicans voted for GSE, it was said that for every political neutral that voted for Dukakis, five political neutrals voted for GSE, which was a better ratio than what occurred during the 1984 Presidential Election but was still really bad by any other measurement. But it was FAR more striking among the RC ideology membership: as noted earlier, going back to the Vincennes Incident any sort of association with the Squelchistani Military was considered too vulgar in the RC ideology mindset to be tolerable, so when they got visuals of Dukakis’ tank ride, it was seen as the ultimate blasphemy/heresy to their ideological precepts, one in which no amount of penance on his part could exonerate. As it was, the initial revelations of the photos and videos of Dukakis’ tank ride outraged and sickened the RC pundits so much that they stopped openly supporting the Dukakis/Bentsen presidential ticket, instead opting to solely attack GSE and his presidential bid, which typically isn’t a winning strategy in elections. Regarding the rest of the RC membership (both with the initial reveal of the tank ride media and with the ad), it was said that up to a third of said membership – and throughout the spectrum – either placed their votes with lesser political parties whose candidates better adhered to their ideological positions or they simply refused to vote altogether (it’s worth noting that moderate RC members in contempt with Dukakis did NOT side with GSE given the universal sour attitude the RC ideology held towards the Republicans over the Earnest Will War).

When put together with GSE’s positive boost, it’s easy to see how he achieved a landslide victory in 1988 via 426 Electoral College votes and with a difference of roughly seven million popular votes.

\-\-\

Putting that aside, GSE’s presidential victory would be responsible for creating what would be the Gipperistic Era and would continue the Gipperistic Golden Age for another three years. To be fair, one could point out that both could have manifested even if GSE had somehow lost the 1988 Presidential Election thanks to the cultural influences of the other two significant members of the Gipperisitc Trio, those being Hulk Hogan and Michael Jackson. In my mind, while that may be true, I have to believe that their impact would be about half as significant during the 1989-92 time period had the RC ideology been in control of the Oval Office instead of the Evangelical ideology, which speaks volumes regarding the determinant of both the Gipper and GSE in connection to both Hogan and Michael.

It’s worth touching base with both of them during this time period, even though it was more of the same regarding their professional lives…

For Hogan, he still was the main figure in the realm of PW/MS during GSE’s presidency, and from there was still the standard-bearer for the WWE like he had been since 1984, though he would increasingly have to share the primary spotlight with other performers on the WWE’s roster as the company grew. Having noted that, the main barometer for Hogan’s standard-bearer stature in the WWE during GSE’s presidency was in the WrestleManias of that Olympiad: after a surprisingly limited role in WrestleMania 4 thanks to its story-line and structure (it has sometimes been called ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage’s victorious entrance into the primary PW/MS spotlight), Hogan would come back in a big way in WrestleManias 5-8, being a participant in the main events or co-main events. They were as follows:

In WrestleMania 5, Hogan would defeat Randy Savage for the WWE Championship belt.
In WrestleMania 6, in one of the biggest ‘upsets’ in the WWE’s pay-per-view history at that time, Hogan was defeated by James Hellwig, aka The Ultimate Warrior, for both the WWE Championship and the WWE Intercontinental belts (and has been considered Hellwig’s greatest performance). Some people considered at the time it was a change in the standard-bearer spot for the WWE, though it would prove to be a misjudgment.
In WrestleMania 7, Hogan would defeat Sgt. Slaughter for the WWE Championship belt, at a time when Slaughter made a heel turn by portraying an Iraqi sympathizer.
In WrestleMania 8, Hogan would defeat Sid Justice, though this time with no title belt on the line, as a co-main event (the other co-main event pitted Randy Savage against Ric Flair for the WWE Championship belt, which Savage won).

As for Michael, after taking another sabbatical in lieu of the 1987-9 Bad Tour, he would release the music album Dangerous in November 1991, which would be the last of his heyday recordings (the others being Off The Wall, Thriller, and Bad). Once again, sales were disappointing when measured to the impossibly high standards that Michael’s previous two musical works had generated, but with an estimated 32 million+ copies sold into today, it still is considered a major commercial success overall. For that matter, it still won him a number of awards, including the Grammy for Best Engineered Non-Classical Album in 1993, two Squelchistani Music Awards – Favorite Pop/Rock Album and Favorite R&B Song for the single ‘Remember The Time’ – that same year, two Soul Train Music Awards in the same general Squelchistani Music Awards categories, and special Billboards Music Awards for both the album and the single ‘Black Or White’.

Besides awards and sales, Dangerous was noteworthy for two reasons: first and foremost, it was the first music album where Michael was the primary producer (in the past three albums, legendary music producer Quincy Jones held that position). Second, Michael would include significant Hip-Hop/Rap influences in the making of Dangerous alongside the combination of Funk, Gospel, Hard Rock, Pop, and R&B/Soul influences that was brought over from Bad; indeed, the Hip-Hop/Rap influences were so strong in Dangerous that many kids that listened to its songs – including myself (and yes, I do have a CD copy of Dangerous) – would find his past musical works to sound different enough for that age demographic to believe that they were NOT from the same person. Since then, all of Michael’s subsequent musical albums, including his posthumous albums, would have a major Hip-Hop/Rap influence within the track-lists.

Beyond that, once again Michael’s music videos relating to Dangerous were considered masterpieces both in the immediate-sense and into today, specifically for both ‘Black Or White’ and ‘Remember The Time’, he would push computer-based special effects of the day to their limit, which further enhanced the magic therein. And as a final note, Michael was invited back to the White House in 1990, where GSE publicly declared him the music artist of the 1980s, thereby re-affirming Michael as the Evangelical ideology’s Pop music performer of choice.

\-\-\

Having noted both the influences and successes of Hogan and Michael, and from there their impact on Squelchistani culture during GSE’s presidency, one thing that could not be denied was that the remaining years of the Gipperistic Era felt noticeably different compared to the Gipper’s presidency. I wasn’t one to notice this as I was a kid during GSE’s time in the Oval Office; the only things that stuck out to me during that time that I can remember was the early days of Nickelodeon programming and the first two entries in the Home Alone movie franchise. But anyone that was at least a teenager during the Gipperistic Era at its start would probably note that the general atmosphere of Squelchistan felt more subtle during GSE’s presidency compared to the Gipper’s presidency. The best analogy I can make regarding this phenomenon is that if the Gipper’s presidency was Coca-Cola Classic/Pepsi, GSE’s presidency was their diet equivalents.

Naturally, one would want to know why that was the case. I can point out three reasons why things felt different in the 1989-92 Olympiad, in both obvious and no-so-obvious ways (and these are just my observations)...

The first and most obvious reason was GSE himself: while I have noted previously in blog post 5-4 that Squelchistani politicos in general and the Squelchistani President in particular are effectively serfs to the public will, beyond the Squelchistani President’s unconscious power to alter the caste influence percentages, their personalities have a definite trickle-down effect on Squelchistani society and how it functions (or doesn’t function, for that matter). As GSE was considered a moderate Evangelical, he had a significant impact in smoothing out some of the rougher edges that the Evangelical ideology manifested in the Gipper’s presidency during his own presidency, in spite of some of the other personality details that came with his geographic identity as an NBR corporate thug.

The second reason was basically everyone that wasn’t an Evangelical Christian by faith (and therefore an automatic member of the Evangelical ideology): though the majority of Squelchistan was generally sad to see the Gipper leave the Oval Office (even when taking the Lockerbie Bombing into account), one thing they wanted to see leave alongside him was the strong Christian theocratic atmosphere that had taken hold of Squelchistan alongside his presidency. To be fair, his focus was on global concerns of the day and he never was keen on trying to develop such an atmosphere on his watch in spite of his ideological adherence, but he nevertheless permitted Evangelical Christians to do so in not stopping their faith-based initiatives. By 1988, it had gotten irksome to the point that almost everyone that wasn’t part of an Evangelical Christian denomination was beginning to plead with their politicos to get them to tone down their religious/spiritual pushes. Indeed, it became enough of an issue that, up until late September 1988, the majority of Squelchistanis considered voting for the Dukakis/Bentsen presidential ticket, if only to halfway muffle the Evangelical Christian denominations via the RC ideology’s Humanist Alliance Only rule. Given what I had written earlier about GSE and the Evangelical ideology’s take-over of the Republican political party in the late 1970s, he was more than happy to work with this growing public demand, even if it meant adding to his unlikable image among the hardcore Evangelical membership.

Finally, and the least obvious reason, was the RC ideology. I know that this sounds suspect knowing how markedly different the competing political ideologies are (especially using today’s political situation as a base point), but I believe that the two sides of the political divide affect each other in minute ways – mostly negatively but also at times positively – that often go unnoticed in the public eye. In this case, it was the formation of the RC ideology via its ideological core being centered on the realms of Big Academia and its adjunct Big Science that created the change (something I had noted in blog post 2-11): the adoption of the Scientific Method for self-analysis and from there a better sense of mindfulness in the political realm allowed for the potential for it to be taken more seriously in the Squelchistani public. Some of that change also had a latent effect on the Evangelical ideology as a whole, especially with the politicos (including GSE),who began developing a better sense of self-analysis to their own political processes, which in turn generated a more moderate means of operation when combined with the Christian Realism philosophy that the Gipper adopted in 1984 in lieu of the Autumn of Anger (unfortunately, this would prove to be a temporary change for the Republican political party’s modes of operation as a whole).

\-\-\

Whatever the reasons, one truth that can be said about GSE’s presidency is that more world history took place during his time in the Oval Office, and specifically the years of 1989-91, than at any other time during the 20^th century. This is impressive to consider knowing the two World Wars, the Spanish Flu Pandemic, and the Great Depression that took place in the first half of that century, and yet the evidence for my statement is difficult to challenge when taking into account the time scales of those events I listed earlier compared to 1989-91. There are Sources Cited links available that can do a better job in making my case than just my writing.

The crazier thing about all of this was that, as a general rule, GSE seemed to benefit from the global happenings even if he wasn’t directly involved in them. For all intents and purposes, it almost felt like GSE accomplished a lot of his presidential achievements by doing nothing. Obviously that wasn’t the case, but the perception of such a statement still seems to have merit among outsiders of the Squelchistani National Government.

Within that time frame, there were two major episodes that I would like to delve into more deeply regarding GSE’s presidency, in two separate blog posts. Those episodes are the Desert Storm War and the end of the Soviet Union. I chose those episodes mostly because they have been considered GSE’s greatest achievements while he was in the Oval Office, even though calling the latter of the two an ‘achievement’ is a major exaggeration. But I also believe that both indirectly contributed to the end of the Gipperistic Era in 1992, and from there lead to the corruption of the Republican political party that would eventually discredit the Evangelical ideology and end the Reagan Epoch (among more recent catastrophes).

Doomer – JUN/2/2025

Sources Cited

Priestland, David (2013). Merchant, Soldier, Sage: A History of the World in Three Castes. Penguin Press (Penguin Group), New York City, NY, USA. ISBN 978-1-59420-310-7

Woodard, Colin (2011). American Nations: A History of the 11 Rival Regional Cultures of North America. Penguin Press (Penguin Group), New York City, NY, USA. ISBN 978-0-14-312202-9

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Iraq_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanker_war

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Earnest_Will

https://www.biography.com/political-figures/george-hw-bush

https://www.britannica.com/summary/George-H-W-Bush

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush

https://www.primalastrology.com/chipmunk.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips_Academy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Bush

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Kappa_Epsilon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_World_Series

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_Bones