Reagan also talked about “strapping young bucks” buying T-bone steaks with food stamps, another obvious racist dog whistle. And he refused to acknowledge AIDS since at the time it was referred to as the “gay cancer,” something that only afflicted gay people. He never cared about it until his fellow-actor Rock Hudson caught it.
Racism and bigotry has been a constant thread in Republican politics in the postwar era. Truman ordered the desegregation of the military and Eisenhower honored that commitment, but Ike was virulently anti-gay. After LBJ passed the Civil and Voting Rights Acts, Nixon’s “Southern strategy” appealed to the racist whites in the South to turn the “Dixiecrats” into Republicans. George H.W. Bush had the Willie Horton ad (conceived by Roger Ailes), and Dubya ran for re-election on the promise to prevent gay marriage.
Racism and bigotry has been the one constant in Republican ideology through all that time. Not lower taxes on the rich, not fiscal responsibility, not small government, not free trade, not promoting human rights and democracy, not honoring our treaties, not supporting NATO. And certainly not education.