Every day I observe and comment on political news in the United States, but, professionally, I always do so by looking over my shoulder. As I like to tell my students, I studied and studied history because I’m obsessed with news.
Moreover, the story is not rigid. Not only do we regularly analyze the facts by proposing new hypotheses, but it happens that new facts shed a different light on our state of knowledge.
last friday Politico Magazine Leaked passages from a new book by James Kirchick called The Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington. Kirschnik, a conservative journalist and columnist, is regularly interested in the topic of homosexuality and the rights of the LGBTQ community.
Gay “crime”
Excerpts shared by Politico He made it possible to confirm the rumors that, without necessarily knowing them to the general public, they had been circulating in Washington for forty years. In 1980, it seemed to me yesterday, that one of the worst “crimes” a politician could commit was to show his homosexuality.
The former Governor of Louisiana, Sulfur Edwin Edwards, declared in 1983: “The only way I could lose this election is if I got stuck in bed with a dead girl or a living boyHe can only bend down if he is caught in bed with a murdered woman or a living young man, and the worst option is the second.
During the 1980 Republican primaries, the Republican Party was deeply divided between its more progressive wing and its conservative wing. The star candidate for this second faction was Ronald Reagan.
Gay-controlled Reagan
Long before Reagan chose to face Carter, some of his Republican opponents, as well as members of his team, feared the dominance of the “Gay Circle,” a notorious group whose candidate, himself bisexual, was none other than the Manchurian. candidate.
How serious was the fear of gay group influence in the 1980’s? She was explaining that Ronald Reagan chose George H.W. Bush for Vice President instead of soccer player and former Senator Jack Kemp because of his allegations, but he did not show fluidity.
The one who won in 1980 also kicked one of his trusted men out of the White House. The House of Hannaford was so influential in Reagan’s entourage that the House of Hannaford, secretly gay, was sacrificed in order to save the party and the country, it was said.
In hindsight, one can only imagine a presidential campaign in 1980 marked by a homosexuality scandal. Admittedly, we cannot rewrite history, but we can think that conservative Ronald Reagan would have been very upset. We sometimes forget that Carter held out for too long at the polls before the winner eventually dumped him.
Forty years ago was yesterday. Today, Pete Buttigieg displays his homosexuality, is married, has adopted two children and serves as Secretary of Transportation in the Biden administration.
