Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "Ronald Reagan's son on what his dad would think of current GOP" video.

I'm Australian but went to college in America on a sports scholarship (late 80s). I did engineering but a bunch of my frat brothers were pre-law and they used to drag me into all sorts of discussions. Because I had studied Orwell (both Animal farm and 1984) I used to raise the idea that if you didn't watch out ANY CONTRY could descend into a totalitarian dictatorship. That was one of Orwell's main warnings. People forget that both Hitler and Mussolini were democratically elected. People forget that the early Russian Communist Party practiced democracy and held elections for their officers. It was only later that Stalin got rid of that after they democratically dumped him. Those frat brothers of mine used to explain (in detail) how that was totally impossible in America because of the US Constitution. There main points were Americans were too well educated and too well informed. Their main argument was the 1st Amendment guaranteed a free press would tell everyone what they needed to know and prevent any dictator from emerging. In my time at college a guy named Gary Hart got dumped after an affair was revealed. Trump was known to have cheated on all 3 wives. We all heard on tape how he treated women and we all know he partied with Jeffery Epstein. My frat brothers assured me the free press would keep the America government in check by keeping the American people informed. I don't think anyone ever considered that such a large part of any modern population could just ignore reality, ignore their own values and ignore their own morals and ethics. When I look over my shoulder I see the same patterns emerging here in Australia. Large slabs of our population just don't care about facts. We even have our own version of Trump a total ratbag named Clive Palmer and he's using the exact same campaign strategy. I don't like the fact that several million Australians are denying reality every day just like Trumpists, but it is a fact. More than anything else the collective future of the Western World depends on TRUTH and FACTS even when those truths and facts aren't what we want to hear.
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@someguy2135 Well going to America as I did, which was for several years (not just a semester) opened my eyes to how Australia looked from the outside. From my later experiences with American in Australia it seems to take about 1-1/2 years and then suddenly people start realising things. We all tend to think our country is A, B, C... as we also ignore X, Y & Z. EVERYONE does it. Most never realise we live in these bubbles until we spend enough time outside our bubble to realise our bubble really is a bubble. Its one of the monster problems with federal capitals like Washington, Ottawa, Canberra, London, Moscow, Beijing, Brussels,.... We all complain about the clowns who live & work in those places and think they know everything and actually know squat. I was in Canada a few years ago and every time they spoke about Ottawa it was like an echo about how we speak about Canberra and Americans talk about Washington. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️
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@philnorman5912 The late Bob Hawke who was Australia's Prime Minister was once asked about how he dealt with Reagan. Its was during the Clinton era a few years after Reagan had left office. By that time it was obvious Reagan was losing his abilities. I can't quote what he said word for word but it was along the lines of: Reagan's greatest ability was delegating tasks. Hawke said Reagan understood his own limitations while being able to recognize abilities in others. It enabled him to not just delegate but delegate the best person for a task. Hawke said on numerous times Reagan just turned to someone on his side of the table and just said "that's your thing answer the man" or "that's your thing, so you take care of it." What Bob Hawke described was the opposite of a micro-manager and he said that made dealing with America much easier and highly productive because they were always dealing with people who knew what they were doing and had the authority to get the job done. What you need to realise is that Bob Hawke was from Australia's LEFT. He'd come up through Australia's union movement and was further left than Bernie Sanders ever was. I remember that answer because if any Australian politician was going to dump on Reagan it was Hawke. I forget who the interviewer was but even they were stunned by the answer.
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@someguy2135 I get what that travel has done. I'm Australian but went to college in America. And those years I spent there opened my eyes to Australia and how it was perceived. Its a major problem across the world. So many people never get to see their country form that outside perspective. Its not something you can get on a holiday or a exchange semester. I was on a scholarship and was there almost 3-1/2 years. I travelled a lot too. One day me and my frat brothers compared how many states we'd been to - I won by a long way. Even in the late 80s Americans almost flew everywhere. So there's so much of their own country they never see they fly over it instead. When you look at the people who blindly follow our political leaders you find so many of them with incredibly limited experience outside their home community. Its very similar for all the bureaucrats who inhabit places like Washington, Ottawa, Canberra, London,... etc. They just don't get out and see the rest of the country or hear they feel. They have a terrible overreliance on polling data and almost zero experience outside their bubble. The bubbles we all tend to live in are causing so much of the worlds issues.
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