Speaker Tip O’Neill: “Reject obstructionism”

Many of the people in politics today weren’t around to actually witness the Reagan Revolution.  They have had to rely on hearsay and myth. 

There is a myth going around that President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, and Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O’Neill, a Democrat, never had a harsh word for each other.  This simply isn’t true.

The truth is, they behaved like adults of their generation did at the time.  A less sensitive time than ours… before trigger words and safe spaces.  Men like President Reagan and Speaker O’Neill didn’t take the rough and tumble of politics personally, the way everyone appears to today… not that it didn’t hurt (but you sucked it up to get the job done). 

Here’s President Reagan himself on the subject… 

And here’s an ad the Republicans used on Tip O’Neill…

Being of men of their time, we have no idea what they would make of Congress and Washington today.  Indeed, America might look foreign to them.  But they got things done, despite their differences, and in the words of Democrat Tip O’Neill, “We expect conflict, but I hope we will reject any obstructionism.”