Regan's administration started the war on drugs. Convicting drugs users of a criminal crime has the effect of taking the right to vote away from people who tended not to vote for the Republican party and allowed them to be legally used as slave labour. At least one member of that administration has explicitly stated that this was a strategic decision to win elections.

[–] dolle@feddit.dk 5 points 1 year ago

I think it was John Erlichman who served under Nixon who said that. Whether that's true is actually disputed though: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs#20th_century

I agree that both Nixon's and Reagan's policies on drugs were pretty harmful though.

[–] SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 3 points 1 year ago

*Reagan. Donald Regan was Ronald Reagan's chief of staff for a couple of years.