Reagan biographer Lou Cannon noted that this was a suspect quotation, and that he could find no evidence of it. Thomas did say that both major political parties had borrowed items from the Socialist Party platform.
Cannon, Lou. Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power. New York: PublicAffairs Books, 2003. ISBN 1-586-48030-8 (p. 125).
Possibly Misattributed
“Back in 1927, an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for President on the Socialist Party ticket, said that the American people would never vote for socialism but he said under the name of liberalism the American people would adopt every fragment of the socialist program.”
Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_Speaks_Out_Against_Socialized_Medicine (1961 LP)
1960s
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Ronald Reagan 264
American politician, 40th president of the United States (i… 1911–2004Related quotes
The Mark Levin Show
ABC Radio Networks
2010-06-24
Gingrich: We have to "break the back of the secular socialist machine … and then methodically rip the system apart"
2010-05-25
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201006250048
2011-03-30
2010s
We must strive for unity at any price and with all sacrifices. But while we are uniting and organizing, we must rid ourselves of all foreign and antagonistic elements. What would one say of a general who in the enemy’s country sought to fill the ranks of his army with recruits from the ranks of the enemy? Would that not be the height of foolishness? Very well, to take into our army – which is an army for the class struggle and the class war – opponents, soldiers with aims and interests entirely opposite to our own, – that would be madness, that would be suicide.
No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)
“We Americans really seem to be the only truly non-socialist economy on earth.”
Source: Barbarian Sentiments - How The American Century Ends (1989), Chapter 2, The Challenge of Europe, p. 27.
West Chester, Ohio campaign event,
Referring to Obama on telling a Springfield, Ohio audience booing at his mention of Romney's name, "No, no, no — don't boo, vote. Vote! Voting's the best revenge."
2012
“Half the American people never read a newspaper. Half never vote for President — the same half?”
Sometimes quoted as: Half of the American people never read a newspaper. Half never voted for president. One hopes it is the same half.
[Bill, Maxwell, http://www.sptimes.com/2002/07/07/Columns/In_gloomy_times__let_.shtml, In gloomy times, let's try to find a sense of humor, St. Petersberg Times, 2002-07-07, 2008-10-04]
Variant: Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.
Source: 1990s, Screening History (1992), Ch. 1: The Prince and the Pauper, p. 5
2003, Treason : Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (2003)
Source: Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State (2007), p. 16
“The Socialists ask what is our program? Our program is to smash the heads of the Socialists.”
Article in Popolo d'Italia, quoted in "A History of Terrorism" (2001) by Walter Laqueur, p. 71
Undated