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On Friday, Hillary Clinton made a bizarre claim about Ronald and Nancy Reagan during the former first lady's funeral: that on HIV/AIDS, they "started a national conversation. When before nobody would talk about it, nobody wanted to do anything about it."
This got the history, as we now know it, completely wrong. Through documents and reviews of the time period, we know the Reagan administration did not care much about HIV/AIDS until years into the epidemic — in large part because it was perceived as a disease that only afflicted gay people. In a particularly brazen example, Reagan's press secretary joked and laughed about HIV and its victims in press conferences.
So it came as little surprise when Clinton walked back her comment in a statement later in the day: "While the Reagans were strong advocates for stem cell research and finding a cure for Alzheimer's disease, I misspoke about their record on HIV and AIDS. For that, I'm sorry."
But there's some reason to believe Clinton meant what she said: She was part of a Democratic establishment in the 1980s that was by and large as out of touch with the plight of HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ people as the Reagan administration was at the time. So it's wholly plausible that her recollection of the period genuinely reflected well on the Reagans, at least on this issue.
Garance Franke-Ruta, who was an HIV/AIDS activist during the height of the epidemic, explained in a great series of tweets:
1) Belatedly: I don't doubt for a second that what Clinton said about the Reagans & AIDS is how she remembers things being in in the 80s/90s
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) March 11, 2016
2) Today all the different communities in America sit cheek by jowl on social & online media. In the 80s, they were separated by vast chasms
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) March 11, 2016
3) There was a mainstream, and then there were the margins. And the margins were much more distant from the center than they are today.
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) March 11, 2016
4) What Clinton said perfectly encapsulated the viewpoint of mainstream Democrats in the 1980s, before the party became gay friendly
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) March 11, 2016
5) Gay people had no party on their side & no one to represent or speak for them fr halls of power. ACT UP protested Democrats continually.
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) March 11, 2016
6) When Bill Clinton famously said, "I feel your pain," he said it to Bob Rafsky of ACT UP, who was heckling him. https://t.co/ahKCZjmbi4
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) March 11, 2016
7) The Times headline was "Heckler Stirs Clinton Anger"
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) March 11, 2016
8) The view from the other side is encapsulated by contemporaneous imagery such as this Donald Moffett from 1987 pic.twitter.com/d8crFuLcRj
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) March 11, 2016
9) Or this 1987 Silence = Death Project poster pic.twitter.com/QEIrAO9YwE
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) March 12, 2016
10) The old anti-gay laws were still on the books, upheld by Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986.
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) March 12, 2016
11) Between AIDS panic and that ruling, homophobia in America ratcheted up in the late 80s. See: pic.twitter.com/xXqVkGaETx
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) March 12, 2016
12) So view fr other side is a community of people SCOTUS said criminal, facing a fatal disease, unrepresented by any political party.
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) March 12, 2016
13) Today we talk endlessly on TV & social about every minor controversial thing, but in '80s, 40K people died & the president said nothing.
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) March 12, 2016
14) Today we are all more visible to each other. Imagine 40K people in America dying in 21st c w/o president talking about it. Impossible.
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) March 12, 2016
15) Michael Bronksi on the Reagans https://t.co/HyVNXtbgaM pic.twitter.com/6ygeMTHx6l
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) March 12, 2016
16) The Millennial view: "These Horrifying White House Transcripts Show How America Used to Think About AIDS" https://t.co/Gi88YqTZZS
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) March 12, 2016
17) All of which is to explain why Clinton's comments today raised such ire.
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) March 12, 2016
Based on these facts, it's easy to imagine how someone in the political establishment like Clinton could remember a very different version of the Reagans' history on HIV/AIDS. For LGBTQ people and people with HIV at the time, it was a very different — and frankly worse — world at the height of the epidemic. And the establishment that Clinton was part of reflected that.
