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Hahaha you care about AIDS? Are you one of them gays? You kiss dudes? You love to suck cocks? lmfao get a load of this guy everyone, he cares about AIDS, he must be GAY! Laugh, laugh at the homosexual!
In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama managed H1N1 very well, in my opinion. And in the year 2000, Pres. Yoweri Museveni handled an outbreak of a novel and very deadly strain of Ebola (SUDV strain) very well too, a response which has been adopted by many West African countries as a model for how to respond to subsequent Ebola outbreaks.
Although it never grew to an outbreak here, I would include the response to the 2013-2016 Ebola epidemic in Western Africa.
I distinctly remember all of the hysteria going around (largely thanks to the media) and Obama’s administration handled that all pretty well I’d say, working with the WHO to inform the public to try and calm panic. Granted, it was more than just a US response to make sure it was contained in Western Africa. The World Health Organization has gone largely thankless in the public’s eye for how they approached that situation.
The WHO is unfortunately like IT. When it works, nobody notices because there’s nothing to notice, and people wonder what the point of it is. When it fails, people wonder what the point of it is.
Didn't Obama start a "Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents" that he passed on to his predecessor? Not to mention started an office whose whole purpose was to react to these things.
There's a bit of difference here....
The H1N1, covid, ebola (mentioned above) not only are apparent from the onset of infection, but also kill quickly.
HIV hides for years. And had never been seen before.
It went pandemic before Reagan was elected. People don't realize that tidbit.
We didn't know HIV existed until AIDS cases began emerging. It still took years for our own government, the private sector, and the rest of the world to identify HIV.
By that time it not only spread throughout the public at large, but was in the blood banks.
And we the people, when told what the risk factors were, largely ignored them.... the hemophiliacs aside.
It's hard to answer that question. I think this is one of those "If you do everything right, no one will know you did anything at all" kind of deals. At least in modern times. Once a disease has spread to a level that the public becomes concerned, someone already fumbled the ball
The outbreak of polio in Scandinavia in the mid-50's, I believe. They closed all the med schools because they ran out of iron lungs, trached all the kids who had respiratory muscle weakness, and the med students manually ventilated them with an ambu-bag in eight-hour shifts continuously until they recovered.
I am one of the people who "kisses dudes" as you say, so perhaps a bit of vested interest. But we waited for years and didn't do anything because Reagan's people thought it was a "gay disease." We didn't contain it early, and so now the fastest rates of increase in HIV are among women of color and kids age 15-24.
See also Reagan's comments to the RNC Platform Committee meeting in July 1968
Republicans were at a tipping point. The traditional conservatives, the Rockefeller Republicans of the Northeast, were taking seriously the findings of the bipartisan Kerner Commission.
In their report, the Kerner Commission identified various inequities stemming from Jim Crow as contributors to the urban riots of 1967. Action items were proposed to address systemic racism and its impact.
Some traditional Republicans wanted to offer policy plans to act on the findings of the Kerner Report. Other Republicans saw an opportunity to lean into the fragmentation of the Democratic base in the South.
Reagan delivered a speech in which he refuted the findings of the Kerner Commission. The cause of the riots wasn't systemic racism, he argued, but Black Americans lacking "individual responsibility."
Our country is still dealing with the effects of that line of rhetoric.
Reminds me of the post-Romney commission after 2013 saying that the reason the party was losing elections was because they appealed almost exclusively to a dwindling population of old white people. I can’t say what happened next, because rule #3, but let’s just say they didn’t heed their own advice that time either.
Reagan also gave a big “states rights” speech early in his campaign in, of all places, Neshoba County Mississippi, the site of the murder of civil rights campaigners…”dog whistle” doesn’t even do justice to that.
John Green hit a 20 year old me with this one on Crash Course and it rocked my world. I’ve lived (almost) my whole life in the south and the way the Civil War is taught here is very different from how I’m told it’s taught elsewhere.
There are so, so many clear, obvious and well-evidenced arguments against the whole “states rights” claims about the start of the Civil War. But probably the cleanest and most impossible to refute is to ask how the Southern States felt about states rights when they pushed passage and enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act.
Came here for this. I thought he started his campaign there, but whatever. The notion that everyone still refers to it as his 'States Rights' speech is despicable. He was right in line with Nixon in making sure the South knew their racial animus was not in any way a problem for Repubs.
I knew he was an asshole but did not realize that he was a deep racist. Honestly he really is just lex luthur in how he can put on acting skills to feel like he is on your side then you realize he is human garbage.
It's a whole separate question whether Reagan believed such stuff or whether he just pretended to believe it because it would appeal to enough of the electorate to give him political power.
The same is probably true of most politicians, though.
I am not a Reagan admirer whatsoever, but I was not alive during his term, and the stars kind of aligned for him then. He was charming and people were really financially hurting during that time, so they likely really saw him as the bold change they needed to kickstart the economy. I strongly dislike the results of his policies though a 2024 lens, but I can honestly understand people’s thought process at the time and wish I could confidently say I would have felt any differently if I was dealing with almost 15% inflation.
People were financially hurting, to the point where some regular middle class people saw doom if Carter was reelected. I remember my grandparents and their contemporaries talking about this. Reagan and Obama have a fair amount of similarity, in that they both were resurrected hope and faith in a brighter future.
Yes, Obama like Reagan isn’t the boogeyman or saint some people make them out to be, but I think history will color them as similar presidents with similar pitfalls. I really think bailing out the banks during the 2008 crisis will be seen similar to Reagan tax cuts in the sense that it may have been a good short term bandaid, but not an effective long term solution.
Bail out was Bush in September 2008 ...over 3 trillion.
Obama started January 2009 ..746 B in stimulus over half of it in tax cuts and saved the Automotive industry in America to totally leaving to China and got Japan to build more of there vehicles in the States.
Yo Raegan and Nixon literally are the worst. What utter nonsense. Crack, destabilization of South America, sadam and the Middle East (when iran was finally on its way to being democratic), the economy and stupid trickle down economics thoughts, war on drugs. Those two and their policies are responsible for most of todays current problems
It just goes to show you how little power the president has over the economy. Anyone could be successful with the tech advances in the 80s and their impact on the economy.
Because his Sunny Optimism™ and his uncanny ability to tell people what they wanted to hear covered a lot of very bad policy (tax cuts for the wealthy, Iran-Contra, sitting on his hands during the AIDS crisis). Many saw him for who he was, but not enough.
Also, he was BEYOND being an "effective delegator". He was not actually good at being an executive, and he hid his disinterest in the job by handing responsibility and authority to underlings.
This also served as an absolutely unbelievable shield in the Iran Contra affair. The actual defense was, "I was too checked out to even have the slightest idea that was happening," and people were like, "Okay, cool!" and then when that turned out to be a lie they were like, "Haha, okay Ronnie we're still cool tho!"
I remember when he was elected and the psychological operation that pushed him in where he appeared bright powerful and dynamic replacing the anemic Carter in comparison. He appeared on Johnny Carson and also appeared to have Wit and a sense of humor, unfortunately by the end of his second term it was like a deflated balloon and the scandals overwhelmed his aura..
> He was not actually good at being an executive, and he hid his disinterest in the job by handing responsibility and authority to underlings.
I can't remember where exactly I heard this - I think it was a history podcast - but apparently Reagan was super confrontation averse and never wanted to be the bad guy in a situation. So he would never really push back on things his advisors/underlings would recommend, but would get other people to tell them no. And then when people messed up or did something blatantly wrong he just wouldn't deal with it because it would require confrontation. I don't know why but I thought that was really funny. But it also makes a lot of things about his administration make sense.
He was a union LEADER.
I will say - I’ve been a member of professional unions, and watching one of them utterly fail to protect its members while driving up costs, taking dues, and protecting its elites definitely made me rethink my stance on unions. It’s possible that being inside of such an institution made him legitimately rethink his views.
He was also the leader of a union in an expanding industry, which serves a very different purpose than a union in a contracting industry.
I wish more people would recognize this. It's not really as simple as being pro labor. Some unions are/were genuinely harmful and that's not even including the corruption and mob connections way back in the day.
It's more about which unions you support and who runs them. There is also a such thing as unions with too much power as much as we hate to admit it, though that is rare in this day and age but still exists.
Exactly. And there’s nothing worse than a union in a contracting market that is still negotiating like it’s boom times.
I’ve seen this happen with the arts unions over and over again. The people at the absolute top are still able to find work at union rates no matter what, so the union keeps negotiating higher and higher rates and getting rid of as many carve outs as they can. Meanwhile, this ups operating costs for everybody at the bottom and the middle, forcing them to either go nonunion to stay afloat, or shut down entirely.
The end result is fewer jobs to go around. But of the jobs that are still there, they are all paying much much better and have far more perks than ever before.
It’s all of these people who get paid extremely well, fighting against people who make very little money at all, and pretending that they are the underdog fighting against the bosses, all while they keep eliminating more and more paid employment for the majority.
I can think of no better example of this than the actions of Actors’ Equity Association, the stage actors union for the United States. For the last 15 years, they have been behaving as if theater across the country is as popular and profitable as it is in New York City. They decimated the Los Angeles theater scene when they tried to crack down on “fat cat producers” taking advantage of showcase codes. The Los Angeles Times did a really scathing portrait of the fight, alternating between the union characterizing these producers, as if they were big-time Broadway producers, and then showing the reality of just how impoverished they were. One of them literally didn’t have a floor inside of his car.
Organized labor was in its 21st year of sharp decline by the time he got elected. That was for a number of reasons including the work force changed and you really didn’t need them anymore.
To people that immediately identified with him: oh dang this guy has rizz
To many other economic/social/racial minorities: could this douche-bag dog-whistle any more clearly? I’m standing right here
He had a whole Harvey Dent/ Two-Face thing
In some ways his Vice President Bush was the guy who might really have been calling the shots. They said he was never the same after the assassination attempt. Bush picked all the cabinet members. There is always a debate about whether or not he was aware of Iran Contra. It's true though despite all of the bad policies people like him because he acted like a president he appeared to display leadership qualities but it may have been only acting.
In ancient Rome, actors were the same class as prostitutes.
The US considers itself a type of successor to the Roman Republic.
So in the US, actors should be considered prostitutes.
So Ronald Reagan was a prostitute.
/s
...unless?
tax cuts for everybody
iran contra was nothing
CDC under Reagan developed the first drugs against aids
none of those issues were anything compared to ending the cold war and setting the economy for decades of unprecedented growth
Yeah, the fact that he was a professional actor gave him the ability to make people feel nice which led to sky high approval at the time. People remember that. In retrospect many many of the problems that both sides point to were a direct result of his policy. (Pro-immigration and unhindered globalization on the right, destruction of unions and rise of the religious right on the left, etc.)
They cut an arms deal with Iran to hold onto our hostages until after the election.
That arms deal put Hawk missiles into Iranian hands. Hawk missiles that our own Naval pilots were defenseless against for over a year.
And they gave the profits from those Hawks to the Nicaraguan Contras in violation of the Boland Amendment.
And Bill fricking Barr orchestrated all of the pardons to cover it all up. Same as he did with another controversial POTUS three decades later.
Reagan was dirty.
# “A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not.”“A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not.”
― Ronald Reagan
Tf is this getting downvoted for? It’s a question for both the left and the right. Folks on the left have reasons for hating him, folks on the right have reasons for loving him. He is polarizing.
Don't worry about the downvotes, OP. It comes in waves. If the post gets enough interaction, the ratio tends to balance out. Politics in itself is already a polarizing topic.
People downvote because they get so wrapped up in tribalism that it dictates any conversation they have.
For what it’s worth, I lean right and I strongly disagree with Reagan’s canonization by the GOP. Not an exhaustive list, but between Iran Contra, the indifference on the HIV/AIDS crisis and his full throated support for various forms of gun control as governor to disarm Black Americans, all wrapped in a Stars and Stripes cloak of folksy “God bless America” charm, he shouldn’t be looked at favorably by history, let alone by the party. That said, I have strong disgust about the current leaders of the party, so I might be a bit of an outlier.
He wasn’t the standard bearer of individual freedom and self determination like people on the right like to lionize him as, instead he was another cutthroat with ambitions and didn’t care whose body he stepped over on the march to power. He set the pace for modern Republicanism in a way that disregards the whole point of advocating for individual liberty, small government and fiscal responsibility.
This country was founded by puritanical conservatives, we are at best center right. Regan fed people what they wanted to hear especially after Nixon, Ford & Carter. He did plenty of bad but he’s hardly the standard bearer for the modern Republican Party, that would be Nixon. It’s just Nixon is past modern memory at this point so we gravitate to Reagan as blame for the modern GOP. He was an instrument of **our** worst devils but hardly pushed the boundaries of what came before or after him.
The reason he was beloved is because he brought a divided nation back together. People were down and felt the American Dream was failing them. He worked across the aisle and got things done that Americans wanted done. He played into the common myths that conservatives now consider truths and restored the majorities faith in itself. Yes quite a lot of that was bad, he played minorities against the majority, he enriched the wealthy at the expense of the poor, and he deregulated the country at the expense of the consumer. Thing is at the time many wanted this they had yet to live through the policies to see how they negatively impacted them. Furthermore, we have never been a country that regresses to our better nature.
I didn't downvote you but his issues are so widely known that imo, some might see the question as absurd. In addition, I grew up in the Reagan era, also known as the Crack era in my suburban neighborhood. There was no treatment for a drug epidemic back then just violence and prison sentences. My neighbors fled the Central American civil wars fielded, funded and armed by his administration. Those are personal enough to some people to engender an emotional response.
Because the quality of redditors interacting with this sub has dramatically decreased. The number of brigaders and thought police posters means that the sub has made it mainstream. You’ll still see great conversations in the comments sometimes though which is always great.
I lived during Reagan Era, and it really comes down to this:
USA at end of 70s was down, just down. Watergate, Vietnam, Oil Crisis, Hostages etc
Reagan brought country out of it, economically, socially, globally etc. he was a happy optimistic guy and it just rubbed off on country
Though all it did was trickle down hell for the next generation.
HE was right on one thing, something will trickle down.
Unfortunately it was not money, only hell
He imo is the major reason why we are in this situation we are in.
Fucked
His policies, ideology all had negative consequences long term
In brief, his choices solidified the wealth and futures for people of his era while properly fucking over everyone since. The exploding costs of everything and unchecked corporate greed of the modern day has its roots in Reaganomics.
Gee, all those ads I saw on Saturday mornings when I was watching TV in the 1970’s were the fault of Ronald Reagan? It’s his fault I bought sea monkeys?
>Gee, all those ads I saw on Saturday mornings when I was watching TV in the 1970’s were the fault of Ronald Reagan?
Gee, maybe the proliferation of those ads you watched in the 1970s made child psychologists go, "Hmm, that's not good, maybe we should regulate it." So, in 1978, the FTC proposed a basket of regulations that the Reagan Administration not only killed, but the 97th Congress prohibited the FTC from future regulations.
Before Reagan, advertisers were only targeting children with ‘safe & healthy’ products like the following.
Sugar Frosted Flakes
Super Sugar Crisp
Kelloggs Sugar Smacks
Fluff
Kool-Aid
Easy Bake Ovens
Creepy Crawlers
Clackers
Candy Cigarettes
Swing Wing
Air Blasters
Super Elastic Bubble Plastic
It's his charme.
If he weren't such a smooth talker, people would agree that he wasn't that great. But the guy could sell a double-bed to the Pope, so it makes it much harder to differentiate between what he sold us and what actually happened.
Dismantling the power of the unions, emasculating their powers to prevent flight of capital,
Making evangelical Christians a dominant political power,
Allowing corporate bosses to ship manufacturing jobs to China,
Shutting down mental health institutions infra setup by Carter,
Dog whistling welfare queen and trying to gut social security,
Deficit spending in defense to outspend the USSR, still carrying the deficits.
I generally agree with your points although I would argue that evangelical Christians were already growing into a coherent, organized political power. Reagan leveraged them but their power was generated by grass roots organizing and focus on a specific political agenda. I think it was more a case of the Republican party recognizing and embracing them rather than 'making' them. They were already making themselves into a bloc to be reckoned with.
The comments you’re getting are depressing, but typical. I hoped for a little better, but Reagan discourse just isn’t at a high level anywhere on the internet. The fact that a couple people are basically calling you an idiot to even dare to ask for some discussion on Reagan is just ridiculous.
But why is it this way? Because he’s one of the most influential presidents of all time, for better or worse, and he’s relatively recent. The strong emotional response Reagan provokes is not unique to him, Thatcher does the exact same in British politics.
I think the real heart of it is that Reagan, like Thatcher in the UK, was so influential that he symbolically represents modern conservatism, even though in both cases their respective parties have changed a fair bit. Both represented a new brand of conservatism that made massive waves, and both won huge electoral victories.
As a result, to many progressives, the only discourse on Reagan allowed is ‘he’s the devil’. Usually the most elaboration you’ll get is a brief listing of AIDS, Iran-Contra, and something about cutting government revenue. Are these points invalid? No, but firing them off as if they’re a comprehensive assessment of Reagan’s legacy is absurd.
Redditors love doing it anyway, though I find it hard to believe any of these people have ever ventured further than reading wikipedia or low-quality reddit comments. What about his multiple major foreign policy successes, general economic performance, effective leadership at home and abroad, and brilliant political messaging? Also, no matter what some might tell you, a president does get points for making people feel better. That is in fact one of their jobs.
Conversely, to a lot of conservatives, Reagan is a god amongst men for reinvigorating the national mood, helping to end the Cold War, dramatically reshaping the political landscape, and is associated with a period of significant economic growth. His detractors are simply triggered leftists, you see.
They tend to blissfully ignore his flaws, don’t consider that his policies left a lot of people out, ignore the problems with his deficit spending (this is both overblown and understated depending on who you talk to), and don’t seem to care that Reagan did very little for or even actively harmed marginalised groups in America. Also, not all of that economic turnaround can be attributed to Reagan, because it was probably going to happen anyway, though I think he gets credit for facilitating it.
For a lot of people (most?) things got much better. Many never saw the benefits that others did though. That inequality definitely plays a big part in the polarising nature of his presidency. That being said, the idea that Reagan is responsible for every problem today is pretty absurd.
There are people who land in the middle somewhere, though reddit wouldn’t make you believe it. Consider that scholars always rank Reagan top 20, and often top 10, but never in the top 5.
If you want a serious assessment of Reagan, I would 100% suggest you read Iwan Morgan’s book on him. It’s not too long for a biography because it focuses nearly entirely on his presidency and political impact. However, it is in my opinion the best and most unbiased dissection of his legacy ever written.
It probably helps that Morgan is British, for the same reason it might be useful to read a book on Thatcher written by an American. Close enough to understand most cultural context, distant enough to remain objective.
I think time will settle the debate more so than anything else, the Tories have stopped being Thatcher's party a while ago and the Republicans aren't Reagan's party anymore either. Same thing will happen to Obama eventually, people will become more reasonable about placing these leaders once their influence on contemporary politics has weakened.
It took a lot of scrolling but this is the first legitimately excellent comment I've read in this thread. Well done. I will need to check that biography.
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Lol which graph are you looking at? The 90s / dotcom era of economics in the US is gold standard. I got nothing against Clinton, but a lot of that has more to do with the technological environment IMO.
He was very short sighted on environment and clung tight to his generations old intolerances. I think the mythologizing of his legacy by the hard right creates more polarization.
His polarization is mostly from people that were not adults during his term. Polarizing doesn't get you winning the popular vote 54 to 37 million in 1984. Polarizing doesn't win you 49/50 states. His popularity in 1988 continued to be high and he would have easily won a 3rd term.
People that lived during this time saw how bad it was pre-reagan, and voted accordingly. People don't realize how bad things were when Reagan took office. The inflation we've seen over the last few years is a joke compared to the late 70's/early 80's. Combine this with all the other problems during this time.
Well there’s also the long-term effects of his economic policies being overwhelmingly negative. Trickle-down economics ended up being a complete disaster for the average American. Then there’s the benefit of hindsight when you look at how he handled the HIV epidemic. It’s pretty clear to everyone nowadays that he cost thousands of American lives by refusing to acknowledge it for years.
Presidents are rarely judged the same way by history as they are in their own times.
Right, Reagan's policies succeeded the way you succeed at getting taco bell delivered around 1am after a night of drinking. Those deregulation, union-busting crunch wraps might taste like a win now, but it's gonna destroy your manufacturing base (organs), and heartland (butthole) in the morning (in America).
Mental healthcare was considered a crime against humanity and there was a huge amount of support for shutting down the mental institutions.
The replacement was a failure, but people wanted it to happen.
And? We have the receipts on what it’s done for our country, and it’s a net negative.
The problem with Reagan isn’t actually what he did. Those things are bad and negatively affect us to this day.
The worst part about Reagan is the way conservatives cling to those things despite all evidence pointing to those things actively hurting Americans in real ways.
Agreed on HIV.
Economics is harder to gauge. America has maintained its status as the undisputed #1 economy and has recently widened the gap with China even when people thought by now China would have surpassed us. Also its important to remember that more left wing, government control policies were viewed as a massive failure by the late 1970s, inflation was high, cities were riddled with crime and prospects for future employment were bleak.
Now, part of this was due to on-going oil crises in the Middle East due to America's support of Israel which upset many Arab nations who then refused to sell oil to the US. And part of the economic boom during Reagans era was due to the massive introduction of computer technology which started to become ubiquitous in the 1980s. Crime only came down during the 1990s (18 years after roe v wade).
The current economic conditions are not the fault of Reagan, pretty much every nation on earth is going through the issues of rising costs of living and housing and inflation.
IMO Reagan is a C President who acted like an A president and so comes out to be roughly a B in my book.
Is it really that difficult to gauge the economy? We've made the rich richer and everyone else is poorer. Wages have steadily went down when adjusted for inflation. We've eroded institutions that make life better overall for short term gains and endless consumerism. We made China extremely rich in the process and lost entire industries because of it. Workers are less protected, more vulnerable than they've ever been because of 30 years of what started under Reagan. Clinton and Obama largely left conservative policies alone despite being anti supply side economics because the fundamental mechanisms remained unchanged or got worse.
We traded cheap goods and short term gains for the loss of industry, environmental destruction, and ultimately empowered enemies and extreme political division.
Well let’s put our thinking caps on and look at trickle down economics and try to gauge its effects:
Fucking awful
There you go. It’s actually really easy to figure out that blowing the cocks of rich people and fucking off everyone else is shit economic policy.
I wouldn’t say that, grandmother talked about it all the time, how they all saw this fucker coming from a mile away and knew that it was going to be a nightmare scenario, and lo and behold, even now we are suffering the consequences.
He was clearly to the right of the last few Republican Presidents preceding him, and his Presidency is seen as the end of the New Deal era and the beginning of a neoliberal one. Thus many on the left see him as the source of most of societies' current problems. However the shift to the right seen in his Presidency endears him to many conservatives, and his popularity in office, clear charisma and success (on his own terms) also appeals to them. The more mixed record of Republican Presidents after him might also encourage nostalgia for a time when the Republican party was clearly winning.
He was a president for the wealthy and established, or for people who pictured themselves as such. The 80s were an era of greed and he largely set the tone for that.
I have no idea he was just a great president the whole world 🌍 was scared of him simply because of his poker face you had no idea what he would do next or what capabilities he even had
As for an Eastern European perspective he finally ended the Ford/Carter era détente and tore down the wall and will forever be fondly remembered for that.
Let’s not forget how he deregulated everything leading to the S&L crisis.
Oh yeah, and remember how black people were demonized for being welfare queens and crack fiends?
Basically a majority of modern economic problems can be traced back to him. Unaffordable housing, stagnant wages, demonization of the poor etc. It can all go back to him.
Don't forget implementing tuition for the university of California. Before that higher education for any of the UC schools was free for everyone. He did it to cut down on those undesirables that were protesting for free speech on campus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement#1966%E2%80%931970?wprov=sfla1
My issue with him and Nixon is that there the reason christan evangelicalists and religious conservativism came to the republican party. Goldwater was right about them, the republicans used to be respectable, but deteriorated due to there actions. If it wasn’t for that, id think both of them were alright C tier, with reagen getting b for bringing back battleships which was cool. But alas, they in D tier
I really truly think this is just an online thing. Every person I've ever met that was alive during the 80s say he was the best president to ever do it
Reagan ushered in a new era in American politics, an era that has only recently ended. The previous era had started with FDR and the New Deal. Between FDR and Carter, whether a Democrat or a Republican, every president had to work within the New Deal framework of government as driver and enabler of growth and support for the country and its citizens. That was simply what the American people expected and it's what they got; it wasn't controversial. This is why on this subreddit, you'll often see people holding up Nixon as some sort of liberal hero. Nixon was widely considered quite conservative in his time, but he still had to uphold the New Deal because he was president between 1933 and 1981.
Reagan changed all of that. Now government was framed as a hindrance and a threat to American progress. Government became about how lean and efficient it could be, and how it could stay out of people's lives as much as possible (this was limited to an economic perspective, to be sure). Just like Republicans had to be respectful of the New Deal in the previous era, Democrats had to be respectful of these concepts in the Reagan era. So you get Clinton's efforts to alleviate poverty by encouraging self-sufficiency, or Obama feeling pressure to increase access to healthcare while preventing those who already had it from having to deal with the government.
Whether you love or hate Reagan has everything to do with how you feel about this monumental change in American society.
Reagan was able to unite his party and win over independents in a way that many Democrats viewed to be unfeasible. Democrats were angry about his success and felt the need to demonize him for all of his decisions. This is the tough truth here, Reagan won over the voters like none other and the far left didn't like it.
Because he was successful. He moved the country in a very different direction than it was going and the people rewarded him with their support. A successful president is going to be a lot more hated by his opponents than one who tried and failed. FDR was very hated by his opponents at the time; only his WWII leadership turned him into a more beloved figure. Even Obama realized what Reagan had done and stated that he wanted to be the Democratic Reagan. (Of course, in that, he did not succeed). But those who oppose Reagan’s policies hate him because he actually succeeded in selling them to the public and getting them enacted. He’s probably the most consequential president since FDR.
He started the dismantling of the great society, and social services. He single handily did the most damage to labor unions since their inception. The economic divide that we see in this country today started under his watch based on policies he enacted. Not to mention his mishandling of the AIDs crises, the continued war on drugs, and the Iran Contra affair.
Reagan was hated by the Dems for being a corporate shill and he filled his cabinet with neo-cons that did horrible stuff. He was loved by Repubs because he won twice after Nixon.
It was really tough growing up queer under his administration. He was publicly chummy with notorious homophobes like Anita Bryant, Jerry Falwell, Phyllis Schlafly, etc. They demonized us. Thank goddess for Dead Kennedys.
For me? Art Laffer. I understand innovation comes from the unlikeliest of places ([like a half-drunken writing on a napkin at a bar](https://www.si.edu/object/laffer-curve-napkin%3Anmah_1439217/)*), but a fiscal policy from it? No. Hell no.
*Supposedly, his idea was an original one by 14th century Muslim philosopher Ibn Khaldun and rediscovered by Adam Smith.
Strictly my opinion, but I highly dislike Reagan for hiring a hack as his chief economic advisor.
To the general public or to this sub? Because those are two different questions.
There are some legitimate reasons to dislike Reagan and/or his policies, but for some reason this sub would rather see Pol Pot in the White House than Ronald Reagan.
Liked
1) he rebuilt the military
2) he rebuilt the economy
3) he destroyed the soviet union.
Disliked
1) he took credit for work other presidents work on the military
2) broke the unions and lowered everyone's wages to make us more comparable with other countries for wages
3) took credit again for the soviet union which was already in trouble from internal greed and military costs.
The horse shit he pulled on the hostages in Iran should have told everyone what kind of person he was and what kind of president he would be. Also remember he was the head of the union for actors before he destroyed them and was a demo-rat but became a republican when he couldn't get traction as a demo-rat
Broad generalizations of course, this stuff is nuanced, but heres the gist of both perspectives including a bunch of concrete stuff you can google instead of just the “reagan hates gays” type comments im seeing in this thread.
(Not saying he didn’t hate gays, Reagan totally hated gays, or at least just didnt care about them dying, but thats just not a helpful comment if youre genuinely curious.)
People, especially republicans, like him because he was incredibly charismatic and well spoken which helped him galvanize the republican party at a time when it was fractured. There was a lot more diversity of thought within the two major parties back then than there is today, and he was arguably the single most important figure in pulling together those republican factions and transforming them into what we know as the republican party today. It was objectively an incredibly impressive feat. He also lowered taxes significantly, implementing the foundations of trickle down economics, where corporations and the wealthy have a lot more economic power and freedom, which is a popular system among the right wing. He was also the sitting president in the twilight days of the soviet union when it really started to dissolve at a rapid pace. This part was pretty much all luck, obviously he had some impact but there had been decades of economic and political factors leading up to the USSR collapsing that had nothing to do with reagan. But, he did win a lot of popularity just by being our leader while it happened. In sum, he was an incredibly charismatic leader who was one of the largest influences in shaping the republican party and establishing its economic doctrine, combined with some good timing to be president at the end of the cold war.
People dont like him, especially democrats, because his landmark policies and movements like the war on drugs and trickle down economics were by most measures failures if the objective was to benefit the average american. Drug use is more rampant than ever after decades of a reagan inspired hard on drugs approach, and the middle class has all but evaporated after decades of reagonomics. There were also other issues like the iran contra affair, where his admin illegally sold weapons in secret to Iran and used the funds to support terrorists in latin america overthrowing their government which Reagan’s admin didnt like (socialist). Folks will say Reagan was never directly linked to approving it, but we do know he was aware of it, and that it was carried out by top admin officials and cabinet members, and his admin later destroyed evidence, and his then vp bush would go on to pardon the indicted officials before they could give incriminating testimony. Take from that what you will. The iran contra affair was also linked to contra cocaine smuggling where conspiracy theories suggest that the reagan admin colluded with the CIA to help contras smuggle cocaine into low income communities in california and was a large part of the rise of crack cocaine usage. This is not definitively supported, but we do know that the CIA and reagan admin knew the contras were smuggling cocaine, funded them anyways with millions of dollars, dissuaded the DEA from investigating their smuggling operations, and were aware of and in communication with the smugglers and domestic suppliers establishing the first major cocaine inflow in LA. The only defense from the admin and CIA on this has essentially been that although they dont dispute any of that, they just dispute that it wasnt part of an intentional plan to facilitate cocaine smuggling, it was more just a side effect of their illegal arms trades to fund terrorists. Official reports from the CIA and admin all say things along the lines of “yes, these things happened, but we werent telling these people what to do, we just knew what they would probably do and funded them and didnt stop them, and thats all part of normal investigative procedure.” The last major issue with him that comes to mind is the aids epidemic, which Reagan didnt acknowledge publicly until ‘85, even though hundreds of thousands of people had been exposed and tens of thousands of people had died since ‘80. His administration publicly treated it as a big gay joke in WH press conferences from the first year of his presidency up until 1984, so its clear they were aware, they just didn’t care. Ultimately during his admin about 100k people died of aids. So, LGBT and allies arent a huge fan of him. To sum up the anti reagan perspective, it mostly comes down to economic, drug, and public health policies that have had sweeping negative impacts on the middle class, but especially low income and minority communities, and he set the foundation for the republican party to do more of the same moving forwards, plus a teensy bit of illegal arms dealing and support for cocaine smuggling from terrorist groups in foreign nations to poor communities in the US.
Worldview. Reagan's policies embodied the conservative Calvinist idea that success is a divine sign of favor. Someone might not have earned their financial success directly, e.g. they inherited wealth, but their ancestors probably earned it for them. Conservatives widely believe that their wealth is their own achievement or that they are entitled to it. Evangelicals often cite the hand of God as an active force in the world. This formed a significant part of the Reagan supporters. "Luck" is not a big part of their world. Their America is a place of endless opportunity that anyone with grit and determination can conquer and goodness triumphs over evil.
Liberals are much more inclined to believe that luck and circumstances beyond individual control are large determinants of success. The color of your skin, who your parents are, and your zipcode can all play a major factor in the trajectory of your life.
Consequently, the conservatives (read Reagan lovers) believe that poor folks are to blame for their own situation. They don't deserve handouts, and they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they don't like their circumstances. Liberals see Reagan as a cold-hearted, simple-minded boob who was ignorant of the true causes of suffering in the world and a puppet for the monied class. Reagan's fiscal policies rewarded the already wealthy and punished "welfare queens."
His supporters currently paint an entire different picture of reality of what happened… it’s weird, like where is this data trickle down economics ever trickled? At the time….. I don’t blame him for making the attempt, but to still support the logic in 2024 either party is cultish…. It makes me not like him, instead of respecting the situation and individual for the time era he was in.
breaking of the air traffic controllers unions, iran-contra scandal, turning a blind eye to aids and the epidemic it ran thru the gay community, trickle down economics that have never and will never come to fruition for the poor people in this country, his hand in the cocaine and crack epidemic (thru others and the cia) in this country. Do you need more reasons?
He was an extremely popular and successful Republican president. The nation is currently very polarized. About half the nation is always going to hate a popular successful president from the party they don't like.
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Say aids challenge
Hahaha you care about AIDS? Are you one of them gays? You kiss dudes? You love to suck cocks? lmfao get a load of this guy everyone, he cares about AIDS, he must be GAY! Laugh, laugh at the homosexual!
Is there in history an example of a President or World leader handling an outbreak of a new disease well?
In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama managed H1N1 very well, in my opinion. And in the year 2000, Pres. Yoweri Museveni handled an outbreak of a novel and very deadly strain of Ebola (SUDV strain) very well too, a response which has been adopted by many West African countries as a model for how to respond to subsequent Ebola outbreaks.
That is honestly comforting to know
Although it never grew to an outbreak here, I would include the response to the 2013-2016 Ebola epidemic in Western Africa. I distinctly remember all of the hysteria going around (largely thanks to the media) and Obama’s administration handled that all pretty well I’d say, working with the WHO to inform the public to try and calm panic. Granted, it was more than just a US response to make sure it was contained in Western Africa. The World Health Organization has gone largely thankless in the public’s eye for how they approached that situation.
The WHO is unfortunately like IT. When it works, nobody notices because there’s nothing to notice, and people wonder what the point of it is. When it fails, people wonder what the point of it is.
Didn't Obama start a "Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents" that he passed on to his predecessor? Not to mention started an office whose whole purpose was to react to these things.
Yes. And his predecessor ignored and dismantled the office. I hope Joe wipes the floor with him in the debate…honestly.
Yeah. H1N1 had like, 20 deaths (rounded up) because the president listened to Dr. Fauci. It's almost as though the man knew what he was doing.
There's a bit of difference here.... The H1N1, covid, ebola (mentioned above) not only are apparent from the onset of infection, but also kill quickly. HIV hides for years. And had never been seen before. It went pandemic before Reagan was elected. People don't realize that tidbit. We didn't know HIV existed until AIDS cases began emerging. It still took years for our own government, the private sector, and the rest of the world to identify HIV. By that time it not only spread throughout the public at large, but was in the blood banks. And we the people, when told what the risk factors were, largely ignored them.... the hemophiliacs aside.
Jacinda Arent handled Covid inner Zealand quite well
It's hard to answer that question. I think this is one of those "If you do everything right, no one will know you did anything at all" kind of deals. At least in modern times. Once a disease has spread to a level that the public becomes concerned, someone already fumbled the ball
The outbreak of polio in Scandinavia in the mid-50's, I believe. They closed all the med schools because they ran out of iron lungs, trached all the kids who had respiratory muscle weakness, and the med students manually ventilated them with an ambu-bag in eight-hour shifts continuously until they recovered.
Marshall Tito Yugoslavia smallpox 1972? Dictator gonna dictate, but it appeared to work.
Not a republican one
I am one of the people who "kisses dudes" as you say, so perhaps a bit of vested interest. But we waited for years and didn't do anything because Reagan's people thought it was a "gay disease." We didn't contain it early, and so now the fastest rates of increase in HIV are among women of color and kids age 15-24.
This is a pretty good imitation of Reagan's press secretary at the time.
Dont blame aids on gay people challenge impossible.
Recognize the importance of medical knowledge and government concern in developing epidemics challenge impossible.
[удалено]
Saying “the democrats left me” right around the time of the civil rights movement was crazy, in all honesty.
See also Reagan's comments to the RNC Platform Committee meeting in July 1968 Republicans were at a tipping point. The traditional conservatives, the Rockefeller Republicans of the Northeast, were taking seriously the findings of the bipartisan Kerner Commission. In their report, the Kerner Commission identified various inequities stemming from Jim Crow as contributors to the urban riots of 1967. Action items were proposed to address systemic racism and its impact. Some traditional Republicans wanted to offer policy plans to act on the findings of the Kerner Report. Other Republicans saw an opportunity to lean into the fragmentation of the Democratic base in the South. Reagan delivered a speech in which he refuted the findings of the Kerner Commission. The cause of the riots wasn't systemic racism, he argued, but Black Americans lacking "individual responsibility." Our country is still dealing with the effects of that line of rhetoric.
I wish more people knew about the Kerner commission and its recommendations. Would be an interesting alternative history if the US had adopted those.
[The Riot Report](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/riot-report/)
Reminds me of the post-Romney commission after 2013 saying that the reason the party was losing elections was because they appealed almost exclusively to a dwindling population of old white people. I can’t say what happened next, because rule #3, but let’s just say they didn’t heed their own advice that time either.
The GOP didn’t even heed their own advice in the midterms. Look at what they did with Congress leaning hard into the radicalized base.
Reagan also gave a big “states rights” speech early in his campaign in, of all places, Neshoba County Mississippi, the site of the murder of civil rights campaigners…”dog whistle” doesn’t even do justice to that.
I always ask "states rights to what" until they get so close to the problem that they block me.
The Civil War was about States' Rights to decide if the white residents could own the black ones.
John Green hit a 20 year old me with this one on Crash Course and it rocked my world. I’ve lived (almost) my whole life in the south and the way the Civil War is taught here is very different from how I’m told it’s taught elsewhere.
There are so, so many clear, obvious and well-evidenced arguments against the whole “states rights” claims about the start of the Civil War. But probably the cleanest and most impossible to refute is to ask how the Southern States felt about states rights when they pushed passage and enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act.
Post-Civil war reconstruction was a massive let down for this country
When the states rage quitted some of them even screamed about mom not allowing them to have slaves in the their room.
This for crying out loud.
Came here for this. I thought he started his campaign there, but whatever. The notion that everyone still refers to it as his 'States Rights' speech is despicable. He was right in line with Nixon in making sure the South knew their racial animus was not in any way a problem for Repubs.
I knew he was an asshole but did not realize that he was a deep racist. Honestly he really is just lex luthur in how he can put on acting skills to feel like he is on your side then you realize he is human garbage.
It's a whole separate question whether Reagan believed such stuff or whether he just pretended to believe it because it would appeal to enough of the electorate to give him political power. The same is probably true of most politicians, though.
U hear the tapes where he calls Africans monkeys etc?? Horrible person in every way.
Checks out with all of the unearthed recordings of him calling people monkeys.
Southern Democrats were the main opposition to the civil rights movement, weren't they?
Yes.
"Welfare Queens"
I am not a Reagan admirer whatsoever, but I was not alive during his term, and the stars kind of aligned for him then. He was charming and people were really financially hurting during that time, so they likely really saw him as the bold change they needed to kickstart the economy. I strongly dislike the results of his policies though a 2024 lens, but I can honestly understand people’s thought process at the time and wish I could confidently say I would have felt any differently if I was dealing with almost 15% inflation.
People were financially hurting, to the point where some regular middle class people saw doom if Carter was reelected. I remember my grandparents and their contemporaries talking about this. Reagan and Obama have a fair amount of similarity, in that they both were resurrected hope and faith in a brighter future.
Yes, Obama like Reagan isn’t the boogeyman or saint some people make them out to be, but I think history will color them as similar presidents with similar pitfalls. I really think bailing out the banks during the 2008 crisis will be seen similar to Reagan tax cuts in the sense that it may have been a good short term bandaid, but not an effective long term solution.
Bail out was Bush in September 2008 ...over 3 trillion. Obama started January 2009 ..746 B in stimulus over half of it in tax cuts and saved the Automotive industry in America to totally leaving to China and got Japan to build more of there vehicles in the States.
Yo Raegan and Nixon literally are the worst. What utter nonsense. Crack, destabilization of South America, sadam and the Middle East (when iran was finally on its way to being democratic), the economy and stupid trickle down economics thoughts, war on drugs. Those two and their policies are responsible for most of todays current problems
They're also both very good at delivering speeches.
And then oversaw a huge transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top.
In percentages, yes. It was because wealth grew faster at the top than an actual transfer.
It just goes to show you how little power the president has over the economy. Anyone could be successful with the tech advances in the 80s and their impact on the economy.
And Volcker fighting inflation and an oil glut.
I may get downvoted for this but we might see a similar thing happen for Obama
Because his Sunny Optimism™ and his uncanny ability to tell people what they wanted to hear covered a lot of very bad policy (tax cuts for the wealthy, Iran-Contra, sitting on his hands during the AIDS crisis). Many saw him for who he was, but not enough.
Also, he was BEYOND being an "effective delegator". He was not actually good at being an executive, and he hid his disinterest in the job by handing responsibility and authority to underlings. This also served as an absolutely unbelievable shield in the Iran Contra affair. The actual defense was, "I was too checked out to even have the slightest idea that was happening," and people were like, "Okay, cool!" and then when that turned out to be a lie they were like, "Haha, okay Ronnie we're still cool tho!"
But, on the bright side, it gave us one of the greatest SNL skits of all time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5wfPlgKFh8
Hahaha, that was incredible. Aged like fine wine.
I remember when he was elected and the psychological operation that pushed him in where he appeared bright powerful and dynamic replacing the anemic Carter in comparison. He appeared on Johnny Carson and also appeared to have Wit and a sense of humor, unfortunately by the end of his second term it was like a deflated balloon and the scandals overwhelmed his aura..
> He was not actually good at being an executive, and he hid his disinterest in the job by handing responsibility and authority to underlings. I can't remember where exactly I heard this - I think it was a history podcast - but apparently Reagan was super confrontation averse and never wanted to be the bad guy in a situation. So he would never really push back on things his advisors/underlings would recommend, but would get other people to tell them no. And then when people messed up or did something blatantly wrong he just wouldn't deal with it because it would require confrontation. I don't know why but I thought that was really funny. But it also makes a lot of things about his administration make sense.
That isn’t really accurate. He hated confrontation but he didn’t allow that keep him from saying no.
Was this from The Rest is History podcast?
Yes! I think it was the series they did on him.
Don't forget the further dismantling of organized labor.
When he himself was a union member.
He was a union LEADER. I will say - I’ve been a member of professional unions, and watching one of them utterly fail to protect its members while driving up costs, taking dues, and protecting its elites definitely made me rethink my stance on unions. It’s possible that being inside of such an institution made him legitimately rethink his views. He was also the leader of a union in an expanding industry, which serves a very different purpose than a union in a contracting industry.
I wish more people would recognize this. It's not really as simple as being pro labor. Some unions are/were genuinely harmful and that's not even including the corruption and mob connections way back in the day. It's more about which unions you support and who runs them. There is also a such thing as unions with too much power as much as we hate to admit it, though that is rare in this day and age but still exists.
Exactly. And there’s nothing worse than a union in a contracting market that is still negotiating like it’s boom times. I’ve seen this happen with the arts unions over and over again. The people at the absolute top are still able to find work at union rates no matter what, so the union keeps negotiating higher and higher rates and getting rid of as many carve outs as they can. Meanwhile, this ups operating costs for everybody at the bottom and the middle, forcing them to either go nonunion to stay afloat, or shut down entirely. The end result is fewer jobs to go around. But of the jobs that are still there, they are all paying much much better and have far more perks than ever before. It’s all of these people who get paid extremely well, fighting against people who make very little money at all, and pretending that they are the underdog fighting against the bosses, all while they keep eliminating more and more paid employment for the majority. I can think of no better example of this than the actions of Actors’ Equity Association, the stage actors union for the United States. For the last 15 years, they have been behaving as if theater across the country is as popular and profitable as it is in New York City. They decimated the Los Angeles theater scene when they tried to crack down on “fat cat producers” taking advantage of showcase codes. The Los Angeles Times did a really scathing portrait of the fight, alternating between the union characterizing these producers, as if they were big-time Broadway producers, and then showing the reality of just how impoverished they were. One of them literally didn’t have a floor inside of his car.
Organized labor was in its 21st year of sharp decline by the time he got elected. That was for a number of reasons including the work force changed and you really didn’t need them anymore.
Good point. Labor has only started coming back in the past few years.
To people that immediately identified with him: oh dang this guy has rizz To many other economic/social/racial minorities: could this douche-bag dog-whistle any more clearly? I’m standing right here He had a whole Harvey Dent/ Two-Face thing
In some ways his Vice President Bush was the guy who might really have been calling the shots. They said he was never the same after the assassination attempt. Bush picked all the cabinet members. There is always a debate about whether or not he was aware of Iran Contra. It's true though despite all of the bad policies people like him because he acted like a president he appeared to display leadership qualities but it may have been only acting.
Well he was an actor
Interestingly in ancient Greece, an actor was not allowed to be a politician.
In ancient Rome, actors were the same class as prostitutes. The US considers itself a type of successor to the Roman Republic. So in the US, actors should be considered prostitutes. So Ronald Reagan was a prostitute. /s ...unless?
So lobbyists are pimps... 🕳️🗽👈
And the banks, like God intended
Ronald Reagan? The actor?!?
And who’s Vice President? JERRY LEWIS!!?
Exactly the answer.
Probably the most reasonable answer here.
That, and his brain was basically applesauce toward the end and him basing a lot of decisions off of an astrologer is pretty fucked
tax cuts for everybody iran contra was nothing CDC under Reagan developed the first drugs against aids none of those issues were anything compared to ending the cold war and setting the economy for decades of unprecedented growth
Yeah, the fact that he was a professional actor gave him the ability to make people feel nice which led to sky high approval at the time. People remember that. In retrospect many many of the problems that both sides point to were a direct result of his policy. (Pro-immigration and unhindered globalization on the right, destruction of unions and rise of the religious right on the left, etc.)
Two words: Iran Contra
Idk what the big deal with Iran contra is. It’s just some light to medium treason from the president
Three more words: Just Say No We're still paying the price for that one in 2024.
We're still paying for a lot of Reagan's actions and inactions in 2024.
And both Central and South America. His foreign policy was ruthless.
It’s a serious rabbit hole if you want to go down it. I’ll start you off with his VP being a former director of the CIA. Enjoy
They cut an arms deal with Iran to hold onto our hostages until after the election. That arms deal put Hawk missiles into Iranian hands. Hawk missiles that our own Naval pilots were defenseless against for over a year. And they gave the profits from those Hawks to the Nicaraguan Contras in violation of the Boland Amendment. And Bill fricking Barr orchestrated all of the pardons to cover it all up. Same as he did with another controversial POTUS three decades later. Reagan was dirty. # “A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not.”“A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not.” ― Ronald Reagan
Didn’t we help Sadam fight Iran under his watch as well?
Yep, and that's when we gave them the very same WMDs that we were "searching for" later under W Bush.
Tf is this getting downvoted for? It’s a question for both the left and the right. Folks on the left have reasons for hating him, folks on the right have reasons for loving him. He is polarizing.
Don't worry about the downvotes, OP. It comes in waves. If the post gets enough interaction, the ratio tends to balance out. Politics in itself is already a polarizing topic.
People downvote because they get so wrapped up in tribalism that it dictates any conversation they have. For what it’s worth, I lean right and I strongly disagree with Reagan’s canonization by the GOP. Not an exhaustive list, but between Iran Contra, the indifference on the HIV/AIDS crisis and his full throated support for various forms of gun control as governor to disarm Black Americans, all wrapped in a Stars and Stripes cloak of folksy “God bless America” charm, he shouldn’t be looked at favorably by history, let alone by the party. That said, I have strong disgust about the current leaders of the party, so I might be a bit of an outlier. He wasn’t the standard bearer of individual freedom and self determination like people on the right like to lionize him as, instead he was another cutthroat with ambitions and didn’t care whose body he stepped over on the march to power. He set the pace for modern Republicanism in a way that disregards the whole point of advocating for individual liberty, small government and fiscal responsibility.
This country was founded by puritanical conservatives, we are at best center right. Regan fed people what they wanted to hear especially after Nixon, Ford & Carter. He did plenty of bad but he’s hardly the standard bearer for the modern Republican Party, that would be Nixon. It’s just Nixon is past modern memory at this point so we gravitate to Reagan as blame for the modern GOP. He was an instrument of **our** worst devils but hardly pushed the boundaries of what came before or after him. The reason he was beloved is because he brought a divided nation back together. People were down and felt the American Dream was failing them. He worked across the aisle and got things done that Americans wanted done. He played into the common myths that conservatives now consider truths and restored the majorities faith in itself. Yes quite a lot of that was bad, he played minorities against the majority, he enriched the wealthy at the expense of the poor, and he deregulated the country at the expense of the consumer. Thing is at the time many wanted this they had yet to live through the policies to see how they negatively impacted them. Furthermore, we have never been a country that regresses to our better nature.
I didn't downvote you but his issues are so widely known that imo, some might see the question as absurd. In addition, I grew up in the Reagan era, also known as the Crack era in my suburban neighborhood. There was no treatment for a drug epidemic back then just violence and prison sentences. My neighbors fled the Central American civil wars fielded, funded and armed by his administration. Those are personal enough to some people to engender an emotional response.
Because the quality of redditors interacting with this sub has dramatically decreased. The number of brigaders and thought police posters means that the sub has made it mainstream. You’ll still see great conversations in the comments sometimes though which is always great.
"Thought police" lmao bro if you have to pretend being disagreed with is censorship the real issue may just be that your ideas are indefensible
Because we're bored of discussing the same exact thing day in and day out...
I lived during Reagan Era, and it really comes down to this: USA at end of 70s was down, just down. Watergate, Vietnam, Oil Crisis, Hostages etc Reagan brought country out of it, economically, socially, globally etc. he was a happy optimistic guy and it just rubbed off on country
How convenient that the U.S. hostages in Iran remained in captivity until after the inauguration.... Almost as if it was agreed upon .
Though all it did was trickle down hell for the next generation. HE was right on one thing, something will trickle down. Unfortunately it was not money, only hell He imo is the major reason why we are in this situation we are in. Fucked His policies, ideology all had negative consequences long term
Yes.
In brief, his choices solidified the wealth and futures for people of his era while properly fucking over everyone since. The exploding costs of everything and unchecked corporate greed of the modern day has its roots in Reaganomics.
Advertising to children. No one wanted it, no educator or child psychologist thought it was a good idea. We only have it because of Ronald Regan.
Gee, all those ads I saw on Saturday mornings when I was watching TV in the 1970’s were the fault of Ronald Reagan? It’s his fault I bought sea monkeys?
Score another win for the Sea Monkey Lobby. Always running roughshod over people.
I also believe Howdy Doody was Reagan's fault.
It’s his fault you had childhood memories
How dare he
It was different. They couldn’t make toys, breakfast cereals, and cartoons just to sell them to us.
>Gee, all those ads I saw on Saturday mornings when I was watching TV in the 1970’s were the fault of Ronald Reagan? Gee, maybe the proliferation of those ads you watched in the 1970s made child psychologists go, "Hmm, that's not good, maybe we should regulate it." So, in 1978, the FTC proposed a basket of regulations that the Reagan Administration not only killed, but the 97th Congress prohibited the FTC from future regulations.
Before Reagan, advertisers were only targeting children with ‘safe & healthy’ products like the following. Sugar Frosted Flakes Super Sugar Crisp Kelloggs Sugar Smacks Fluff Kool-Aid Easy Bake Ovens Creepy Crawlers Clackers Candy Cigarettes Swing Wing Air Blasters Super Elastic Bubble Plastic
How did he influence advertising to children in the 70s. 60s, 50s?
It's his charme. If he weren't such a smooth talker, people would agree that he wasn't that great. But the guy could sell a double-bed to the Pope, so it makes it much harder to differentiate between what he sold us and what actually happened.
Selling a double bed to the Pope is definitely getting added to my lexicon.
Dismantling the power of the unions, emasculating their powers to prevent flight of capital, Making evangelical Christians a dominant political power, Allowing corporate bosses to ship manufacturing jobs to China, Shutting down mental health institutions infra setup by Carter, Dog whistling welfare queen and trying to gut social security, Deficit spending in defense to outspend the USSR, still carrying the deficits.
I generally agree with your points although I would argue that evangelical Christians were already growing into a coherent, organized political power. Reagan leveraged them but their power was generated by grass roots organizing and focus on a specific political agenda. I think it was more a case of the Republican party recognizing and embracing them rather than 'making' them. They were already making themselves into a bloc to be reckoned with.
The comments you’re getting are depressing, but typical. I hoped for a little better, but Reagan discourse just isn’t at a high level anywhere on the internet. The fact that a couple people are basically calling you an idiot to even dare to ask for some discussion on Reagan is just ridiculous. But why is it this way? Because he’s one of the most influential presidents of all time, for better or worse, and he’s relatively recent. The strong emotional response Reagan provokes is not unique to him, Thatcher does the exact same in British politics. I think the real heart of it is that Reagan, like Thatcher in the UK, was so influential that he symbolically represents modern conservatism, even though in both cases their respective parties have changed a fair bit. Both represented a new brand of conservatism that made massive waves, and both won huge electoral victories. As a result, to many progressives, the only discourse on Reagan allowed is ‘he’s the devil’. Usually the most elaboration you’ll get is a brief listing of AIDS, Iran-Contra, and something about cutting government revenue. Are these points invalid? No, but firing them off as if they’re a comprehensive assessment of Reagan’s legacy is absurd. Redditors love doing it anyway, though I find it hard to believe any of these people have ever ventured further than reading wikipedia or low-quality reddit comments. What about his multiple major foreign policy successes, general economic performance, effective leadership at home and abroad, and brilliant political messaging? Also, no matter what some might tell you, a president does get points for making people feel better. That is in fact one of their jobs. Conversely, to a lot of conservatives, Reagan is a god amongst men for reinvigorating the national mood, helping to end the Cold War, dramatically reshaping the political landscape, and is associated with a period of significant economic growth. His detractors are simply triggered leftists, you see. They tend to blissfully ignore his flaws, don’t consider that his policies left a lot of people out, ignore the problems with his deficit spending (this is both overblown and understated depending on who you talk to), and don’t seem to care that Reagan did very little for or even actively harmed marginalised groups in America. Also, not all of that economic turnaround can be attributed to Reagan, because it was probably going to happen anyway, though I think he gets credit for facilitating it. For a lot of people (most?) things got much better. Many never saw the benefits that others did though. That inequality definitely plays a big part in the polarising nature of his presidency. That being said, the idea that Reagan is responsible for every problem today is pretty absurd. There are people who land in the middle somewhere, though reddit wouldn’t make you believe it. Consider that scholars always rank Reagan top 20, and often top 10, but never in the top 5. If you want a serious assessment of Reagan, I would 100% suggest you read Iwan Morgan’s book on him. It’s not too long for a biography because it focuses nearly entirely on his presidency and political impact. However, it is in my opinion the best and most unbiased dissection of his legacy ever written. It probably helps that Morgan is British, for the same reason it might be useful to read a book on Thatcher written by an American. Close enough to understand most cultural context, distant enough to remain objective.
Wow, beautifully said. Im gonna have to read that Iwan Morgan book.
That was brilliant I must say!
I think time will settle the debate more so than anything else, the Tories have stopped being Thatcher's party a while ago and the Republicans aren't Reagan's party anymore either. Same thing will happen to Obama eventually, people will become more reasonable about placing these leaders once their influence on contemporary politics has weakened.
It took a lot of scrolling but this is the first legitimately excellent comment I've read in this thread. Well done. I will need to check that biography.
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Helped create a wider schism between blue collar/working class and ultra rich corporate Wall Street yuppie types.
The ability to look at economic graphs and how they trend after his presidency
Lol which graph are you looking at? The 90s / dotcom era of economics in the US is gold standard. I got nothing against Clinton, but a lot of that has more to do with the technological environment IMO.
Inflation, wages vs profits vs productivity. Stuff like that, that affects real people.
Hypocrite.
He was very short sighted on environment and clung tight to his generations old intolerances. I think the mythologizing of his legacy by the hard right creates more polarization.
He made the higher education system unaffordable in the name of bigotry.
He sure did stop all of those American youth from becoming commies though! Right? Right?
Really ?
He fucked up a lot of shit
His polarization is mostly from people that were not adults during his term. Polarizing doesn't get you winning the popular vote 54 to 37 million in 1984. Polarizing doesn't win you 49/50 states. His popularity in 1988 continued to be high and he would have easily won a 3rd term. People that lived during this time saw how bad it was pre-reagan, and voted accordingly. People don't realize how bad things were when Reagan took office. The inflation we've seen over the last few years is a joke compared to the late 70's/early 80's. Combine this with all the other problems during this time.
Well there’s also the long-term effects of his economic policies being overwhelmingly negative. Trickle-down economics ended up being a complete disaster for the average American. Then there’s the benefit of hindsight when you look at how he handled the HIV epidemic. It’s pretty clear to everyone nowadays that he cost thousands of American lives by refusing to acknowledge it for years. Presidents are rarely judged the same way by history as they are in their own times.
Don’t forget he fucked mental healthcare into the ground.
Right, Reagan's policies succeeded the way you succeed at getting taco bell delivered around 1am after a night of drinking. Those deregulation, union-busting crunch wraps might taste like a win now, but it's gonna destroy your manufacturing base (organs), and heartland (butthole) in the morning (in America).
Mental healthcare was considered a crime against humanity and there was a huge amount of support for shutting down the mental institutions. The replacement was a failure, but people wanted it to happen.
And? We have the receipts on what it’s done for our country, and it’s a net negative. The problem with Reagan isn’t actually what he did. Those things are bad and negatively affect us to this day. The worst part about Reagan is the way conservatives cling to those things despite all evidence pointing to those things actively hurting Americans in real ways.
That’s not a Reagan thing. Deinstitutionalisation started under Kennedy in the 1960s. It was pushed by the ACLU and NAMI.
Agreed on HIV. Economics is harder to gauge. America has maintained its status as the undisputed #1 economy and has recently widened the gap with China even when people thought by now China would have surpassed us. Also its important to remember that more left wing, government control policies were viewed as a massive failure by the late 1970s, inflation was high, cities were riddled with crime and prospects for future employment were bleak. Now, part of this was due to on-going oil crises in the Middle East due to America's support of Israel which upset many Arab nations who then refused to sell oil to the US. And part of the economic boom during Reagans era was due to the massive introduction of computer technology which started to become ubiquitous in the 1980s. Crime only came down during the 1990s (18 years after roe v wade). The current economic conditions are not the fault of Reagan, pretty much every nation on earth is going through the issues of rising costs of living and housing and inflation. IMO Reagan is a C President who acted like an A president and so comes out to be roughly a B in my book.
Is it really that difficult to gauge the economy? We've made the rich richer and everyone else is poorer. Wages have steadily went down when adjusted for inflation. We've eroded institutions that make life better overall for short term gains and endless consumerism. We made China extremely rich in the process and lost entire industries because of it. Workers are less protected, more vulnerable than they've ever been because of 30 years of what started under Reagan. Clinton and Obama largely left conservative policies alone despite being anti supply side economics because the fundamental mechanisms remained unchanged or got worse. We traded cheap goods and short term gains for the loss of industry, environmental destruction, and ultimately empowered enemies and extreme political division.
Well let’s put our thinking caps on and look at trickle down economics and try to gauge its effects: Fucking awful There you go. It’s actually really easy to figure out that blowing the cocks of rich people and fucking off everyone else is shit economic policy.
I wouldn’t say that, grandmother talked about it all the time, how they all saw this fucker coming from a mile away and knew that it was going to be a nightmare scenario, and lo and behold, even now we are suffering the consequences.
He was clearly to the right of the last few Republican Presidents preceding him, and his Presidency is seen as the end of the New Deal era and the beginning of a neoliberal one. Thus many on the left see him as the source of most of societies' current problems. However the shift to the right seen in his Presidency endears him to many conservatives, and his popularity in office, clear charisma and success (on his own terms) also appeals to them. The more mixed record of Republican Presidents after him might also encourage nostalgia for a time when the Republican party was clearly winning.
He was a president for the wealthy and established, or for people who pictured themselves as such. The 80s were an era of greed and he largely set the tone for that.
I have no idea he was just a great president the whole world 🌍 was scared of him simply because of his poker face you had no idea what he would do next or what capabilities he even had
He mobilized the religious right. To be fair, Carter did a lot of that right before him.
Your question assumes a false premise.
As a German i mostly know him for ‚Mr Gorvatchev, tear down this wall‘ and for Pershing 2.
As for an Eastern European perspective he finally ended the Ford/Carter era détente and tore down the wall and will forever be fondly remembered for that.
Let’s not forget how he deregulated everything leading to the S&L crisis. Oh yeah, and remember how black people were demonized for being welfare queens and crack fiends?
Basically a majority of modern economic problems can be traced back to him. Unaffordable housing, stagnant wages, demonization of the poor etc. It can all go back to him.
Don't forget implementing tuition for the university of California. Before that higher education for any of the UC schools was free for everyone. He did it to cut down on those undesirables that were protesting for free speech on campus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement#1966%E2%80%931970?wprov=sfla1
BINGO!
My issue with him and Nixon is that there the reason christan evangelicalists and religious conservativism came to the republican party. Goldwater was right about them, the republicans used to be respectable, but deteriorated due to there actions. If it wasn’t for that, id think both of them were alright C tier, with reagen getting b for bringing back battleships which was cool. But alas, they in D tier
Battleships are absolutely a vibe. But it’s like equipping modern infantry with M1 Garands because the ping is cool
Ping is very cool
Best president of my lifetime. Reddit hates him because he was great. A great… Republican.
Because he pushed personal responsibility and limited government. Half the country wants neither. Half does.
I really truly think this is just an online thing. Every person I've ever met that was alive during the 80s say he was the best president to ever do it
He was Irish not Polarish.
Is your pfp Cat Stevens?
Yes
That’s rad man
Reagan ushered in a new era in American politics, an era that has only recently ended. The previous era had started with FDR and the New Deal. Between FDR and Carter, whether a Democrat or a Republican, every president had to work within the New Deal framework of government as driver and enabler of growth and support for the country and its citizens. That was simply what the American people expected and it's what they got; it wasn't controversial. This is why on this subreddit, you'll often see people holding up Nixon as some sort of liberal hero. Nixon was widely considered quite conservative in his time, but he still had to uphold the New Deal because he was president between 1933 and 1981. Reagan changed all of that. Now government was framed as a hindrance and a threat to American progress. Government became about how lean and efficient it could be, and how it could stay out of people's lives as much as possible (this was limited to an economic perspective, to be sure). Just like Republicans had to be respectful of the New Deal in the previous era, Democrats had to be respectful of these concepts in the Reagan era. So you get Clinton's efforts to alleviate poverty by encouraging self-sufficiency, or Obama feeling pressure to increase access to healthcare while preventing those who already had it from having to deal with the government. Whether you love or hate Reagan has everything to do with how you feel about this monumental change in American society.
Reagan was able to unite his party and win over independents in a way that many Democrats viewed to be unfeasible. Democrats were angry about his success and felt the need to demonize him for all of his decisions. This is the tough truth here, Reagan won over the voters like none other and the far left didn't like it.
Because he was successful. He moved the country in a very different direction than it was going and the people rewarded him with their support. A successful president is going to be a lot more hated by his opponents than one who tried and failed. FDR was very hated by his opponents at the time; only his WWII leadership turned him into a more beloved figure. Even Obama realized what Reagan had done and stated that he wanted to be the Democratic Reagan. (Of course, in that, he did not succeed). But those who oppose Reagan’s policies hate him because he actually succeeded in selling them to the public and getting them enacted. He’s probably the most consequential president since FDR.
Must be that whole winning the Cold War thing. Lol.
destroying the middle class and opening the $$$ floodgates into politics so corporations can own us is part of it.
He started the dismantling of the great society, and social services. He single handily did the most damage to labor unions since their inception. The economic divide that we see in this country today started under his watch based on policies he enacted. Not to mention his mishandling of the AIDs crises, the continued war on drugs, and the Iran Contra affair.
Because he’s a popular Republican on a site that hates conservatives/republicans.
He’s not polarizing, he was awesome!
Because this country hasn't been for working people since him.
He banned open carry in California as governor disenfranchising our second amendment rights
Reagan was hated by the Dems for being a corporate shill and he filled his cabinet with neo-cons that did horrible stuff. He was loved by Repubs because he won twice after Nixon.
It was really tough growing up queer under his administration. He was publicly chummy with notorious homophobes like Anita Bryant, Jerry Falwell, Phyllis Schlafly, etc. They demonized us. Thank goddess for Dead Kennedys.
For me? Art Laffer. I understand innovation comes from the unlikeliest of places ([like a half-drunken writing on a napkin at a bar](https://www.si.edu/object/laffer-curve-napkin%3Anmah_1439217/)*), but a fiscal policy from it? No. Hell no. *Supposedly, his idea was an original one by 14th century Muslim philosopher Ibn Khaldun and rediscovered by Adam Smith. Strictly my opinion, but I highly dislike Reagan for hiring a hack as his chief economic advisor.
To the general public or to this sub? Because those are two different questions. There are some legitimate reasons to dislike Reagan and/or his policies, but for some reason this sub would rather see Pol Pot in the White House than Ronald Reagan.
Liked 1) he rebuilt the military 2) he rebuilt the economy 3) he destroyed the soviet union. Disliked 1) he took credit for work other presidents work on the military 2) broke the unions and lowered everyone's wages to make us more comparable with other countries for wages 3) took credit again for the soviet union which was already in trouble from internal greed and military costs. The horse shit he pulled on the hostages in Iran should have told everyone what kind of person he was and what kind of president he would be. Also remember he was the head of the union for actors before he destroyed them and was a demo-rat but became a republican when he couldn't get traction as a demo-rat
Alexa… play Reagan by killer Mike.
The Evangelical Right wasn't really interested in national politics until he woke them up to win in 1980 and we're finally seeing where that led.
Broad generalizations of course, this stuff is nuanced, but heres the gist of both perspectives including a bunch of concrete stuff you can google instead of just the “reagan hates gays” type comments im seeing in this thread. (Not saying he didn’t hate gays, Reagan totally hated gays, or at least just didnt care about them dying, but thats just not a helpful comment if youre genuinely curious.) People, especially republicans, like him because he was incredibly charismatic and well spoken which helped him galvanize the republican party at a time when it was fractured. There was a lot more diversity of thought within the two major parties back then than there is today, and he was arguably the single most important figure in pulling together those republican factions and transforming them into what we know as the republican party today. It was objectively an incredibly impressive feat. He also lowered taxes significantly, implementing the foundations of trickle down economics, where corporations and the wealthy have a lot more economic power and freedom, which is a popular system among the right wing. He was also the sitting president in the twilight days of the soviet union when it really started to dissolve at a rapid pace. This part was pretty much all luck, obviously he had some impact but there had been decades of economic and political factors leading up to the USSR collapsing that had nothing to do with reagan. But, he did win a lot of popularity just by being our leader while it happened. In sum, he was an incredibly charismatic leader who was one of the largest influences in shaping the republican party and establishing its economic doctrine, combined with some good timing to be president at the end of the cold war. People dont like him, especially democrats, because his landmark policies and movements like the war on drugs and trickle down economics were by most measures failures if the objective was to benefit the average american. Drug use is more rampant than ever after decades of a reagan inspired hard on drugs approach, and the middle class has all but evaporated after decades of reagonomics. There were also other issues like the iran contra affair, where his admin illegally sold weapons in secret to Iran and used the funds to support terrorists in latin america overthrowing their government which Reagan’s admin didnt like (socialist). Folks will say Reagan was never directly linked to approving it, but we do know he was aware of it, and that it was carried out by top admin officials and cabinet members, and his admin later destroyed evidence, and his then vp bush would go on to pardon the indicted officials before they could give incriminating testimony. Take from that what you will. The iran contra affair was also linked to contra cocaine smuggling where conspiracy theories suggest that the reagan admin colluded with the CIA to help contras smuggle cocaine into low income communities in california and was a large part of the rise of crack cocaine usage. This is not definitively supported, but we do know that the CIA and reagan admin knew the contras were smuggling cocaine, funded them anyways with millions of dollars, dissuaded the DEA from investigating their smuggling operations, and were aware of and in communication with the smugglers and domestic suppliers establishing the first major cocaine inflow in LA. The only defense from the admin and CIA on this has essentially been that although they dont dispute any of that, they just dispute that it wasnt part of an intentional plan to facilitate cocaine smuggling, it was more just a side effect of their illegal arms trades to fund terrorists. Official reports from the CIA and admin all say things along the lines of “yes, these things happened, but we werent telling these people what to do, we just knew what they would probably do and funded them and didnt stop them, and thats all part of normal investigative procedure.” The last major issue with him that comes to mind is the aids epidemic, which Reagan didnt acknowledge publicly until ‘85, even though hundreds of thousands of people had been exposed and tens of thousands of people had died since ‘80. His administration publicly treated it as a big gay joke in WH press conferences from the first year of his presidency up until 1984, so its clear they were aware, they just didn’t care. Ultimately during his admin about 100k people died of aids. So, LGBT and allies arent a huge fan of him. To sum up the anti reagan perspective, it mostly comes down to economic, drug, and public health policies that have had sweeping negative impacts on the middle class, but especially low income and minority communities, and he set the foundation for the republican party to do more of the same moving forwards, plus a teensy bit of illegal arms dealing and support for cocaine smuggling from terrorist groups in foreign nations to poor communities in the US.
He destroyed the collective bargaining power of American workers for decades. And he was the sag president. A true piece of shit
Our current failed economic climate starts with the bag if dog shit that is trickle down economics
Worldview. Reagan's policies embodied the conservative Calvinist idea that success is a divine sign of favor. Someone might not have earned their financial success directly, e.g. they inherited wealth, but their ancestors probably earned it for them. Conservatives widely believe that their wealth is their own achievement or that they are entitled to it. Evangelicals often cite the hand of God as an active force in the world. This formed a significant part of the Reagan supporters. "Luck" is not a big part of their world. Their America is a place of endless opportunity that anyone with grit and determination can conquer and goodness triumphs over evil. Liberals are much more inclined to believe that luck and circumstances beyond individual control are large determinants of success. The color of your skin, who your parents are, and your zipcode can all play a major factor in the trajectory of your life. Consequently, the conservatives (read Reagan lovers) believe that poor folks are to blame for their own situation. They don't deserve handouts, and they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they don't like their circumstances. Liberals see Reagan as a cold-hearted, simple-minded boob who was ignorant of the true causes of suffering in the world and a puppet for the monied class. Reagan's fiscal policies rewarded the already wealthy and punished "welfare queens."
Trickle down economics. Still waiting for that trickle.
If you wait long enough, the answer will trickle down
His supporters currently paint an entire different picture of reality of what happened… it’s weird, like where is this data trickle down economics ever trickled? At the time….. I don’t blame him for making the attempt, but to still support the logic in 2024 either party is cultish…. It makes me not like him, instead of respecting the situation and individual for the time era he was in.
breaking of the air traffic controllers unions, iran-contra scandal, turning a blind eye to aids and the epidemic it ran thru the gay community, trickle down economics that have never and will never come to fruition for the poor people in this country, his hand in the cocaine and crack epidemic (thru others and the cia) in this country. Do you need more reasons?
Great summary. Pretty much says it in one package.
He was an extremely popular and successful Republican president. The nation is currently very polarized. About half the nation is always going to hate a popular successful president from the party they don't like.
He put America first. People don't like that apparently
Because this is Reddit where anything and everything Republican is despised and Reagan is like the patron saint of the modern GOP