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GOP Clings to Reagan Myth
The six candidates for the chair of the Republican National Committee who appeared before the National Press Club last week were asked who in their opinion was the best ever Republican president.
To a man (a seventh candidate, a woman, wasn't there) they proclaimed it to be Ronald Reagan.
Astounding. Ronald Reagan the best Republican president in history?
Abraham Lincoln, the Republican who saved the Union, who freed millions of African-American slaves, who inspired generations of Americans to reach for the stars, who is immortalized on Mount Rushmore, wasn't even mentioned by the men -- two of them African-Americans at that -- who want to lead the Republicans back to power.
That speaks volumes about what has happened to the leadership of the national Republican Party and why its influence continues to wane in so much of America.
Its leaders can't wean themselves from the Ronald Reagan myth -- that somehow he was a great president and everything would be all right again if the Republicans just returned to the days when Reagan ruled.
Yes, it's a myth.
The GOP can't bring itself to admit it, but so many of today's economic problems and the divisiveness that came to mark American politics these past years can be traced back to the presidency of a man who refined the GOP's "Southern strategy" and the cultural wedge issues that flowed from it.
My first political memory of Reagan goes way back to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Ronald Reagan was then the governor of California. He didn't have much praise for the slain civil rights leader, blaming his murder on "a great tragedy that began when we began compromising with law and order, and people (i.e. King) started choosing which laws they'd break."
While everyone from presidential candidate Richard Nixon to the sanitation workers in Memphis was publicly mourning King's death, Reagan was indirectly appealing to the bigotry that was so prevalent in the 1960s: that Martin Luther King Jr. deserved what he got. It wasn't that Reagan was a bigot himself, but he and his entourage, led by the infamous political hit man Lee Atwater, perfected what became infamously known as racial politics -- a slap in the face to the legacy of Republican Abraham Lincoln.
After falling short of the Republican nomination in '72 and '76, Reagan launched his 1980 run for the presidency by giving a speech advocating "states' rights" in Philadelphia, Miss., the southern community made infamous by the murder of three civil rights workers only years before.
When he did become president after the 1980 election, Reagan set out to dismantle government -- good government as well as bad. It's as if the Reaganites didn't want government to succeed and were determined to make sure it wouldn't. Except for the interruption of the Bill Clinton presidency in the 1990s, Reagan and his successors succeeded in crippling the financial regulatory system, destroying the progressive income tax system, and running up debt that wasn't even equaled in war time.
Reagan succeeded in changing American culture from one of looking out for each other to one of looking out for one's self. Taxes were bad, period. Placing checks on savings and loans and banks would hurt the economy. The more money wealthy people could make, the more that would trickle down to the little guy.
We sit here a little more than 20 years later paying the bill for the irresponsible policies and the "voodoo" economics that got their start under what wannabe leaders of the Republican Party claim is the greatest Republican president in history.
Excuse me while I cast my vote for a president who saved and built America, not one who tried to destroy it.
48 Comments so far
Show AllRepublicans cling to the Reagan lie . . . er, "myth" because it provides a "philosophical justification" for their greedhead policies. It's an intellectually bankrupt and morally unsustainable philosophy but these folks have never let intelligence or compassion stand in the way of a good profit, no matter how much corruption was necessary to produce that profit.
We can't discuss the Reagan lie - dammit! I mean "myth" - without also examining the reprehensible teachings of his economic guru, Milton Friedman.
q
"Except for the interruption of the Bill Clinton presidency in the 1990s, Reagan and his successors succeeded in crippling the financial regulatory system..."
Obviously both parties cling to myths. I enjoy a correct read of history, however Zweifel's analysis falters when he becomes transparently partisan.
Yep! Clinton was every bit as bad as Reagan/Bush, and Gore/Lieberman would have continued playing the same music. Obama must sing a somewhat different tune because of the dying economy, but as he said "continuity" will be maintained. When one thumbs through the pages of US history, one finds few presidents to be proud of and many to loathe. All since WW2 are War Criminals for engaging in Crimes Against Humanity, and it looks like Obama will continue that infamy.
Clinton as bad as Reagan/Bush?
Time to get away from your computer, my friend. Go outside. Get some fresh air.
Indeed, voting for Democrats has proven itself a failed strategy since the death of FDR. Driving everyone from government who supported the New Deal under charges of Communism (And so?), conservatives of both parties united to establish the new “continuity.” Apparently even cold warrior JFK was too much of a “discontinuity” for this elite post-war, perpetual war vision.
ClassAct January 14th, 2009 3:38 pm: "Apparently even cold warrior JFK was too much of a “discontinuity” for this elite post-war, perpetual war vision."
JFK, if he had lived to be reelected in 1964, planned to break up the CIA and fire FBI Director-for-Life Hoover and reorganize that agency as well. He also planned to end the Cold War, purge the Pentagon of warmongers, and start spending much of the money going to the Military-Industrial Complex on social programs for the poor and middle-class, so that we'd have the most well-educated, well-fed, well-housed and healthiest citizens on the planet. Is it any wonder factions within the intelligence community, federal law enforcement, and the Pentagon wanted to get rid of him? They may have used the Mafia for the purpose, as they employed organized crime during WW2 for extra-legal 'black bag' jobs, but the motives were there.
Ronald Rogaine was a true Cult of Personality, exemplified by Stalin or Mao or Kim Jong Il or The Wizard of Oz. He was the pleasing White Noise who eventually gave birth to George Wanker Bush. Rogaine himself was fathered by Nixon and Goldwater. After Vietnam, after Watergate, after the inflation, after the oil shocks, after Jimmy Carter talking about the national malaise, along came The Great Pomaded Doofus in the Brown Suit who told Americans they were the greatest, they would rule forever. Having been a Hollywood actor and corporate pitchman, he had no trouble selling this swill to an infinitely lazy, infinitely gullible, heedless and half-assed American public. America was The Sunny Side of the Street. Oooooo-rah! And that's really all there was to Ronald Rogaine . . . nothing. Bullshit. Horse puckey. The jerkoff Republicans don't seem to realize that Rogaineism died when Rogaine left office and later crapped out of this life altogether. The chances of some other drooling, knuckle dragging reactionary possessing the avuncular doofishness of Rogaine, combined with the sequence of historical events needed to animate it, are pretty low. But they keep on truckin'.
"After Vietnam, after Watergate, after the inflation, after the oil shocks, after Jimmy Carter talking about the national malaise, along came The Great Pomaded Doofus in the Brown Suit who told Americans they were the greatest, they would rule forever."
Doh! Let's not forget Iran/Contra (and Panama, Grenada ...)
Ronald Reagan was a likeable sort of guy, unless you chose to look at his actions instead of his superficial personality. All of corporate America has remade itself in Reagan’s image, look at the talking heads on CNN they are all pretty and personable but there is not a gram of integrity in the lot of them, especially since they canned Miles O’Brian and the science staff.
Take the banksters that made the sub-prime loans, the no document loans, the no money down 120% loans, there’s not an ounce of moral difference between them and loan sharks. A loan shark threatens to break your legs; a bankster tosses you out on the street. Same for the pharmaceutical industry that specializes in treating the medical symptoms instead of the root causes of medical problems like diet, exercise and stress.
The Republican Party’s universal fixation on Ronald Reagan is really a case of mass hysteria and even though the policies he championed are the obvious cause of the current economic crisis not even seeing the value of their retirement go down the tubes is going to break their fixation. Like the Good Germans that stood behind Adolph Hitler right up to the point that a Russian soldier smashed in their door and ransacked their house the republicans are incapable of change.
Ronald Reagan was one of the best Republican con men in history, even today, he has most of the Republican,acolytes completely conned! Being an actor, he was the perfect con man. My uncle knew him personally and he can tell you things that never reached the MSM as they were complicit in perpetuating the Reagan myth. Where Bush is the cheerful idiot, Reagan was the slick con man, who was a union buster and nothing more than a punic, sychophant for the wealthy,elite and the Military-Industrial Complex.
I think we'd all like to hear a couple of those things your uncle told you. I sure would.
Paul Revere January 14th, 2009 12:12 pm: "Reagan was the slick con man, who was a union buster and nothing more than a punic, sychophant for the wealthy,elite and the Military-Industrial Complex."
That's true, PR, he became that in the '50s but, ironically, the young Reagan supported FDR, the New Deal, unions (he was president of the Screen Actor's Guild), and many liberal social causes until two life-changing events happened: 1) He was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, which scared the living hell out of him and 2) his second wife Nancy Davis took him to meet her father, fringe-right reactionary nutcase Dr. Loyal Davis. In a scene straight out of 'Network,' it's said Dr. Davis played Ned Beatty to Reagan's Peter Finch as Davis informed him that the world of the future would be run by multi-national corporations and if Ronnie didn't get on board he would end up a penniless ex-actor, blacklisted for life, if he didn't land in prison first. Plus, he couldn't marry Nancy. Shortly after that, a frightened Reagan jumped on the General Electric/20 Mule Team Borax train and never looked back, embracing every neocon pro-corporate notion that came down the pike. This is the man the GOP idolizes -- a liberal until he was in his 40s, and intimidated out of his politics by his crazy father-in-law. What a perfect hero for the right.
Another tale of head-slapping irony is the 'Drug Warrior' Reagan's attending a glitzy Hollywood party in the mid-'70s where they smoked a whole joint all by themselves. According to others at the affair, Ron and Nancy devoured an entire chocolate cake in one sitting while they were stoned out of their gourds, laughing uproariously all the way. There were also other alleged instances of the political Power Couple toking up. Of course, that never tempered Reagan's hypocritical stance that if you used marijuana you should be tossed in jail. 'Just say no' -- unless you're a wealthy Republican.
BTW, by all means, tell us what your uncle said.
Another tale of head-slapping irony is the 'Drug Warrior' Reagan's...
If you want to howl with laughter, watch this oldie but goodie (Ronnie and Nancy on crack):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyQUm0A5QGg
Sioux Rose
RSJ: I sure didn't know the two of them got high? But imagine if it was Hilary caught with an astrologer in the White House? Nancy sure liked getting her forecasts to protect her darling spouse's life and probably knew there was a prophecy of his being assassinated. Of course it was Brady who took the near lethal bullet for him.
Hi, Sioux Rose. Yes, Google it and you'll find some of the stories -- I think it was Kitty Kelley who wrote about the party where Ronnie and Nancy got high and ate the chocolate cake. Reagan did more than that in the past -- he had quite a reputation as a boozer and womanizer in his Hollywood days, before he went 'clean' for Nancy. Of course, that's all been buried by his (mostly) fawning biographers -- who would want an airport named after a drunken 'Fredo' who diddled starlets two at a time wearing a silk neckscarf as first wife Jane Wyman sat at home fuming?
Kitty Kelley: Nancy Reagan bio:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Kelley#Nancy_Reagan_biography
Zweifel sez: "The more money wealthy people could make, the more that would trickle down to the little guy."
***
Heck, it's coming down on USAns as more of a flood than a trickle.
Seems more yellow than green, though.
Sorta wet.
Smells kinda rank, too ...
I didn't like Reagan when he was in office, I didn't like him when he left office, I detested his policies from day one, and I thought, until W came along, that Reagan was the worst president we had ever had. I was completely nauseated by the 10 day gush fest when he (finally) died. If it weren't for W, he would still have the record as worst, as far as I am concerned.
There was no internet when I started complaining about Reagan's irresponsible policies. I had an uncle in the house at that time (he was from Washington state, and is now, I understand, their transportation secretary). I wrote to him in 1982 asking what was the sense in bankrupting us with his military spending when we weren't at war, children needed education far more than we needed bombs, and that it was unsustainable. I got back a letter telling me to basically sit down and shut up, that things would be okay, and that Ronnie knew better. Truth is, *I* knew better, as history and time have shown.
Reagan put us on the path of not giving a damn about each other, thinking that greed was good, and that we had no business thinking that gov't was even capable of doing anything good, inspite of it being responsible for our position as the most envied country in the world. We had better jobs, better education, higher standards of living, more and better technology, and a safety net that took care of all of us. He destroyed as much of that as he could, and W finished the rest of it off.
I will never forget the time he told us all that it was our constitutinal right to hate whoever we wanted, our neighbors, minorities, other religions, nationalities, whoever. That told me all I needed to know about the idiot, and it still tells me all I need to know about republicans, especially those who still worship his sorry butt.
I'm glad he's gone, I just wish that the country would wake up to what it's lost thanks to him.
Hell, I didn't like the POS in 1964 when he was campaigning for Barry Goldwater. He was brain-dead even then. Ronnie was prez of the SAG during the Red Scare witch hunts ferreting out supposed "communists' that had infiltrated Hollywood.
As Govenor of California, he said of student protesters, "If they want a bloodbath, they will get one" (or something to that effect- I can't remember the exact quote), even though the ONLY ones who had guns on campus were the cops and the National Guard.
Nope, I didn't like the old geezer in the early 60s, and I refuse to lionize that asswhole.
As Governor of California, he said of student protesters, "If they want a bloodbath, they will get one" (or something to that effect- I can't remember the exact quote).
Reagan was fond of wearing brown suits because it reminded him of the S.A., the Sturmabteilung. One day, while dressed in the brown suit, he said, "Wir werden alle die rote Schweine vernichten." (We will annihilate all the red pigs). I believe that is the actual quote.
Mordechai Shiblikov January 14th, 2009 2:39 pm, Herr Ronnie also visited Bitburg cemetery in 1985 and laid a wreath on the graves of the German soldiers who had once been engaged in killing Americans and our allies, during a war where Lt. Reagan did his part by bravely remaining in Hollywood to perform in US Army anti-syphilis films and serve coffee and donuts at the USO. Also interred there were 49 members of the Waffen SS, the same SS that ran the concentration camps and kept Hitler in power. I understand Reagan was made fully aware of what a visit to Bitburg by the US President would look like to the world, and he did it anyway.
My own personal favorite memory of Ronnie was in the summer of 1979. I was standing on Michigan Ave. in downtown Chicago at a light waiting to cross the street and I was the only person there at that time. All of a sudden I looked up to spy a limo coming around the corner and in the back was the old phony himself. He was running for president at that time so he felt obligated to wave at me on the corner as he cruised by. So I quickly raised my hand and gave him the one finger salute. I know he saw me as I was alone on the corner. It gave me a nice warm feeling for the rest of the day.
While I agree with your opinion of Saint Ronnie we can't put the blame on him alone (or even his handlers). Suckers con themselves. It was my generation (us beatniks, hippies and peaceniks), the give peace a chance, 60's kids who turned away from the wisdom of our youth and fell for the lie that we could all be millionares. We (not me pesonally but my compatriots) were the "Regan Democrats". We fell for a honey tounged liar and have continued in the habit until this past election when what should have been obvious all along became a done deal.
Now that it has all finally been brought down around our ears and the con men are walking away laughing at what stupid suckers we are (with our national wealth in their swss bank accounts), now we finally decide it is time to vote for sanity. And who knows maybe it's not too late. We can hope.
fpie January 14th, 2009 1:52 pm, I knew we were in for trouble when I encountered a woman I hadn't seen in a few years in the early 1980s. Now this woman, in the late '60s and early '70s, had marched against the Vietnam war, racism, poverty, the draft, and for equal rights for women and pro-choice legislation. Yet here she was, shortly after the election of Reagan, telling me about the real estate company she started, her investments, her suburban home, and dressed in a conservative business suit. Somewhere in the conversation, she admitted that she had voted for Reagan in 1980. She must have noticed my jaw drop, as she quickly added, "I'm in business now and I have to think about taxes -- the Republicans are good for business and keeping taxes low."
Of course, historically, the GOP has only been good for a small top tier of wealthy investors but, that aside, this is the reason Reagan and Poppy were put into office and Junior got it close enough to steal -- former 'Love Generation' kids who thought they had grown up by becoming yuppies, and voted for conservative Republicans because they had faith it would be a short cut to personal wealth. My friend, BTW, reassured me she still believed in all of those 'quaint things' like equal rights for women, etc, she just didn't vote that way -- business was more important.
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Out here in OK, Raygun is still worshipped big time while Clinton is still called Satan's messenger despite Clinton actually being Reagan-lite.
As for the Raygun myth, Obama is doing it too. Besides, most Democrats even the socially liberal only ones have been clinging to it for 28 years.
That's it GOPers. Keep on marching backwards and into the ash heap of history.
We are witnessing the dissolution of the Rethuglic party.
After driving out all the liberals and moderates from their party as RINOS(Rethugs In Name Only), what's left is the rump of the lunatic, extremist fringe.
They are going the way of their forbears- the Whigs.
I'm SO glad I made the transition from a lockstep conservative Repub to a libertarian and "Austrian" (economically speaking), thanks to more than a decade of access to the Internet. Otherwise, I'd be living in this GOP "cloud-cuckoo land" myself. Both major parties are thinking within their boxes; both are wed to the Status Quo; and as Solzhenitsyn said more than 30 years ago, "This debilitating dream of a Status Quo is the symptom of a society that has come to the end of its development."
Paul, while I share your libertarian views, you might not wanna advertise them on this site. This is a progressive site and the only thing progresives hate more than a republican, is a libertarian.
Really? I don't see any evidence of that here. Some libertarian values are embraced while others aren't. In fact, I've seen users on this site who are quasi-progressive and quasi-libertarian.
I acknowledge and support Libertarian's view that government needs to get out of our bedrooms - definitely queer allies.
However the Libertarian philosophy has a major Reagan-moment with their high school-footbal- gung-ho support of the military industrial BS.
I have nothing against Libertarians -- I even get the LP newsletter. While I don't agree with some of the Libertarian philosophy, I have found them to be principled in their beliefs, and, in debate, they don't descend to foam-at-the-mouth personal attacks or dishonesty when presenting their case, as do the neocon Republicans.
Of course, like most progressives, I agree with their unflagging support of our Constitutional rights, opposition to the war on drugs, and desire to keep the government out of our personal lives. To echo Obama, I hope one day we can unite to fight for the issues on which we agree and agree to disagree, without being disagreeable, on those we can't.
"It wasn't that Reagan was a bigot himself, but he and his entourage, led by the infamous political hit man Lee Atwater, perfected what became infamously known as racial politics -- a slap in the face to the legacy of Republican Abraham Lincoln."
Great Article, but why would you think that Reagan wasn't a bigot? Someone who promotes bigotry is a bigot. The Left's refusal to use blunt language is why they often lose, or at least appear to lose, the debate. If more Progressives started to regularly identify scum on the Republican right as bigots, the trained seals in the MSM wouldn't be able to dismiss the accusations as easily as they do. Social Conservative is just a nice way of saying bigot. The Left should stop being so nice. There's no such thing as racial politics, only racist politics.
Ronald Reagan has somehow been deified while Eisenhower has been ignored. Could it be that Ike was the first person to warn us about the military industrial complex? And those people now own the Republican Party?
My issues with Reagan start with the dogma of trickle down economics. The only trickle I hear is the super rich billionaire who have made profits hand over fist under Bush peeing on the rest of us. Then when their sociopathic greed goes too far and the economy starts to collapse under their toxic loans, the next dogma is brought out in a wheelchair, "in free market capitalism, the market will take care of itself." Well, if anyone has eyes describe what you see right in front of you. What we have is government assisted, privatized profits while socializing losses. That isn't the free market capitalism of Adam Smith. So stop using the term because you are lying.
We actually have a TRICKLE OUT economy with factories and jobs being outsources to other countries and the profits stashed away in offshore bank accounts. Since the super rich are not really paying taxes, they are not supporting the American infra structure. So to be precise, this is economic treason.
Then we have the economic collapse of the Soviet Union in the middle of its Afghanistan military adventurism due to its seeking to become an Empire. Republicans rushed to pat Reagan on the back and congratulate him for "winning" the cold war and arms race. Since we are headed down exactly the same path in search of Empire, we should have been learning the lesson from the Soviet Union instead of following in their footsteps to economic collapse.
"Republicans rushed to pat Reagan on the back and congratulate him for "winning" the cold war and arms race."
It is true that repugs think Regan was responsible for breaking the former-USSR, but the US policy (yes, there was a policy) to bankrupt the former-USSR with an arms and space race was begat by Eisenhower or JFK (sorry, don't remember which).
Another Regan-era lie the repugs are fond of remembering is that Regan ended the Iranian hostage crisis.
Orwell may have invented the term historical revisionism, but it is the modern GOP that have perfected the blow job.
MountainMike January 14th, 2009 2:09 pm, saying 'under free market corporate capitalism, the markets and corporations will regulate themselves' is as ludicrous as saying 'under free market criminality, the criminals will police themselves.'
WTF January 14th, 2009 3:00 pm: "Another Regan-era lie the repugs are fond of remembering is that Regan ended the Iranian hostage crisis."
Another fable spun by our recumbent Big Media. As should be obvious to anyone who has read about Iran/Contra and the shifty illegal secret meetings in Europe that William Colby and Bush the Elder had with the Iranians before the 1980 election, a deal was struck to provide Iran with desperately-needed parts for their US-made fighter jets and other military hardware, as well as the latest light missiles, after Reagan's election. Thanks to Poppy Bush thwarting as much as possible the investigation of the Iran/Contra independent prosecutor and pardoning all of the miscreants involved before leaving office in 1993, we'll never know the full extent of the treasonous trade between wave-the-flag Ronnie and the Khomeini government in Iran to keep Americans hostage so that he could get into office. It's just as bad as Nixon sending Kissinger to Paris to secretly and illegally meet with the North Vietnamese in 1968 just before the election when LBJ was concluding a peace pact with them. Kissinger lied and offered them a better deal, the peace talks fall apart, and Nixon was elected -- and shafted Ho Chi Minh by continuing the war. Nixon knew that if there was a peace treaty ending the war prior to the election, Humphrey would win.
WTF January 14th, 2009 3:00 pm: "Orwell may have invented the term historical revisionism, but it is the modern GOP that have perfected the blow job."
LOL -- what a shame that the people getting screwed -- the American public -- aren't deriving any pleasure from it.
Ronald Reagan has somehow been deified while Eisenhower has been ignored.
Compared to every Republican barroom bouncer since Nixon, Eisenhower looks quite good, real good.
Reagan was a hollow bigot.
When will history really correct this asshole's rule over this country?
He encourgaed bigotry
He encouraged classism
He encouraged clandestine operations that kept millions of ethnic people opressed all over the world.
These republican numnuts, including former rnc chairman missisipi gov barber are continuing the same attitudes, while pandering to the colored people's weaknesses.
Love
Zero
If you live in MS, you need to start looking towards finding a truly pro-populist Democrat. Our governor Dave Freudenthal was quite a populist liberal even in this deep red state of Wyoming and yet he gets a higher approval rating with Brian Schweitzer, also a progressive populist Democrat, competing. What kind of Democrats does MS come up with these days anyway?
Dave Zweifel fails to mention perhaps the greatest, most long lasting and ominous aspect of Ronald Reagan's legacy: the Iran Contra conspiracy.
Nixon was forced to resign over Watergate, yet Reagan escaped unscathed despite a far greater insult to the Constitution's checks and balances upon the imperial presidency. Iran Contra involved CIA complicity in international drug trafficking, money laundering, the back channel swapping of American military hardware for hostages with Iran (using Israeli intelligence as an intermediary), and the patently unlawful diversion of black budget funds to support an anti-Sandinista army in violation of an act of Congress known as the Boland Amendment.
All of this criminal conspiracy was coordinated directly out of Ronald Reagan's White House. All of the Iran Contra conspirators were pardoned, or otherwise avoided incarceration despite the magnitude of their blatant crimes. At least two (John Poindexter and Eliot Abrams) in fact recycled their careers back to hold powerful positions in the executive branch of government during the soon-to-be-completed administration of President George W. Bush.
Small wonder, then, that the applicants to head the current Republican National Committee identify Ronald Reagan as the greatest GOP president. If black ops skullduggery is the name of the game for fighting a shadowy, endless global war on terror largely outside the view of Congress and the American public, then the Iran Contra operation of the Reagan era made up a very handy blue print.
Bill from Saginaw
Upon the death of Reagan the media portrayed him as one of the greatest men of all time. I believe that this justified the bone-headed policies of the Reagan administration in the minds of millions of Americans. I suspect that the same thing will happen when little Bush expires. As an interesting side note I had conservative friends in Canada at the time of Reagan who named their dog after him because the dog was "the most useless animal on the farm."
One dog, one single solitary dog, is worth more than a hundred Reagans or Bushes.
Agreed. And I'm a cat person!
none of these people, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., or Obama, were or will be president because of their personal philosophies about governing...they were, and are about to be, allowed to be president because they'll act in the interests of their uber-party investors...act is the very word for Reagan, the actor...these investors don't care if the letter after the candidate's name is a D or an R, as long as they play...in fact, it's best to change it up now and then to keep things appearing natural and integrity-loaded, though they're actually the opposite...the business of business continues regardless...
as to why so many loved Reagan, I don't see alot of folks doing their own thinking...especially when life is filled with so many distractions...so much nicer to trust that somebody's done the tough thinking, that they're looking out for you...that somebody's got your back...who knew it was with a knife?
Good ol' Ronnie Ray Gun with his GOP trickling down on the people. Reaganomics was designed to waste so much money that the Democrats would not have any of the people's tax money to spend on the people. And now this Republican President [sic] has brought us the Great Oppression.
Then there's the corruption.
The Reagan gang were the first administration in American history to have a sitting cabinet member indicted, the first administration in American history to have an Assistant Secretary of State indicted, the first administration in American history to have an Assistant Secretary of Defense sent to prison, the first administration in American history to have over 100 members of an administration charged with crimes, the first administration in American history to have more members of his administration charged with crimes than the cumulative total of all other presidents in the twentieth century.
Tell me if you think this clip is too partisan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Paq_fIxPCM
Let me contribute my miniscule tidbit to debunking the Reagan myth, Reagan was scum...
so much hatred on the eve of Obama's inauguration. Ronald Reagan, Bush, Palin, Joe the Plumber, Ann Coulter, Rush, Hannity. The future is Obama. Why are you guys so fixated on the past. As Obama says "we must look ahead." Let go of the hate. Do as you tell others to do.
I find it baffling that people think of the US during the Reagan era as "optimistic." It was a nightmare of despondency, really, with Reagan causing levels of homelessness not seen since the Depression (something Americans now think of as eternally normal), being openly anti-environmental and reversing the beneficial environmental legislation of the 60s and 70s, targeting Blacks for the disproportionate levels of imprisonment we now think of as normal for them, reviving the Cold War after a beneficial period of detente, destroying activist groups throughout the country and the world, encouraging a bloodthirsty militaristic machismo in the population (something else we now think of as normal for the US), proudly attacking other countries unprovoked, etc bloody etc.
Reagan said, and everyone still repeats, that he was "anti-government," but all he did was shovel money from education, health, and social services into the military, prisons, and police, making the government huge in the process and setting us on the course we're still on today. Clinton may have reduced Reagan's deliberately incurred deficit, but in almost every other way, Clinton continued Reagan's legacy, in some cases (as with welfare and militarism) outdoing Reagan in his meanness.
Reagan's popularity levels were not unusually high, and some polls at the end of the Reagan era proper (1980-1992) show him as one of the least popular presidents in history. It was during the Reagan era that Americans learned to expect no response to their desires from their president, and cynicism about government thus sank to unprecedented levels, because Reagan was dead set on making things worse. It was during the 80s, too, that polls began showing that Americans were voting more for people they'd want to have a beer with than for someone who would do a good job as president. Yet, many at the time saw Reagan's pasty-faced, aged visage as ghoulish-looking and his so-called "great communication" talent as no talent at all, just heavy-handed and dishonest quipping. He was mocked in the 80s as a bad actor, so claims that his acting talent accounted for his persuasive powers don't hold water. It's disgusting that he's now so deified that we may well see his face carved into Mt. Rushmore.