Can someone please explain it to me? It can't just be nostalgia....
He was worshiped when he was President so no I do not think it is that.
He survived being shot all fiddylike, AND he won the Cold War. AND his ex-wife was a TV star.
A lot went right for America during his tenure, in very sharp contrast to everything possible going wrong during Carter's.
Quote from: Hamilcar on November 04, 2015, 03:35:52 PM
Can someone please explain it to me? It can't just be nostalgia....
People remember the good times and forget all the stupid things he did.
There is a lot to beat up Reagan on, but you have to admit the man had a vision for the country, an idea of what "America" means, and the charisma and will to elucidate it.
Those are qualities that Americans really, really want in a President, and don't often get. It is why some Presidents who objectively have questionable policy records are semi-deified anyway - Reagan and Kennedy being the two somewhat recent and obvious examples of this...
Eh, and plus he's been demonized by the left in subsequent years and venerated (more than is appropriate) by the right. But the real Reagan was a decent President who had some dumb policy positions, some good ones, made some mistakes, and oversaw some good things as well. A selection of polls of historians have him ranked as #15 in aggregate. The value of those is dubious (it starts with the premise you'd accept historians opinions on Presidents above other people's), but I only point them out to explain that Reagan isn't just an earlier version of George W. Bush (a President ranked very poorly by everyone.) Reagan won in a strong showing in 80 and a monstrous landslide in 84, you don't come within a few thousand votes of winning all 50 states (Mondale won Minnesota by less than 5,000 votes) as some far right ideologue with no moderate qualities.
Reagan's veneration by the far right today has lead to people I think retroactively assuming he himself was far right, when he wasn't. Reagan raised taxes on several occasions, and he also oversaw a reform of Social Security Disability Insurance, that was arguably for the better (it may have lead to today's over-use of the system, but it also eliminated barriers to genuinely disabled people receiving benefits.) Reagan also worked with Tip O'Neill to reform Social Security retirement benefits in 1983, touching the dreaded "third rail" of politics and coming away alive, this was a necessary reform to protect the longevity of the system and involved a Republican President working with a Democratic Speaker.
Reagan was not that bad, and back in the 80s even Democrats agreed.
There was a lot to like about Reagan's abilities as a politician.
In terms of his policies though? He was probably more talk than action, but there was some positive action conservatives at least can look up to. After years of detente which appeared to do little to deter the Soviets, he did lead a military build up that did help to end the Cold War. He took a tough line on unions (firing the air controllers). He cut taxes, and attempted to simplify the tax code.
I was a big fan of Reagan personally. He always tried to work with the Democrats and kept things congenial.
I do remember Mondale won like 34-2 in my 1st grade class. I was one of the two right wing nuts voting for Reagan. Winston Churchill thought I had no heart.
I forgot to mention, Reagan also signed an illegal immigrant amnesty.
Quote from: Valmy on November 04, 2015, 04:05:40 PM
I was a big fan of Reagan personally. He always tried to work with the Democrats and kept things congenial.
I do remember Mondale won like 34-2 in my 1st grade class. I was one of the two right wing nuts voting for Reagan. Winston Churchill thought I had no heart.
And where did you go so wrong, after having such a promising future ahead of you Valmy? :weep:
Quote from: Barrister on November 04, 2015, 04:04:08 PM
He cut taxes, and attempted to simplify the tax code.
This made my family's taxes go way up. Screwed us big time and tanked the local real-estate market. We still supported him though in the noble effort of restoring sanity to the tax code. *sigh*
Reagan's supporters have had lots of practice defending his presidency over the years because people keep asking Hami's question.
So the ball keeps gathering new snow.
Quote from: Barrister on November 04, 2015, 04:06:30 PM
Quote from: Valmy on November 04, 2015, 04:05:40 PM
I was a big fan of Reagan personally. He always tried to work with the Democrats and kept things congenial.
I do remember Mondale won like 34-2 in my 1st grade class. I was one of the two right wing nuts voting for Reagan. Winston Churchill thought I had no heart.
And where did you go so wrong, after having such a promising future ahead of you Valmy? :weep:
I voted Republican in every election until the Dubya era. I have very erm...Burkean instincts (ironic given my fanboying for historical revolutions and revolutionaries) I guess and the Republicans of the 21st century are waaaaay too radical for my tastes. Bunch of bomb throwing nutters the lot of them.
Quote from: Berkut on November 04, 2015, 03:52:00 PMIt is why some Presidents who objectively have questionable policy records are semi-deified anyway - Reagan and Kennedy being the two somewhat recent and obvious examples of this...
Obama will probably be another. Camelot 2.0. <_<
Quote from: citizen k on November 04, 2015, 04:13:24 PM
Obama will probably be another. Camelot 2.0. <_<
LOL no.
Obama's legacy will live or die on the success or failure of Barrycare.
Quote from: citizen k on November 04, 2015, 04:15:12 PM
Quote from: Valmy on November 04, 2015, 04:13:47 PM
Quote from: citizen k on November 04, 2015, 04:13:24 PM
Obama will probably be another. Camelot 2.0. <_<
LOL no.
He'll be semi-deified because of his policies?
If his historical record is positive, it will be on the basis of Obamacare. That is his legacy, for better or worse.
Quote from: citizen k on November 04, 2015, 04:15:12 PM
He'll be semi-deified because of his policies?
Obama has his fans but he is no Jack Kennedy. Lloyd Bentsen agrees.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 04, 2015, 04:16:30 PM
Obama's legacy will live or die on the success or failure of Barrycare.
That being the only major piece of Legislation he was able to get passed.
Quote from: Valmy on November 04, 2015, 04:17:45 PM
That being the only major piece of Legislation he was able to get passed.
He also passed Obamastimulus.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 04, 2015, 04:22:56 PM
Quote from: Valmy on November 04, 2015, 04:17:45 PM
That being the only major piece of Legislation he was able to get passed.
He also passed Obamastimulus.
Which was really just an expansion of Bushbucks.
Quote from: Baron von Schtinkenbutt on November 04, 2015, 05:38:00 PM
Which was really just an expansion of Bushbucks.
No it wasn't. Obamastimulus was money out the door, much of it into the pockets of Democratic interest groups. Bushbucks was the temporary purchase and eventual resale of financial institutions, except for the part Barry decided to hand over to his buds in the UAW.
Right-wing cipher who rode a wave of reactionary opinion in the 1970's and 80's. Did little while lower ranking republicans encouraged people to project onto him making very popular. Was guilty of impeachable offensives, and was probably at suffering from Alzheimer's in his second term.
I can't help thinking of all the anti-austerity people as I consider Reagan. He was castigated for "voodoo economics" back in the day as he pursued loose fiscal policies that might well be regarded as enlightened anti-austerity measures today :hmm:
I always liked him because of his reported laziness, can't help disliking politicians who work 100+ hours per week, inhuman bastards they are.
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on November 04, 2015, 05:48:32 PM
I always liked him because of his reported laziness, can't help disliking politicians who work 100+ hours per week, inhuman bastards they are.
You must have loved GWB then. :D
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on November 04, 2015, 05:51:07 PM
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on November 04, 2015, 05:48:32 PM
I always liked him because of his reported laziness, can't help disliking politicians who work 100+ hours per week, inhuman bastards they are.
You must have loved GWB then. :D
There is a difference between scoffing a few jelly beans then taking a nap and invading Iraq on false intel ;)
I liked his last letter to America.
There were 2 stages to Reagan's presidency - the first few years when a took on a bunch of crazed ideologues like Watt and Stockman who made a utter hash of things (since seedy is gone I can include Al Haig here), and the second stage when the grownups like Baker and Schultz steadied the ship. Although Ed meese breaks the simple division and then there was the Oliver North operation . . .
On foreign policy there was also this bipolarity - Reagan was a dedicated saber-rattler, but once he figured out Gorbachev was on the level, he departed script and horrified his own people by the speed with which he was willing to move - e.g. his 1986 proposal for total mutual nuclear disarm.
On the one hand, his first UN Secretary was Jeanne Kirkpatrick, the apologist of nasty juntas everywhere with her infamous "authoritarian-totalitarian" distinction. On the other hand, he embraced democratic transition in the Philippines in repudiation of that very doctrine.
In short he was a man full of contradictions, and thus in retrospect there is a tendency for people to project on him whatever they want to see. It helps that he was also a masterful communicator, a practiced professional actor who spent decades building a genial image and a sunny disposition.
So many disagreements with Joan in just one day. :(
Stockman was the one who opposed Reagan on one of his least defensible policies: large, sustained deficits in time of economic expansion.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 04, 2015, 06:56:49 PM
Stockman was the one who opposed Reagan on one of his least defensible policies: large, sustained deficits in time of economic expansion.
Stockman was the guy who came up with "starve the beast.". When Congress didn't oblige his radical social experiment he quit in a huff an later reinvented himself as born again fiscal conservative. First rate BS artist all the way.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 06, 2015, 12:24:35 AM
First rate BS artist all the way.
:secret: BS is the coin of the realm inside the Beltway.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 04, 2015, 03:38:24 PM
A lot went right for America during his tenure, in very sharp contrast to everything possible going wrong during Carter's.
Yeah, especially the AIDS outbreak and Iran Contras.
AIDS had little impact on the average person and Iran/Contra even less.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on November 06, 2015, 01:36:14 AM
AIDS had little impact on the average person and Iran/Contra even less.
It had a hugely disproportionate impact on the gay male community, though - it was probably the darkest era of the last century, at least in America.
The fact that unlike Thatcher he didn't care about epidemics until his fag friend died of it shows him to be a shortsighted and vindictive asshole.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 06, 2015, 12:24:35 AM
Stockman was the guy who came up with "starve the beast.". When Congress didn't oblige his radical social experiment he quit in a huff an later reinvented himself as born again fiscal conservative. First rate BS artist all the way.
If he didn't reinvent himself as a fiscal conservative until later, then what was Dutch doing when he took him to the woodshed? Yelling at him for looking at too much porn?
Quote from: Martinus on November 06, 2015, 01:33:33 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 04, 2015, 03:38:24 PM
A lot went right for America during his tenure, in very sharp contrast to everything possible going wrong during Carter's.
Yeah, especially the AIDS outbreak and Iran Contras.
Unless you somehow think that "a lot went right" in fact means "everything was perfect," I don't see how your post makes any sense in response to mine.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 06, 2015, 02:40:04 AM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 06, 2015, 12:24:35 AM
Stockman was the guy who came up with "starve the beast.". When Congress didn't oblige his radical social experiment he quit in a huff an later reinvented himself as born again fiscal conservative. First rate BS artist all the way.
If he didn't reinvent himself as a fiscal conservative until later, then what was Dutch doing when he took him to the woodshed? Yelling at him for looking at too much porn?
For his horrific performance in front of one of the Congressional budget committees when presenting the 1985 (or 6?) budget when he bashed farmers and veterans and then "collapsed" and had to be hospitalized.
Stockman has done his best to rewrite the history, but I've never found it that persuasive to hire the arsonist as one's consultant on the fire code.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 06, 2015, 02:45:18 AM
Quote from: Martinus on November 06, 2015, 01:33:33 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 04, 2015, 03:38:24 PM
A lot went right for America during his tenure, in very sharp contrast to everything possible going wrong during Carter's.
Yeah, especially the AIDS outbreak and Iran Contras.
Unless you somehow think that "a lot went right" in fact means "everything was perfect," I don't see how your post makes any sense in response to mine.
To be fair to Mart he lives under the perfect rule of King Jesus.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 06, 2015, 02:45:18 AM
Unless you somehow think that "a lot went right" in fact means "everything was perfect," I don't see how your post makes any sense in response to mine.
Sometimes shorter is better. Marti doesn't make sense most of the time.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 06, 2015, 11:08:09 AM
For his horrific performance in front of one of the Congressional budget committees when presenting the 1985 (or 6?) budget when he bashed farmers and veterans and then "collapsed" and had to be hospitalized.
Stockman has done his best to rewrite the history, but I've never found it that persuasive to hire the arsonist as one's consultant on the fire code.
Wiki seems to lean to my interpretation:
Stockman's influence within the Reagan Administration was negatively affected after the Atlantic Monthly magazine published the infamous 18,246 word article, "The Education of David Stockman",[7] in its December 1981 issue, based on lengthy interviews Stockman gave to reporter William Greider.
Stockman was quoted as referring to Reagan's tax act as: "I mean, Kemp-Roth [Reagan's 1981 tax cut] was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top rate.... It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down.' So the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory."[7] Of the budget process during his first year on the job, Stockman was quoted as saying: "None of us really understands what's going on with all these numbers," which was used as the subtitle of the article.[7]
After "being taken to the woodshed by the president" due to his candor with Atlantic Monthly's William Greider, Stockman became concerned with the projected trend of increasingly large federal deficits and the rapidly expanding national debt. On 1 August 1985, he resigned OMB and later wrote a memoir of his experience in the Reagan Administration titled The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed, in which he specifically criticized the failure of congressional Republicans to endorse a reduction of government spending to offset large tax decreases, in order to avoid the creation of large deficits and an increasing national debt.
Another reason Reagan is worshiped is: who else would they ideolize?
George W. Bush: terrible president, terribly unpopular
George HW Bush: good president but one-termer
Ford: Pardoned Nixon
Nixon: Nixon
Eisenhower: pretty far back - boomers were either being born or too young for most of his presidency so there's no nostalgia, no "things were great under him"
So that leaves Reagan by default.
Also, Ike is an uncomfortable hero for right wingers who embrace the military industrial complex whole-heartedly.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on November 06, 2015, 08:26:31 PM
Also, Ike is an uncomfortable hero for right wingers who embrace the military industrial complex whole-heartedly.
Bunch of old-timer dems that I met in the US (mostly uni professors), seemed to adore Ike. I guess that doesn't bode well for becoming a right-wing idol.
Quote from: celedhring on November 06, 2015, 08:43:59 PM
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on November 06, 2015, 08:26:31 PM
Also, Ike is an uncomfortable hero for right wingers who embrace the military industrial complex whole-heartedly.
Bunch of old-timer dems that I met in the US (mostly uni professors), seemed to adore Ike. I guess that doesn't bode well for becoming a right-wing idol.
He fully accepted the New Deal.
Quote from: HisMajestyBOB on November 06, 2015, 08:15:16 PM
Another reason Reagan is worshiped is: who else would they ideolize?
George W. Bush: terrible president, terribly unpopular very good President, quite popular
Dubya was really good and popular? Huh.
Quote from: Valmy on November 06, 2015, 10:40:16 PM
Dubya was really good and popular? Huh.
The Republican's seem really eager to put another Bush in the White House.
Quote from: Valmy on November 06, 2015, 10:40:16 PM
Dubya was really good and popular? Huh.
In Canada, I guess? :Canuck:
Quote from: Valmy on November 06, 2015, 10:40:16 PM
Dubya was really good and popular? Huh.
In hindsight? Absolutely.
Quote from: Barrister on November 06, 2015, 11:21:51 PM
Quote from: Valmy on November 06, 2015, 10:40:16 PM
Dubya was really good and popular? Huh.
In hindsight? Absolutely.
Well I can see how one might go back and see his policies were good after all but popular?
In hindsight, Saddam was better than the alternative.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on November 07, 2015, 12:28:47 AM
In hindsight, Saddam was better than the alternative.
Sort of. Plenty of people were warning of Bush and Blair's plans were doomed to failure at the time.
Presumably few of them have changed their minds since.
Quote from: Valmy on November 07, 2015, 12:29:55 AM
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on November 07, 2015, 12:28:47 AM
In hindsight, Saddam was better than the alternative.
Sort of. Plenty of people were warning of Bush and Blair's plans were doomed to failure at the time.
Yeah, people predicted that there would be civil war and Iraq would be split up into three parts, which is basically what happened. I don't remember anyone predicting that Syria would fall into civil war and it would become an enormous transnational mess. So Bush beat the spread on that one.
Quote from: Hamilcar on November 04, 2015, 03:35:52 PM
Can someone please explain it to me? It can't just be nostalgia....
we are simple people of the land. You know...... morons.