# Reagan good or bad POTUS? The Will-O'Reilly feud resurrects the question of his legacy **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 13, 2015, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495 "2015-11-13T20:04:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2015, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/21 "2015-11-14T02:22:49Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > **Reagan was a great President** but his flaws should be well known and I’m not sure why Will is so mad at O’Reilly. Will himself was often frustrated with Reagan’s simplemindedness. > > What Reagan did do was change minds so that Bill Clinton could complete the Reagan Revolution. He had a fucking White House astrologer. Nuff said. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2015, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/22 "2015-11-14T12:57:49Z")
Reagan personally fought against adequate measures to sanction the apartheid government and[had to have his veto overruled](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Anti-Apartheid_Act#Veto_override) by his own (Republican majority) senate. And that’s just one example of him sucking at anything foreign. So : shit president gets my vote. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2015, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/23 "2015-11-14T13:34:54Z")
A good head of state, a (mostly) poor head of government. It’s not impossible for the former to be more important at a given time, though I won’t pretend to know whether that’s the case with Reagan. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2015, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/24 "2015-11-14T13:54:27Z")
Tip O’Neill said “Give Reagan his due. He would have made a hell of a king.” ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2015, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/25 "2015-11-14T17:05:01Z")
To me, Reagan was simple. He favoured business elites. Supported things that they supported (lower taxes, free trade, military build up), and opposed things that they opposed (unions, communism) and whether he was “good” or “bad” president in anyone’s esteem depends on whether or not they support and oppose the same things. What he was not was some kind of great hero-president who got the support of everyone – not just the factions aligned with his policies – was a later redaction. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2015, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/26 "2015-11-15T01:29:54Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Tip O’Neill said “Give Reagan his due. He would have made a hell of a king.” So long as he had a PM to make the policy decisions. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2015, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/27 "2015-11-15T02:17:19Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > So long as he had a PM to make the policy decisions. That would probably have been Nancy. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2015, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/28 "2015-11-15T06:45:59Z")
He didn’t have to be good. He just had to make his opposition look worse. And when your opposition is Jimmy Carter or the USSR, how tough is that? ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2015, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/29 "2015-11-15T14:24:25Z")
Check the voting record and see what the results were. ► 1980 popular vote, by percentage margin: In 1980 Reagan won the popular vote by the then-largest percentage margin ever, by 9.74% over Carter. Since 1980, only one other President won the popular vote by a wider percentage margin. Reagan’s 1980 percentage margin easily beats these three election results: - 2008, Obama (7.27% over McCain) - 1992, Clinton (5.56% over Bush 41) - 2012, Obama (3.86% over Romney) In 1996, Clinton beat Dole by 8.51%. Still, Reagan’s 1980 percentage margin of 9.74% was larger. Since Reagan in 1980, only one other President won by a larger percentage margin of the popular vote. That was in 1984, Reagan (18.21% over Mondale). No other President has won by a wider margin of the popular vote since then. What about electoral college voting results? Since 1980 these are the ordered results. - 1984: 97.58% Reagan defeated Mondale - 1980: 90.89% Reagan defeated Carter - 1988: 79.18% Bush 41 defeated Dukakis - 1996: 70.45% Clinton defeated Dole - 1992: 68.77% Clinton defeated Bush 41 - 2008: 67.84% Obama defeated McCain - 2004: 53.16% Bush 43 defeated Kerry - 2000: 50.37% Bush 43 defeated Gore (although he lost the popular vote) - 2012: 61.71% Obama defeated McCain These are the facts, and they are irrefutable. If Reagan was as bad as many here have said, then Dopers, why was he re-elected by such a huge margin in 1984? Let the crying begin. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2015, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/30 "2015-11-15T14:38:42Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > If Reagan was as bad as many here have said, then Dopers, why was he re-elected by such a huge margin in 1984? Let the crying begin. An error is an error even if millions vote for it. And most of the ones that cried were not noticed in the USA, then as now a lot of the failures are not properly looked by the media and voters. > **[Archbishop Oscar Romero: Thirty Years and Little Learned](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/archbishop-oscar-romero-t_b_511399)** > > Despite the actions of the mighty Texas Board of Education to erase his memory, Archbishop Romero will be long remembered as a friend of the oppressed and a champion of the poor. > [@](#): > > When President Ronald Reagan came to power he poured even larger amounts of arms and money into the Salvadoran civil war making El Salvador the single largest recipient of U.S. aid in Latin America. Military assistance went from $5.9 million in fiscal year 1980 to $35.5 million in 1981, and then to $82 million the following year. During this same period, economic aid to El Salvador went from $58.3 million in 1980 to $114 million in 1981, and then to $182.2 million in 1982. [Americas Watch] > > In the U.S. Senate, North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, who was then the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, heaped high praise on Salvadoran Major Roberto D’Aubuisson and his men for being staunch allies in the fight against communism. Senator Helms’s blandishments came despite evidence that suggested elements of D’Aubuisson’s paramilitary organization were possibly responsible for murdering Romero. The career diplomat, Robert White, who was Carter’s ambassador to El Salvador called D’Aubuisson and his armed supporters “pathological killers.” > > The killing in El Salvador escalated after Romero’s death. In late 1981, when reports surfaced that the U.S.-backed “Atlacatl Battalion” of the Salvadoran Army massacred peasants near the village of El Mozote, both the Salvadoran government and the Reagan Administration denied it happened. The El Mozote massacre had left 767 men, women, and children dead. > > Americas Watch, the nonprofit human rights organization that monitors Latin America, estimated that in El Salvador right-wing death squads tied to the government’s security services were responsible for killing 30,000 people. And in 1991, a “truth commission” sponsored by the United Nations made clear that the Salvadoran military and the death squads were “one and the same.” ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2015, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/31 "2015-11-15T14:45:55Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > Check the voting record and see what the results were. > > ► 1980 popular vote, by percentage margin: In 1980 Reagan won the popular vote by the then-largest percentage margin ever, by 9.74% over Carter. Since 1980, only one other President won the popular vote by a wider percentage margin. Reagan’s 1980 percentage margin easily beats these three election results: > > - 2008, Obama (7.27% over McCain) > - 1992, Clinton (5.56% over Bush 41) > - 2012, Obama (3.86% over Romney) > In 1996, Clinton beat Dole by 8.51%. Still, Reagan’s 1980 percentage margin of 9.74% was larger. > > Since Reagan in 1980, only one other President won by a larger percentage margin of the popular vote. That was in 1984, Reagan (18.21% over Mondale). No other President has won by a wider margin of the popular vote since then. > > What about electoral college voting results? Since 1980 these are the ordered results. > > - 1984: 97.58% Reagan defeated Mondale > - 1980: 90.89% Reagan defeated Carter > - 1988: 79.18% Bush 41 defeated Dukakis > - 1996: 70.45% Clinton defeated Dole > - 1992: 68.77% Clinton defeated Bush 41 > - 2008: 67.84% Obama defeated McCain > - 2004: 53.16% Bush 43 defeated Kerry > - 2000: 50.37% Bush 43 defeated Gore (although he lost the popular vote) > - 2012: 61.71% Obama defeated McCain > > These are the facts, and they are irrefutable. > > If Reagan was as bad as many here have said, then Dopers, why was he re-elected by such a huge margin in 1984? Let the crying begin. So, you’ve gone through life, to this point, not understanding that \*good \*doesn’t necessarily equal _popular_? That’s a pretty profound lack of understanding. Gonna re-read Twilight tonight, since it’s one of the best novels of all time? ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2015, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/32 "2015-11-15T15:08:09Z")
Until W came along, Reagan was the worst president in history. First of all, we cannot overlook the fact that he committed treason in order to steal the election against Carter. His people undermined Carter’s hostage negotiations, convincing the mullahs that they would get a better deal with Reagan. The Iranians were well compensated for their complicity, getting weapons in the Iran-Contra felonious conspiracy. He convinced many that yes there is a free lunch and we’re going to eat it. Tax cuts for everybody! Fuck the deficit! Even though Reagan’s advisor David Stockman later [repudiated Reagan’s con game.](https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1915&dat=19811112&id=awMhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=WXUFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1543,2577453&hl=en) Yet decades later the notion that if we just back up the Brinks trucks to the treasury and let the wealthy help themselves to it, and they would then use the booty to create jobs is the centerpiece of Republican theology. Wasteful military spending was the order of the day, anything the Pentagon wanted, they got, regardless of whether is served any useful purpose. Besides being a disaster domestically, Reagan was even worse at foreign policy. He never saw a right wing dictator that he didn’t want to shower with money and arms while simultaneously pushing for cuts in Social Security and other domestic programs. He invaded Grenada, an adventure that was overwhelmingly condemned by the UN General Assembly. He was a strong supporter of the apartheid government in South Africa, placing himself firmly on the wrong side of history. Reagan was nothing more than a very lucky politician. While Carter caught the downward slope of the economic wave, Reagan rode the wave at precisely the right time but deserving no more credit for it that a surfer does for the wave that he catches in the ocean. Decades later, he has become the centerpiece of Republican mythology although if he was resurrected today he would be considered far too liberal by today’s GOP. Time to tear down this myth. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2015, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/33 "2015-11-15T16:47:36Z")
> [@Donald\_Rump](#): > > And I’m not saying this to diss Reagan per se. But if you think Reagan had something big to do with the economy in the 1980s, you have to believe that Clinton was the greatest economic genius who ever lived; which I don’t. Precisely. Because in and of his own actions, there is very little any president can do (or has done) by himself to have a real effect on the economy. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2015, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/34 "2015-11-15T16:50:05Z")
> [@Donald\_Rump](#): > > By the way, can anyone explain to me what O’Reilly is up to? I don’t see how he benefits in any way from undermining Reagan’s legacy given his target (Reagan-idolizing) audience. $$$ ---
**Author:** ![Donald\_Rump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Donald\_Rump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donald_Rump)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2015, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/35 "2015-11-15T17:21:04Z")
> [@Fiddle\_Peghead](#): > > $$$ Guess so. It just seems there are any number of ways he could make money without engaging in heresy. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2015, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/36 "2015-11-15T17:46:09Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > If Reagan was as bad as many here have said, then Dopers, why was he re-elected by such a huge margin in 1984? Let the crying begin. Ask **adaher** , **Shodan** , **Clothahump** , **Starving Artist** , or anyone else of their political persuasions about Obama getting reelected. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2015, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/37 "2015-11-15T19:45:48Z")
Reagan fixed what needed to be fixed in 1980, mainly our military and safety and security as civilians, and our economy. There are always limited resources, so you cannot fix everything all of the time. There will therefore be areas left unfixed, or fixed less, because of limited money, time and manpower. It’s the opportunity cost. So will you look at things from a balanced perspective or will you look only at either the bad, or only the good? One sees what one wants to see. Yes Reagan left us with a big deficit but in 1989 we were overall much better off than we were in 1980. Even with the large deficit and the voodoo economics, the United States was better off, and the entire world is feral was better off. ---
**Author:** ![inscrutable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a88e4f/32.png) [@inscrutable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/inscrutable)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/38 "2015-11-16T01:19:21Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > Ask **adaher** , **Shodan** , **Clothahump** , **Starving Artist** , or anyone else of their political persuasions about Obama getting reelected. …so does 2004 prove that a President doesn’t have to be “good” or “popular” to get reelected? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/39 "2015-11-16T01:19:52Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > Reagan fixed what needed to be fixed in 1980, mainly our military and safety and security as civilians . . . That was **not** something that needed fixing in 1980. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495/40 "2015-11-16T13:51:40Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > Reagan fixed what needed to be fixed in 1980, mainly our military and safety and security as civilians, and our economy. There has never been a time since WW II where the US didn’t have the strongest military in the world, more than capable of handling anything it needed to do and doing many things that didn’t need to be done. The economy was just a matter of catching the wave at the right time, Reagan was no more than a lucky surfer. Reagan didn’t fix shit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-good-or-bad-potus-the-will-oreilly-feud-resurrects-the-question-of-his-legacy/737495.md?page=3)