# was Reagan a mean, divisive partisan? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 2, 2013, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856 "2013-01-02T18:22:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Richard\_E.Nixon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8491ac/32.png) [@Richard\_E.Nixon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_E.Nixon)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2013, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856/41 "2013-01-09T09:45:30Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I remember him as an evil bastard who did things like drag his feat on AIDS in the hopes it would kill as many homosexuals as possible. I recall a gay talk show host in San Francisco getting in trouble when he sang “Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead” on air after Reagan died. That’s simply not true. The Reagans, of course, were from Hollywood and had a lot of gay friends. Reagan took it pretty hard when Rock Hudson died of AIDS and he didn’t like hearing people in his administration make homophobic comments. Ronald Reagan was not homophobic. ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2013, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856/42 "2013-01-09T16:08:18Z")
The problem is there is the historic Ronald Reagan, and the myth that has been foisted on the American public by his hagiographers in the conservative press. And the latter has led to an equally mythological backlash against Reagan as the conservative anti-Christ among many on the left. It’s easy to cherry-pick specific episodes from his presidency to emphasize what appears to be partisan dickishness: The handling of the PATCO strike, Grenada, “We begin bombing in five minutes”, the Bitburg ceremony, Iran-Contra, the Bork nomination…the list goes on. And I am not at all a fan of his underlying economic theories, which IMO pretty much laid the groundwork for the economic inequality we see in the US today. However, its hard to understand how there were so many “Reagan Democrats” if you just assume he was anything like the loudmouth partisans littering the worthless Republican party leadership today. And the fact of the matter is, a lot of the public agreed with his positions at the time–he didn’t need to be divisive to get what he wanted, he just had to turn on the avuncular charm. That certainly annoyed many of his critics on the left–who could never understand why none of their criticisms stuck to the “Teflon President”–and that certainly makes him a divisive figure. But as much as I loathe his policies, I wouldn’t label him a “mean partisan”–pertly because I’ve had too many examples of recent mean partisanship to compare him against, and perhaps because he’s still charming/deluding me in my memory. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2013, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856/43 "2013-01-09T16:17:31Z")
> [@CJJ](#): > > However, its hard to understand how there were so many “Reagan Democrats” if you just assume he was anything like the loudmouth partisans littering the worthless Republican party leadership today. And the fact of the matter is, a lot of the public agreed with his positions at the time–he didn’t need to be divisive to get what he wanted, he just had to turn on the avuncular charm. That’s not it. Reagan was popular because the economy did very well during most of his term in office. His personality didn’t hurt. OTOH GWB’s personality didn’t hurt him either but it wasn’t enough, in the end. Reagan presided over a tremendous economic recovery and that’s what his enduring popularity is based on. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856/44 "2013-01-09T16:27:26Z")
I think there are tremendous parallels to be drawn between his eight years and Clinton’s–and between Carter’s and the first Bush’s, for that matter–that are mainly economic in nature, and partly political. Carter and Bush I took tremendous hits because they presided over lousy economies, and Reagan and Clinton benefited when the economy recovered under their presidencies. Being a leftist, I have more nice things to say about Clinton than Reagan, but not all that many. Reagan wanted us to go in a direction that was contrary to the longterm health of the country, but was restrained by a Democratic Congress, while Clinton wanted to push us in a healthier direction but his Republican congress got in his way. I suppose we have to wait for real reforms that can take place under a Democratic president with filibuster-proof majorities in both houses. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2013, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856/45 "2013-01-09T16:35:59Z")
Oh, good grief. He’s hated by the left because he was the most successful President of the 20th Century, and quite possibly the most successful President we’ve ever had. And he was conservative. Out come the tar and feathers! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2013, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856/46 "2013-01-09T18:33:20Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > . . . he was the most successful President of the 20th Century, and quite possibly the most successful President we’ve ever had. No, that was FDR. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2013, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856/47 "2013-01-09T22:20:46Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Oh, good grief. > > He’s hated by the left because he was the most successful President of the 20th Century, and quite possibly the most successful President we’ve ever had. And he was conservative. Out come the tar and feathers! Moderately over-stated, but basically accurate. Reagan contradicted everything that liberals said was true. He said cutting taxes would bring about an economic recovery. Liberals said it would never work. It did. He said we could win the Cold War. Liberals said that would bring about WWIII. It didn’t, and we won the Cold War. He said we should get all the nuclear missiles out of Europe. Liberals said that would never happen. It did. He stood in Berlin and said, “Mr. Secretary, tear down this wall!” Liberals said that could never happen. A few years later, boom. I think what liberals particularly objected to was that they were largely reduced to saying, in essence, "who are you going to believe - me, or your own eyes?’ Voters picked their own eyes, twice. It’s very annoying when you put your best brains to spinning everything against your opponent, and he wins anyway. It’s even worse when he’s smiling as he does it. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2013, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856/48 "2013-01-09T22:24:37Z")
IMHO you’re greatly overestimating the intelligence of the voters. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2013, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856/49 "2013-01-10T18:54:10Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Reagan contradicted everything that liberals said was true. He said cutting taxes would bring about an economic recovery. Liberals said it would never work. It did. He said we could win the Cold War. Liberals said that would bring about WWIII. It didn’t, and we won the Cold War. He said we should get all the nuclear missiles out of Europe. Liberals said that would never happen. It did. He stood in Berlin and said, “Mr. Secretary, tear down this wall!” Liberals said that could never happen. A few years later, boom. :rolleyes: [_Tear Down This Myth!_](http://www.amazon.com/Tear-Down-This-Myth-Right-Wing/dp/1416597638) [url=]Will Bunch writes: > [@](#): > > _3. Reagan is often portrayed as an arms hawk who brought down the Soviet Union through aggressive military spending. Is this a tenable claim? Does it take into account his arms control efforts?_ > > The Cold War and Soviet relations are central to the Reagan legacy/myth. The conservative story line is (not surprisingly) a rather simple one: Reagan came in and spent billions on an arms race that bankrupted the Soviets, while his bellicose rhetoric – “evil empire” and “tear down this wall!” – cowed its leaders into allowing the collapse of the Iron Curtain. Reality is more complicated. For one thing, the U.S. arms build-up began under Jimmy Carter and a lot of the spending proved ultimately wasteful. Now that we have access to historical material from the Kremlin, we also know that our most bellicose moves strengthened hardliners at the expense of Soviet reformers. Reagan was right about one thing: Communism was a soon-to-fail economic system, as a new generation of USSR leaders led by Gorbachev also realized. This is why most people at the time, and most historians today, give the lion’s share of credit for ending the Cold War to Gorbachev and to the reform efforts that he initiated, such as glasnost and perestroika. > > That said, Reagan deserves praise for realizing that Gorbachev was indeed a different kind of Soviet leader, and for encouraging his reforms. Likewise, people should realize that Reagan’s aversion to nuclear weapons was a deeply held, personal belief which motivated some major accomplishments in arms reduction at the tail end of his presidency. These aspects of the real Reagan – a willingness to negotiate with enemies at the right time, and his real concerns about nuclear weapons – are the parts of Reagan’s legacy that progressives should actually embrace and use in today’s political debates. > > _4. According to former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, former Vice President Cheney claimed during a cabinet meeting that “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.” How does deficit spending without consequences play in the Reagan legend?_ > > This part of the Reagan legacy is so at odds with the 2010 message from Reagan-worshipping conservatives – especially the right-wing Tea Party faction – of fiscal discipline and deficit reduction that no one can figure out exactly what to do with it. I would argue that there are parallels between Reagan and Obama, in the sense that both presidents came into power during economic crises and both cut taxes and increased spending in their first year, leading to higher deficits. The one difference – and it’s an important one – is that Reagan’s increased spending was for the relatively wasteful area of defense (although it did lead to some job creation) while Obama is making an attempt to target more useful areas, such as infrastructure and alternative energy. The bottom line on Reaganomics is pretty bleak. Yearly deficits soared, and the overall national debt nearly tripled, from $930 billion to about $2.7 trillion, according to the Washington Post. > > There was a short-term cost to this and a long-term cost. In the short term, Reagan’s profligate ways led to higher interest rates that slowed productively and eventually plunged the nation into a recession around 1990, leaving George H.W. Bush to deal with the mess. Policy makers had little room to maneuver in that 1990-91 recession because of the large deficits. Ultimately, both Bush 41 and Bill Clinton mounted a major effort to undo Reaganomics, including the breach of the “no new taxes” pledge that helped turn the senior Bush into a one-term president. Contrary to what Cheney said, deficits did matter, which is why the mythmaking and its influence in Bush 43’s reckless ways is so disturbing. > > In the long-term sense, Reagan turned America from a creditor nation, which it had been since World War I, into a debtor nation. If you are unhappy about all the dollars that America owes to China today, that is a major element of the legacy of the president of whom we’re now erecting all these bronze statues. What’s more, many people – myself included – fault Reagan for promoting a kind of sunny, credit-card-driven consumerism that didn’t just hurt the nation’s wallet but led to unwise spending decisions and too much borrowing by everyday citizens. Do you remember “Wall Street,” with Gordon Gekko and “greed is good”? It’s not a coincidence that film was released at the zenith of the Reagan presidency. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2013, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856/50 "2013-01-10T21:12:45Z")
Isn’t it true that Gorbachev meant to merely reform Communism, not kill it? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856/51 "2013-01-11T03:57:12Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I remember him as an evil bastard who did things like drag his feat on AIDS in the hopes it would kill as many homosexuals as possible. Was Ronald Reagan like an evil scientist or something who cooked up AIDS in a lab? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856/52 "2013-01-11T04:49:51Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Was Ronald Reagan like an evil scientist or something who cooked up AIDS in a lab? He couldn’t even have got **cast** as one. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856/53 "2013-01-11T04:50:58Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > Isn’t it true that Gorbachev meant to merely reform Communism, not kill it? I should think so; _perestroika_ means “reform,” more or less. He just didn’t appreciate what he was unleashing. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2013, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856/54 "2013-01-11T04:59:41Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > He couldn’t even have got **cast** as one. [This,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedtime_for_Bonzo) I think, is the nearest Reagan ever came to being cast as a scientist, and not much of one. (And you all know what that is before you click it.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2013, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856/55 "2013-01-12T05:33:52Z")
> [@Crane](#): > > Reagan set in motion the partisanship that divides the US today. No, that was Barry Goldwater, if any individual. Reagan just **rode** it. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856/56 "2013-01-13T22:30:28Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Was Ronald Reagan like an evil scientist or something who cooked up AIDS in a lab? No; but he had power over public health programs and education and research money, and along with his fellow Republicans did everything possible to ensure that nothing was done to slow AIDS in hopes of killing as many gays as possible. These are the same people who have always considered it God’s Judgement; even as recently as Bush II, we had Bush appointing people who thought that the proper way to deal with AIDS was prayer. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856/57 "2013-01-13T23:11:54Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Moderately over-stated, but basically accurate. > > Reagan contradicted everything that liberals said was true. He said cutting taxes would bring about an economic recovery. Liberals said it would never work. It did. He said we could win the Cold War. Liberals said that would bring about WWIII. It didn’t, and we won the Cold War. He said we should get all the nuclear missiles out of Europe. Liberals said that would never happen. It did. He stood in Berlin and said, “Mr. Secretary, tear down this wall!” Liberals said that could never happen. A few years later, boom. > > I think what liberals particularly objected to was that they were largely reduced to saying, in essence, "who are you going to believe - me, or your own eyes?’ Voters picked their own eyes, twice. > > It’s very annoying when you put your best brains to spinning everything against your opponent, and he wins anyway. It’s even worse when he’s smiling as he does it. > > Regards, > Shodan You’re kinda right about them not believing their eyes, but that’s because believing your eyes is fucking stupid. Your eyes don’t see reality. They see what is put in place, what the politicians want you to believe. We’ve provided citation after citation that shows that everything you say is wrong. But do you change your mind? No. Because you saw something with your own eyes, and the idea that your eyes could have been wrong is completely foreign to you. What you’ve said is a glowing indictment of the conservative mindset, and yet you don’t even notice. Reality is beyond what your little eyes can see. Clinton had the same recovery. The rest of the world has used completely opposite policies, and they’ve worked. We just got through using the opposite policy, and it worked. But rather than think that Reagan must’ve been a fluke, you think he actually caused what happened. No matter how many citations show that he had nothing to do with either aspect. I mean, seriously. It’s ridiculous to think a fucking speech caused the USSR to fall. It fell due to its own internal problems. And, while I don’t know much about the economy, but I do know that we had the same growth under Clinton, and that both booms were followed by a crash. Steady growth seems to me to be better than any boom-and-crash scenario. But you aren’t looking for anything that doubts your worldview, so your eyes don’t see any of this. Yet you talk straight-faced about how only believing your eyes is a good thing. Of course we teach you to not believe your eyes and to actually makes sure what you are seeing isn’t an illusion. That’s what smart people do. Otherwise, we’d be stuck on the ground, as we’d never seen any man fly, so why believe it could happen? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856/58 "2013-01-14T06:03:02Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No; but he had power over public health programs and education and research money, and along with his fellow Republicans did everything possible to ensure that nothing was done to slow AIDS **in hopes of killing as many gays as possible.** Any chance of a cite, to the effect that it was demonstrably a matter of malice rather than callous-negligence/indifference? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856/59 "2013-01-15T04:01:00Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No; but he had power over public health programs and education and research money He had no more power than any other President over such things, which is to say his power was severely limited by Congress, and there’s no evidence they did anything or the sort, either. Claiming he held back to kill gay people is just stupid; it’s completely at odds with the plain facts. Reagan was no fundamentalist loon. You’re entitled to your opinions but polluting the board with ridiculous falsehoods is just tiresome. At least learn something about what you’re talking about. Do some reading or something. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856/60 "2013-01-15T05:14:07Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Reagan was no fundamentalist loon. He just played one on TV. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-reagan-a-mean-divisive-partisan/645856.md?page=4)