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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
No, that was FDR.
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
IMHO you’re greatly overestimating the intelligence of the voters.
:rolleyes: Tear Down This Myth!
[url=]Will Bunch writes:
Isn’t it true that Gorbachev meant to merely reform Communism, not kill it?
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.
I should think so; perestroika means “reform,” more or less. He just didn’t appreciate what he was unleashing.
This, 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.)
No, that was Barry Goldwater, if any individual. Reagan just rode it.
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.
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?
Any chance of a cite, to the effect that it was demonstrably a matter of malice rather than callous-negligence/indifference?
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.
He just played one on TV.