I remember lots of jokes about Nancy being the real power & brains, voodoo economics, and him having dementia.
Something that really sticks in my head is that during Iran-contra, he claimed not to have known about it and my Gramdpa going off about he didn’t know which was worse. Reagan knowing and lying or him being the ultimate authority and not knowing of a operation of that magnitude.
My Dad (a rancher, the 80s were bad times for agriculture) made jokes about still waiting for the trickle-down effect to trickle down to him well into the 2000s.
It baffles me that he has turned into such a mythological figure and how his record is misremembered.
That may be public perception, and I’ve heard Romney credit Reagan for solving the hostage crisis, but it’s not true. The hostage takers hated Carter, and deliberately held up the release until he was out of office. But the agreement to release them was done by the Carter administration. Reagan had nothing to do with it.
My memories of Reagan in the early 1980s was that many people disliked him because of the economy. They spoke dismissively about Reaganomics and how he didn’t care about the working man. Many thought all he cared about were rich people and that the american dream was over. His handling of the PATCO strike was evidence that he did not care about average folk.
When he was shot, many people admired the way he handled his recovery and the witty remarks he gave while in the hospital. Also his decision to invade Grenada was very popular and was contrasted with the failure of the hostage rescue under Carter.
When the economy started turning around, perceptions started turning around too. People stopped calling it Reaganomics, the PATCO strike became evidence of his strength and decisiveness, and the Grenada invasion was evidence that America was strong and confident again. There were alot of people who still hated him, but he was popular in a way no president has been since. They may like Obama or have thought Clinton was a good president, but Reagan was liked, admired and respected both personally and as a president.
I don’t remember people thinking it took strength and confidence to beat up such a pitiful adversary. We (I and my half-dozen friends) thought it made RR look like an insecure bully.
Yes, the Grenada “war” was a pitiful event designed to make Reagan look like a tuff guy. Crappy eyesight kept him out of harm’s way in WWII & he never got over it…
I don’t remember Reagan getting the hate, generally speaking, that US politicians now see. None of the Hitler comparisons, for instance, that I’ve seen with both Bush II and Obama. None of the conspiracy crap that Reagan killed some staffer like I saw aimed at Clinton, either.
Somebody blamed Rush (Limbaugh) for this change; I think the internet has something to do with it. That’s where I saw all that. The web has removed some of the filters that used to be in place. It’s sort of like the Klan and Pol Pot have been given segments on the evening news.
One group that really seemed to hate Reagan was punk rock bands. The Dead Kennedys had two songs that mentioned him, there was a band called Reagan Youth, and I remember an interview (can’t remember the subject) where the guy said he started a band because he didn’t like the music that was popular and he didn’t like Reagan.
based on most of the comment here, you would think that very few people liked him or his policies.
But the fact of the matter is, he won in a HUGE landslide in 1984 and his Vice-President won the next one (has that EVER happened before?).
So, even though public opinion may have changed now, the fact is he was very, very popular, and a great majority of the voters thought he was leading the country in the correct direction.
I find this impossible to believe. Small children generally have little specific understanding or awareness of politics; I have one, and she and her little friends do not follow who’s running for public office. At my child’s age (7) they probably don’t even know what a “President” is. Kids generally don’t start to become aware of that until 9-10, and most children don’t really begin to develop an awareness of the issues and whatnot until after they have developed an awareness of the civics.
So the claim that “small children” were crying over Reagan’s re-election - and therefore not only were aware of his being re-elected to the Presidency, but had specific understanding of his reputation for being a hawk, understood the USA’s rivalry with the Soviet Union, and understood the concept of global nuclear war and believed Reagan would start one - is, frankly, pretty darned unlikely. Unless by “small children” you mean teenagers.
This is indeed very true. We critics were most definitely a small minority then and probably remain so today, at least among those who are old enough to be in a position to judge.
I was a teenager and I remember hearing a lot about nuclear issues – Three Mile Island, The China Syndrome, The Day After – everything from nuclear power being unsafe to the inevitable nuclear war, and I remember being fairly depressed about growing up in a world with such issues. We need more bombs! We need more bombs! No, we don’t. Russians are people, too. They’re not evil, you stupid old coot.
More to the point, that after years of post-Vietnam and Cuba decline, America was willing to take direct action (cf Britain and the Falklands) instead of trying to wage wars by proxy
I don’t believe it was limited to the punk genre. Genesis’s “Land of Confusion” and Don Henley’s “End of the Innocence,” to give two examples that come to mind immediately, were anti-Reagan songs as well.
I grew up in the '80s in Australia, and I remember the adults around me typically discussing their perceptions of Reagan as follows:
[ul]
[li]he was a crazy old actor who thought this was all just an action movie[/li][li]he wanted things to come to a head with the Soviets, even though this would result in global nuclear annihilation[/li][/ul]
I was genuinely afraid of Reagan triggering a nuclear holocaust.
Looking back at non-American political satire from the time reinforces my memory: the U.S. under Reagan was perceived as a dangerous and powerful bully being run by an imbecile.
You forgot Bonzo Goes to Bitburg, by The Ramones, the greatest of all punk bands. It was really Joey’s song though. Johnny Ramone was very conservative, and refused to perform the song once he realized it was about Reagan.
