# Why is Reagan considered such a great president? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 27, 2017, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818 "2017-08-27T05:14:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818/21 "2017-08-27T16:43:08Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > He was folksy and charismatic. I remember hearing him in debates and in addresses to the American public. Intellectually, I disagreed vehemently with many of his policies, but his charisma was such that I would catch myself wanting to agree with him. I heard him giving the speech that included the story of the WWII B-17 bomber, with the guy trapped in the ball-turret. I was hugely moved, and thought it was a very inspiring story. Then I learned it wasn’t true, but something he’d gotten from a movie. That pretty much sums of the son of a bitch: he was a “Potemkin President,” a movie-set facade with nothing real to back it up. He also decimated the American middle-class and contributed to the polarization that is harming us so terribly badly right now. He was one of the first major leaders to demonize the workings of political compromise, and insist on partisan absolutism. Ultimately, he did us all a lot more harm than good. ---
**Author:** ![Arrogantly\_Ignorant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Arrogantly\_Ignorant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrogantly_Ignorant)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818/22 "2017-08-27T17:03:54Z")
> [@Reddy\_Mercury](#): > > For a few reasons: > > The United States had suffered almost twenty years of turbulence and tragedy. You had JFK murdered in 1963, which traumatized a whole generation. You had Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Robert Kennedy also murdered, which further traumatized the nation. You had the Vietnam War, which killed thousands of young men, which broke their family’s hearts, and ruined the lives of hundreds of thousands of other young men who served and were wounded or became addicted to drugs during or after the War. > > You had race riots, thousands of bombings every year for almost a decade, cities engulfed in flame and smoke. > > With the death of Kennedy came LBJ, who while a great President in terms of domestic legislation, was a liar and a crude man who misled the nation into the aforementioned war. The Pentagon Papers showed that every President from Eisenhower onward had lied to the public about Vietnam. Following him, you had Nixon, a creepy son of a bitch who violated and utterly destroyed the nation’s trust in the Federal government. > > You had gas lines, a lost Vietnam War, and beginning in the mid 1970s, chronic economic unease. You had the rise of other nations which helped lead to the beginnings of the Rust Belt. All of these things dealt body blows to the nation’s morale. We were becoming a second-rate power. We couldn’t even defeat “primitive” guerrillas in a war. > > The WWII Generation looked broken-hearted as the dreams they had for their children during the prosperity of the 1950s faded away and a generation gap grew. They looked with lukewarm acceptance of civil rights, only to see the passage of paternalistic Civil Rights Acts met with rioting (from their POV). They saw the death of the mores they were raised to believe happen virtually overnight. > > The Baby Boomers threw themselves into idealistic revolutions and dreams of their own utopias, which, like their parents’, died a death. The Communes dried up, the Hippies cut their hair, and with cynicism and a bleak looking future ahead, went to work. Altamont was a tragedy, John Lennon was killed, the leading Hippies became Yuppies, and the dreams of the Love Generation were lost. > > The lovable but ineffective Jerry Ford followed the dark and dour Nixon and the crude and misleading Johnson. The humble but incompetent peanut farmer named Carter from Georgia followed him. > > Into all this came a handsome, charismatic, smooth talking man who oozed confidence. A simple man who had a deep faith and love of America. A man who promised to make America strong and respected again, who told us we were not in a rut, but on the verge of a new morning. This was a man who copied Nixon’s playbook which had attracted older and young centrist Democrats - without having Nixon’s swarthyness or creepiness. This was a man who told us we did not need to fear that tomorrow would bring a nuclear apocalypse - we would win. Communism would be at the ant heap of history. This was a man who invoked the imagery of the Cowboy. He also invoked nostalgia for the Golden Age of Hollywood (and with it, the perceived Golden Age of America). He was classy and sharp, with a pretty wife. > > He cut taxes, and while trickle-down led to long-term issues, in the short term, it led to a massive economic boom. We went from being on the verge of a second Great Depression, to having prosperity on par with the Roaring Twenties. During his term, you had the Personal Computer boom. You had great blockbuster movies coming out every year, which only helped to increase the growing sense of optimism (compare them to the gritty, dour, depressing films of the 1970s). These were not Reagan’s doing, but they were part and parcel of the era in which he governed. > > Reagan is viewed as a great President because he was a great leader. I don’t agree with his policies. But like his idol, Franklin Roosevelt, he had amazing communicative skills. He was able to uplift a depressed and downtrodden nation with his promises of “Morning in America.” He’s viewed as great because it seemed that under him, America had turned from the turbulence and dreariness of the 1960s and 1970s back to order. He’s viewed as great because he seemed to be the first President who was a true leader and inspirational figure since JFK. Even on their best days, LBJ, Nixon, Ford and Carter were not inspirational men. He’s viewed as great because he was able to use the media to his advantage; he was able to sell events which would’ve happened without him as being his doing. He’s viewed as great because not only were the men immediately before him mediocre, but the men who followed him were similarly mediocre. > > Reagan is basically Hollywood. He was style, not substance. We had had substantive Presidents in Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon - brilliant, intellectual men whose flaws wounded America. America wanted style. America wanted to feel good again, even if it was just superficial. We needed hope; we needed inspiration. Reagan brought those to a nation that needed it. > > His policies sucked, but his image and ability to comfort the country did not. This was a great post. Thank you. > [@](#): > > For most serious and unbiased historians, making a valid judgment about a President’s “greatness” isn’t possible to do, for at LEAST fifty years after they leave office, because it takes AT LEAST that long for all the facts to come out as to who was really responsible for what, and to get a clear understanding of what really did happen overall. So, right now, the real ONLY reason why many people think of Reagan as having been “great,” is ENTIRELY due to current day politics and a hazy recall of the actual time Reagan was in office. Not to any reasoned and fact based judgment of any kind. Well, I think you can start doing some analysis before 50 years. It’s been almost 30 years since Reagan left office and I do think we’re seeing some of the seeds planted during his administration beginning to bloom. I think people in academia are starting to change their tune a little when it comes to Reagan, but you’re ultimately right that it will probably take a handful of more decades to see if history lauds him as much as the general American people did during and after his presidency. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818/23 "2017-08-27T17:13:42Z")
Twenty years of propaganda bullshit from the Republican Party, trying to set him up as the FDR of the right wing. > **[Reagan Pyramid Nears Completion](https://www.theonion.com/reagan-pyramid-nears-completion-1819563969)** > > SIMI VALLEY, CA—Slave manpower was doubled this week in an effort to assure that erection of the gigantic Reagan Pyramid remains on schedule, and will be completed in time for the 40th President's mummification and ascension into the Afterworld upon... ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818/24 "2017-08-27T17:18:06Z")
> **[One Party Opera | Two Party Opera](https://www.twopartyopera.com/comic/one-party-opera/)** > > A comic about presidents and other star-spangled banter. **Two Party Opera**. It’s a new comic strip. Read it, baby. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818/25 "2017-08-27T17:32:20Z")
He was a terrible President but because every other Republican President since Eisenhower was either a historical blip or obvious train wreck Conservatives have been desperate to lionize him. They formed groups in all 50 states to lobby to name things after him. They talk him up like he was a saint. He was charismatic and charming (he was an actor so what else could he be?) but you can draw a direct line from his policies to the economic downturn of the middle class. ---
**Author:** ![Arrogantly\_Ignorant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Arrogantly\_Ignorant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrogantly_Ignorant)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818/26 "2017-08-27T17:41:45Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Twenty years of propaganda bullshit from the Republican Party, trying to set him up as the FDR of the right wing. > > [Reagan Pyramid Nears Completion](http://www.theonion.com/article/reagan-pyramid-nears-completion-1032) Ha, if I’m reading the website correctly that was written in '96. It seems, even after only eights years of leaving office, the constant glorification of him and his presidency was getting the side-eye. ---
**Author:** ![Arrogantly\_Ignorant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Arrogantly\_Ignorant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrogantly_Ignorant)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818/27 "2017-08-27T18:00:39Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > He was a terrible President but because every other Republican President since Eisenhower was either a historical blip or obvious train wreck I had never actually considered this before. The post-Eisenhower Republican Presidents are Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush Sr., Bush Jr., and Trump. Jesus. I can definitely see why Reagan won the competition. Especially since even Eisenhower wasn’t that great of a president. He definitely helped create the foundations of our current military-industrial complex. The main contributions I primarily remember about Eisenhower is his nomination of Earl Warren (which he later expressly regretted, so it’s kind of ironic to mark that as a win for him) and highways. He set the stage for the Vietnam War and seemed entirely too eager to use nuclear weapons as a problem solver. I guess that’s for another thread though… ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818/28 "2017-08-27T19:53:43Z")
The concept of trickle down economics is a lie and always has been. [https://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2014/01/07/the-trickledown-lie-n1772687](https://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2014/01/07/the-trickledown-lie-n1772687) Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818/29 "2017-08-27T20:02:04Z")
Better link [http://www.tsowell.com/images/Hoover%20Proof.pdf](http://www.tsowell.com/images/Hoover%20Proof.pdf) Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818/30 "2017-08-27T20:11:39Z")
> [@Snnipe\_70E](#): > > People were beginning to loose their houses. And to make things even worse, one of those people was Baba Yaga! Her house did a lot of damage when it was loosed. ---
**Author:** ![race\_to\_the\_bottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c4cdca/32.png) [@race\_to\_the\_bottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/race_to_the_bottom)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818/31 "2017-08-27T20:14:19Z")
Reagan is considered great because he firmly established the assault on the reforms of the New Deal, which had began under Carter. In the post WWII era, wages and productivity had increased in lockstep, but became [disconnected](https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-54754fe4d669f728ae93942d7c0e9b13) beginning in the mid 1970s. This has continued to this day. The cumulative effect was to shift trillions from labor to capital. Cutting welfare programs put downward pressure on wages as well. Today, labor’s share of national income is back to the 1920s. Reagan also advanced the Carter program of increased military spending and a reversal of Nixon’s detente policy. The resulting collapse of socialist governments of Eastern Europe created great chaos in those societies and created a source of cheap labor flooding Western Europe and created pressure on wages in countries like Germany. Reagan also increased support for the freedom fighters in Afghanistan who wanted to end practices such as sending girls to school and women being independent from their husbands. One really great technique is to throw acid into the faces of women who refuse to cover up. This program has achieved great results throughout the Muslim world. Family values. He created the Contra war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua which had ousted dictator Samoza who was a good friend of the United States. Of course, Reagan was a great friend of Apartheid South Africa, supporting its proxies in Angola. There is so much more. Helping to advance the cause of the Christian Right, undermining women’s reproductive rights, the Supreme Court, etc. But Reagan was only a figurehead; a performer. He represented the program of the Wall Street and [he delivered the goods](http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2012/04/Labor%20Share%20National%20Income.jpg). He deceived the peasants into believing he was on their side. Sound familiar? ---
**Author:** ![purplehearingaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@purplehearingaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehearingaid)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818/32 "2017-08-27T20:25:09Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Yep, and he could think on his feet. Asked a question he didn’t want to deal with, he’d bring up something totally unrelated and tell a folksy tale that would make you chuckle. Then he’d say something serious about a topic he wanted to address and everyone would applaud. I can remeber at end of last the term when Regan was asked a question from a reporter he would "I can’t hear you " and walked away. This happen more than once . His son said he had Alzheimer’s in the last few years so he may had not been able to answer some questions and told a damn joke . I never thought his tales were “folksy” I always thought it was a way to avoid answering questions. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818/33 "2017-08-27T22:12:11Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > Better link [http://www.tsowell.com/images/Hoover%20Proof.pdf](http://www.tsowell.com/images/Hoover%20Proof.pdf) > > Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk I was about to post something similar. I suspect anyone posting about Reagan’s “trickle down economics” are not getting their economic info from neutral sources. It would be a bit like someone on the right calling Obama’s official economic policy as “state theft”. I would not expect those who used the term “state theft” when naming Obama’s economic policy to be honest brokers in assessing Obama’s record. ---
**Author:** ![Arrogantly\_Ignorant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Arrogantly\_Ignorant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrogantly_Ignorant)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818/34 "2017-08-27T22:42:34Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#): > > I was about to post something similar. I suspect anyone posting about Reagan’s “trickle down economics” are not getting their economic info from neutral sources. It would be a bit like someone on the right calling Obama’s official economic policy as “state theft”. I would not expect those who used the term “state theft” when naming Obama’s economic policy to be honest brokers in assessing Obama’s record. My apologies if I made it seem like “trickle down” economics was, well, actually an economic principle. I was using it as shorthand for Reagan’s economic policies. I’d argue my usage is justified by your proposed one because mine has largely entered the cultural lexicon as denoting the economic principles espoused under Reagan. ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818/35 "2017-08-27T23:18:02Z")
> [@Arrogantly\_Ignorant](#): > > I guess I don’t get the popularity, but I wasn’t from that era. Being a successful former actor probably helped. He did seem tapped into pop culture in a way few presidents before him were. Hell, I’d love to have one of those “A Democrat shot J.R.” campaign buttons they made. Still, it seemed the public loved him (and largely still do). Honestly, it was probably a factor in him not being impeached > > Which is pretty damn sad. I attribute it partly to luck, the economy moves in a cycle and we had just been through an awful time from the early 70s to the early 80s, and partly to his acting expertise. Like most, perhaps all modern, presidents the ability to speak well in public and and seem to relate to the audience is key to their popularity. From Kennedy to Trump, good public speakers (not in order but IMHO the best were Reagan, Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Obama) were able to achieve a higher level of popularity than their policy successes deserved. I think clearly Reagan had the best training and experience in this area of any modern President. I am not sure why people bring up the end of the cold war with Reagan. He certainly supported policies that put pressure on the Soviet Union that ultimately hastened their destruction, but he wasn’t around when the wall fell and the Soviet Union dissolved. Bush steered the US through that particular bit of choppy water with a very sure hand and with excellent results. ---
**Author:** ![Reddy\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@Reddy\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reddy_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818/36 "2017-08-27T23:32:05Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I took you to task this morning in another thread. > > But all of your above post is beautiful. Your analysis is spot-on and well told. Bravo Good Sir. > Reagan shifted the zeitgeist from decline to improvement. He did so in ways that were a short term sugar high and we’ve been living through the ghastly aftermath ever since with moments of improvement here and there. > > IMO Trump hopes, in his own deeply confused way, to sell another sugar high and profit financially from the corresponding short term boom. Or profit politically from the adoration that follows from creating an optimistic zeitgeist, no matter how patently false most of the reasons for that optimism turn out to be. > > Reagan himself was not a bad or evil man. In many ways he’s responsible for setting the R party on a new path that has since carried it forward to where they are now. It’s deeply ironic that despite being one of the leadingest lights in their pantheon he could never come close to being nominated by the current R party. He’s not nearly R enough for what they’ve become in his name. Reagan was, compared to most politicians, intellectually a lightweight. He was a simplistic, idealistic man who clung to several faiths deeply. He was basically your average American who had a deep abiding faith in America who worked his way up to the top. His rise was basically the American dream - growing up in poverty, the son of an abusive alcoholic - who worked his way up to the very top. People love that sort of story. He was a good intention-ed man I feel. He deeply believed in the ideal that good government was small government, but he wasn’t a Randian - it wasn’t some malicious intent to exterminate the poor on his part. He believed in common decency; he simply believed that the Great Society had made people too dependent on government. But he took no issue with the idea of a safety net - he didn’t even take much of the New Deal to task. He simply had a problem with bureaucrats. Bureaucracy was something he never truly understood or appreciated; he felt that the problem with grand programs like the New Deal was that the layers of bureaucracy limited their direct effect on the people. He was not overly partisan. He praised FDR - his onetime idol who he proudly said he voted for four times - even as President. Can you imagine a Republican praising FDR today? He spoke in favor of amnesty for illegal immigrants, and passed a bill which granted amnesty. He wrote a letter in favor of the Brady Bill. No Republican would dare approve of that today. Reagan was basically a conservative man who felt the Democratic Party had lost its common, working class touch in the mid 1950s when it nominated intellectuals like Stevenson and Eastern playboys like Kennedy. While he was very much a Republican, don’t feel he ever stopped being something of a Democrat in his heart. Reagan was a man who in his youth was considered almost a Communist. In 1948, he defended Helen Douglas, who was being attacked by Richard Nixon as a Communist sympathizer. That says a lot about who Reagan was deep down. Reagan and FDR have more in common as men than most would think. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818/37 "2017-08-27T23:37:24Z")
IMHO only: 1. He got shot and lived to continue in office. 2. He was probably slightly above average overall. 3. Everyone since him has been that terrible and/or idiotic. ---
**Author:** ![Reddy\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@Reddy\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reddy_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818/38 "2017-08-27T23:44:55Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Twenty years of propaganda bullshit from the Republican Party, trying to set him up as the FDR of the right wing. > > [Reagan Pyramid Nears Completion](http://www.theonion.com/article/reagan-pyramid-nears-completion-1032) But he was arguably. History echoed the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s in 1979-1980. You had a well-intentioned, good men (Hoover, Carter) in the White House who simply could not handle the respective crises they were handed. You had a nation which was demoralized, lost, and hopeless. In the 1930s, this was because of the Depression. In the 1970s, this was because of Stagflation and the hangover from a decade of cultural revolution. America was floundering and lost in the early 1930s, just as it was at the very beginning of the 1980s. The economy was in a deep rut. America’s military might was basically worthless in both the late 1920s and the late 1970s. People were crying out for a savior in both eras, and into the mix came two simple-minded (FDR was considered to have a "second-class intellect), confident, assuring men who told the public what they wanted to hear. What they needed to hear. Roosevelt told us that the only thing we needed to fear was fear itself; Reagan told us that it was morning again in America. Both men reached out to the public in transparent, intimate ways, and their innate charm, sincerity, and brought a nation out of the depths of gloom into feeling better. Both men were not staunch ideologues or intellectuals - they relied greatly on others to formulate most of their policy. They both threw whatever they could at the wall to see what stuck. They succeeded mostly by luck. Both men were not truly liked or trusted by their respective parties when they set out to become President. FDR was considered too conservative by the Liberal wing of the Democratic Party when he first ran, and Reagan was considered too conservative by the Liberal Wing of the Republican Party when he ran in 1976 and 1980. Both men unseated their predecessors in landslide victories; and both went on to conquer most of the country in their re-election campaigns. America loved both men, because both men gave to two different generations of Americans hope. And beyond that, he gave them results. We can argue over the effectivess of trickle-down or the New Deal, but the fact is, the interest rates of the late 1970s decreased; the economy boomed; in the 1930s, poverty went down as did unemployment under FDR. Both nations took a lost America which was questioning itself, and when they left office, America was triumphant, upbeat, and looking forward to the future with optimistic eyes. As a Democrat I say yes, Ronald Reagan was their FDR. He deserves that title. For those who say Reagan was only an actor, here is an anecdote: Roosevelt told Orson Welles that they were the two best actors in the country. Roosevelt and Reagan understood that the American public loved a message, more than they loved droll policy specifics. Both “played a part” and left America, at the time, a better place than they found Her. ---
**Author:** ![Reddy\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@Reddy\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reddy_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818/39 "2017-08-27T23:53:17Z")
There also other parallels: Both FDR and Reagan really defined, for a thirty year period, what their respective parties meant. Prior to FDR, the only recent Democratic President was Wilson. Wilson (leaving his racism aside for a moment) was overall a well-intentioned failure. His Presidency ended in deep recession and social unrest. Prior to Wilson there was Cleveland. The Democratic Party had no idea what it wanted to be, exactly, prior to FDR. Reagan came into office after two failed Republican administrations. Nixon was successful, enomorously popular…And then a little hotel called the Watergate damned him forever. Ford was a nice man, but he didn’t have time to get much done and never had a cohesive ideology or vision. The last Republicans Presidents who could be pointed to as having been a success or having had a cohesive ideology were Eisenhower and Reagan. It had been over 30 years of failure and confusion as to what the Republican Party stood for. Reagan and FDR came in and redefined their party for a generation or more. They are truly the modern fathers of their parties. Sadly, in the last few years, both parties have abandoned the ideals that Reagan and FDR stood for. If the Republican Party had followed in Reagan’s steps and not given into racism, they would have Latino voters as a secure voting block, with an emphasis on small government and small business. If the Democratic Party followed FDR, they would have a robust working class party with emphasis on social programs and putting America to work. They would still have a loyal White Working Class who would be protected by unions. Both parties abandoned the faith and ideology of their new Founders, and both are met with scorn because both stand for nothing now. ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818/40 "2017-08-28T00:56:56Z")
> [@Reddy\_Mercury](#): > > There also other parallels: > > Both FDR and Reagan really defined, for a thirty year period, what their respective parties meant. > > Prior to FDR, the only recent Democratic President was Wilson. Wilson (leaving his racism aside for a moment) was overall a well-intentioned failure. His Presidency ended in deep recession and social unrest. Prior to Wilson there was Cleveland. The Democratic Party had no idea what it wanted to be, exactly, prior to FDR. > > Reagan came into office after two failed Republican administrations. Nixon was successful, enomorously popular…And then a little hotel called the Watergate damned him forever. Ford was a nice man, but he didn’t have time to get much done and never had a cohesive ideology or vision. The last Republicans Presidents who could be pointed to as having been a success or having had a cohesive ideology were Eisenhower and Reagan. It had been over 30 years of failure and confusion as to what the Republican Party stood for. > > Reagan and FDR came in and redefined their party for a generation or more. They are truly the modern fathers of their parties. Sadly, in the last few years, both parties have abandoned the ideals that Reagan and FDR stood for. > > If the Republican Party had followed in Reagan’s steps and not given into racism, they would have Latino voters as a secure voting block, with an emphasis on small government and small business. > > If the Democratic Party followed FDR, they would have a robust working class party with emphasis on social programs and putting America to work. They would still have a loyal White Working Class who would be protected by unions. > > Both parties abandoned the faith and ideology of their new Founders, and both are met with scorn because both stand for nothing now. Excellent Post. It makes me weep for what could have been-on both sides. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-reagan-considered-such-a-great-president/794818.md?page=3)