He’s continually lauded as a god who walked among men in the Republican debates. People proudly say they’re “Republicans in the Reagan sense of the word” and go out of their way to compare themselves/their candidate to him and distance the other candidates from him.
Reagan accomplished some good things as president, I’ll grant, but I think of him as the man who ran up the National Debt to amounts that will never be paid off, really invited the religious right to the Party, either approved or, worse- his version- knew nothing of Irangate, and while he’s often credited with ending Communism few historians and political scientists see him as more than one of MANY contributors.
When he came into office there was incredible inflation, record interest rates (peaked at about 18% IIRC), and record unemployment, and all were brought back into reason during his terms. HOWEVER, he also deregulated S&Ls (setting up one of the great fiscal disasters of all time [which the Clan Bush was in up to their eye teeth]), by the most conservative of estimates he quintupled the National Debt, Reaganomics (or “voodoo economics” to quote his VP) never quite trickled down as predicted, and there was a major stock market crash six years into his presidency.
Why is he held as such a paragon?
Or, rephrasing the question, what is, in your opinion, The Reagan Legacy?
Before **Dio ** gets here to rant (;)), I’d like to put my opinion on the table. Reagan raised the spirits of Americans at a time when they were mournfully weak. Vietnam and street violence hangover. Stagflation. Hostages in Iran. Watergate. Everything just seemed to be falling apart, and along came a very effective speaker who said that America is a “shining city on a hill” and that her people are good. He brought about a much needed confidence boost, much in that manner that Obama is doing now.
The economy in the 80s was pretty damn good after that stagflation we went through in the 70s, and he gets credit for that (whether he deserves it or not).
The economy in the lecond half of the 70s sucked, big time. I bought my first house in 1983 as was thrilled to get a 13% mortgage-- my friends who bought a year or so early were paying 18%. Interest rates were dropping fast, and have remained relatively low and stable ever since. I remember getting up at 3AM during the second “energy crisis” in order to park my car in line at the gas station, then I’d walk home, go back to bed, and go down there when the station opened at 6AM to fill up.
He also pounded the first crucial nails into the coffin of the New Deal and the Great Society, something the far right had despaired of ever seeing happen in the days of the centrist social-contract. He helped steer the discourse about American society away from people’s rights and needs back towards money, power, and moral abstracts.
Of course in bipartisan interest, Jimmy Carter left office when interest rates and unemployment were at all time highs and is seen as the very model of a wonderful human by many because he now pounds nails for poor folk.
I worked for a time as a purchasing agent. We sold (among other things) industrial abrasives, like grinding wheels and sanding belts. These were typically priced using an outrageously high list price and a fractional multiplier. They did this so they would have to print the big list price book only once in a blue moon, sending out multiplier supplements instead whenever there were price increases. During that part of the 70s, the supplements, which had been mailed out every eight to twelve months got to the point where they were coming in almost weekly. It was ridiculous.
In fairness to Carter, he appointed Paul Volker, who was the one who finally got interest rates under control. But that was at the end of his term, and you really didn’t see the effects until after Reagan took over. To Reagan’s credit, he kept Volker on and then appointed Greenspan afterwards (even with all his faults, Greenspan did a pretty good job, overall). Anyone who was not an adult during those stagflation times just can’t appreciate how bad it was. I’m not kidding about those 18% mortgage rates.
But Reagan was just good at communicating optimism (like **Liberal **said), and that made people feel good. Not to mention that he broke the Air Traffic Controller’s strike by just firing the strikers and hiring replacements. Conservatives like that type of take-charge attitude. Carter was way too wishy-washy.
Reagan also gets credit (deserved or not) for the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War after his term ended. He ended the detente policy of the Carter years, got tough, invaded the Marxist bastion of Grenada :rolleyes: , told Gobachev to “Tear down this wall!”, ramped up defense spending, introduced the Strategic Defense Initiative – SDI probably never would have worked, but the Sovs felt obliged to increase their own defense spending to keep up, and a case could be made that the financial strain hastened their system’s demise. (Outspending the USSR into bankruptcy wasn’t a new idea, of course, it was U.S. strategy from the beginning of the Cold War.)
I was only 14 when Reagan was inaugurated, but I remember those interest rates quite well. My parents, with kids in college and a couple of major financial matters, refinanced the house I grew up in for $52,000 around 1980 on a 20 year note. Today that note would be under $400 per month; instead it was around $700 per month.
I also remember a lot of gas stations where the price was actually twice what the dials (this was pre digital readout) on the pump red, so if the pump said $3.00 you actually paid 6.00. This was because when those pumps were made just a few years before, nobody could conceive that gas would one day cost more than .99 per gallon so the pumps couldn’t calculate gas above that, so if gas was (for example) 1.30 per gallon the pump had to be set for .65 per gallon.
He appealed to the worst vices of America; nationalistic ego, bigotry, class warfare ( which is very common in America, but almost always directed downward ), religious lunacy, and hatred. He helped set America on the path to becoming the vile, self destructing nation it is today.
Because Reagan was an inspiration, kind of in the same way Obama is. They are idealists who inspire the masses.
I’m a reagan republican, … and I support Obama.
It’s like what Obama said about Reagan, “Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that … Bill Clinton did not.”
And what Charles Krauthammer said recently:
“Reagan changed history. At home, he radically altered both the shape and perception of government. Abroad, he changed the entire structure of the international system by bringing down the Soviet empire, giving birth to a unipolar world of unprecedented American dominance.”
It was during Reagan’s administration that the Fairness Doctrine in broadcasting was dropped. Which had the intended effect of allowing the rise of partisan broadcasting, primarily right-wing radio at first. The feeling was that the Fairness Doctrine favored the overwhelmingly liberal media. With it’s elimination, the voice of the right was allowed to propogate.