Didn’t Reagan chase all the snakes out of Ireland?
Marc
Nah, there was just no reason to stay.
I am **not **a Ronald Reagan fan, but in the spirit of fairness, Carter did open the gate for Rupert Murdoch, allowing him to broadcast in the United States. There was, maybe there still is, an FCC regulation that prevented foreign owned broadcasters from competing in the U.S. broadcasting market. Broadcasters had to broadcast from within the United States and have less than a specified percentage of foreign control. I am going on memory – it is a regulation along these lines. Carter allowed Murdoch into the U.S. market despite the regulation and even helped him get a low interest loan to purchase a TV station in exchange for an endorsement in a major news paper. All powerful elected leaders genuflect to the press.
Reagan once laid a smackdown on a tag team of Chuck Norris AND Wilford Brimley. He let them go after each one of them kneeled down and kissed one of his cowboy boots, left and right respectively.
The thread is asking why Reagan is so loved by so many Republicans and some Democrats. In what way does your post address that question? Are you saying that Republicans and some Democrats — including by implication those here on the board — love him because they share his traits of lunacy, hatred, bigotry, and vice? If not, why would you say that your post is not simple thread-shitting?
I was 10 years old in 1984, and I remember being completely befuddled by the U.S. elections. How could anyone be running against Reagan? I mean… he’s Reagan!
I think many Republicans, even those older than I was at the time, still remember that mystique, and want it back.
I was a teenager on the other side of the world (and still a leftie of sorts), but looking back now, Reagan just seemed like a nice guy. He was a true believer and had conviction. Even if you disliked his conservative politics, I think a lot of people saw that. It’s a bit like the case of the last Pope - JPII did some undoubtedly crappy things (re AIDS etc), but dammit if he wasn’t a genuine person (and I’m not even religious, let alone a Catholic). Reagan was one of those types. I only really remember four US presidents, and Reagan stands out from the others as being less of a used car dealer and more of a human being. The space shuttle speech tears me up still. That wasn’t calculated spin - it was real.
He is remembered as a great President because he articulately offered an optimistic vision of America and hired effective people who shared that vision to put his policies in place. After the downer of Carter, America was ready for an optimistic take-charge kind of guy.
That ability united disparate strands of Conservatism under that metaphoric “Big Tent” Reagan coalition all the while attracting new members to the club, demographics that had previously been reliably Democratic. Conservatives today must wax nostalgic for that coalition and Liberals have always envied it.
Yes. He was a vile, murderous, bigoted, hypernationalistic bastard; and that’s why he appealed to people. He reflected and endorsed their basest desires.
I’m glad you cleared that up because I have such a hard time differentiating the good people from the bad people. Now I know that the only good people in this thread are you and Luc. Would you mind now retreating so that the bastards among us may revel in our vile, murderous, hypernationalistic bigotry?
I was around for Reagan, and I emphatically didn’t like the man. His political philosophy and beliefs were vastky different from mine. He had a tendecy to fabulize – he’d tell stories when he made speeches that weren’t true and quote absurd statistics. This tendecy was way beyond the usual tendency of politicians (who, I appreciate, have a hell of a job trying to maintain knowledge in a wide variety of specialties, with critics ready to pounce on every word). He would stick to a story even when its lack of veracity was pointed out. He was infamous for his “Welfare Queen” story. He saw the world as absurdly black and white. When he gave his “Star Wars” speech on March 23, 1983, my jaw dropped – this was engineering absurdity of an unbelievable order. Nothing that has been revealed since that speech has countered that initial impression.
But, I think, it was precisely these things that endeared him to his followers (and not any “reflection of our basest desires”. I think Der Trihs is completely off the mark). He saw a simple black and white world where Welfare Mothers cheat, the Soviet Union was irredeemably vile at its roots, and We Wrere Right. It was The World The Way We Think It Is, and the solutions were simple. No annoying shades of grey. And Reagan was magically Teflon, as they said at the time? Lebanon? Not his fault. Iran/Contra? The fault of underlings.
Add to this Reagan’s insistence on the proper forms. No populist tricks like Jimmy Carter’s walk to the White House after inauguration – Reagan was driven in his limo, as became the dignity of a Head of State. People might call him “Ronnie”, but not oficially, and not to his face. The days of “Jimmy” Carter were over.
One of the greatest con jobs of all time.
Up to Reagan it was at least assumed the continuing strength of America was it’s middle class. The rising tide that lifted all boats. Reagan and his supply side cronies decided the best way to restore the country was to destroy the middle class by making the rich richer and transferring all the increased profits upward. After the PATCO strike labor was just an inconvenient nuisance to be swept aside. The nation will never recover as the gap between the top 10 % and the rest of the hoi-poli is ever increasing. The greatest income disparity since the gilded age can be laid at Reagan’s feet. Thanks Gipper.
I’ll ask you the same question I asked Der Trihs. In what way does your post address the issue of why so may people loved Reagan?
What a logical, well thought out argument! Hard to argue with that!
Der Trihs: Do you honestly believe what you are saying? I’m not trying to be start a fight- honestly- I’m just curious. I couldn’t imagine being that down on everything all of the time. 
You can’t think of a single decent thing the man did during his Presidency?
Boy, you never expect the Thread Police…
No he also increased the debt 350 percent.
I just want to observe that the actual answer to the OP is found in posts #2 and #9, taken together – not, necessarily, that the views decribed in them are accurate, but that there was a widespread, near consensus, impression given that they were – whether or not Ronald Reagan actually accomplished X, Y, and Z good things, or perpetrated M, N, and O bad things, he was and is perceived as an inspirational leader with a strong two-valued moral sense who had the tenacity to hold us to a course that challenged the Soviet Union to react in a way that inevitably led to the end of the Cold War in the two years immediately after he left office.
Some of you who only remember him from his presidency would be surprised by some of his earlier speeches. He was a firey speaker who focused the ideals of the conservative philosophy like no other before him. When he became president he softened his image and brought out more of the folksy charm which was also a part of him but played better on camera. Many conservatives remember him fondly for his ideals and ideas. Many of which are not being followed by the current president or the next candidate.
Why? Because in mass market sales, image isn’t the main thing, image is the only thing. Reagan was, and remains, our most successful animatronic President, he hit his mark, he delivered his lines (cue: twinkle in eye) and millions upon millions of us bought it. Hook, line, and sinker.
But take heart, Lib. If things go as they seem, there will be a Dem administration soon, and those papers I’ve been on about for so long will be released. Lets us make a date to come back here and you can point out to me the glorious revelations therein.
But for now, a couple of questions: is it your opinion that the Laffer Curve represents a marvelous vision in economics, a principle so profound that it escaped the attention of so many academic economists, but only awaited a genial doofus to discover?
And this Iran/Contra thingy? A vision of the unitary executive, a precursor to the splendid state of affairs we find ourselves in? Do you applaud? What do you thing is the correct response to a President who flatly contravenes the expressed will of Congress? A national holiday, perhaps, for someone who buggers the Constitution?
And how are you planning to celebrate Grenada Day this year? Mug a cripple?
Why was he so loved? Because there’s one born every minute, because you can, indeed, fool all of the people some of the time?
I am sure Der is as bereft and inconsolable as I to be denied the balm of your respect. But if Reagan was the sort of man who merits that respect, it is a poor coin, indeed.