Dear God, I knew he was the worst already, but it seems every new thing I learn only makes it even worse.
I knew he was the proto-trump, but this is perhaps the Trumpiest thing I’ve heard yet.
I had a history professor in college that once said in a lecture that it is impossible for someone who lived through something to view it historically because of perception and bias. I think of him every time I see something like this because it makes me wish I could live long enough to read historical analyses of stuff like Reagan’s presidency. Hopefully history will be able to truthfully describe what he did to our country.
I wasn’t there for it, he’s a real piece of shit though and I don’t get why people liked him other than him telling them to live like there’s no tomorrow and completely separate investment from material value.
The mid to late 70s were pretty dismal. Stagflation, crazy interest rates, the gas crisis, etc. I was in middle school in 1980 so I didn’t have a lot of life experience at the time but I remember how his speeches made people feel hopeful for the first time in a long while.
It’s also very easy to look back and “realize” how bad he was/is.
But at the time, like you said, things weren’t so clear, and Reagan won like 90% of the electoral vote, it was a massive landslide. Carter only won like 6 states.
I was there and I can tell you two things with absolute truth:
- He was a real piece of shit President from the start, no one except the GOP base was fooled, same as today
- In the absence of “her emails” or a russian-backed influence and money campaign, the GOP literally asked Iran to hold the hostages from the American embassy until the election was over to hurt Carter. “Nightline” ran every night saying how much Carter sucked. And it did hurt his election tremendously. If that didn’t tell you what you needed to know, then the next several decades’ worth of slide-into-abject-fascism was not going to be noticed either. (And, as we can plainly see, it wasn’t)
Hey, thanks for your post. I’m not from the US and the bit about the hostages was unknown to me.
Sounds like a parallel to what was going on with the military help for Ukraine just now…
Also as I ubderstand it a lot of the issues with the Reagan administration could be dismissed as just general “things going wrong” and we only saw how bad he was after a lot of shit leaked post presidency.
But I am working off my understanding im 24 Reagan may as well have been dead for my entire lifetime, hell he may have been he died in 2004 but I doubt there was much left of his mind.
No. Not at all. He was clearly bankrupting the American taxpayer and giving that money to the rich and the defense contractors. Like, obviously. He stripped all the environmental money, all the school money, all the health services money, and gave it to the rich. Just like that. He basically ran on that.
“Trickle down” was his. For real, not a single reasonable person thought that was ever going to be a thing. And, forty years later we damned well better be able to say - it wasn’t.
Oh that shit was obvious for sure its just people ignored it. I was moreso referring to the insane shit like the astrologer and Nancy being way too influential.
I knew a friend who liked him. For what I asked, he said his tear down the wall speech.
Hollywood in the 80s (and other media) was on board with pushing this corporate agenda. I hate to give Reagan enough credit to claim he was solely responsible.
Oliver Sacks had an essay in one of his books, called, “The President’s Speech,” which we can work out referred to Reagan, based on the timeline. It was about watching a televised speech with a group of total aphasic people. As they were unable to understand language, they just watched the presentation and pomp, as well as the President’s body language.
They all found it a hoot. They laughed and laughed, and had a grand old time.
This suggests to me that Reagan was popular based on his personal affect, bypassing his supporters’ critical thinking and appealing to them on an emotional, subconscious level. That’s why none of them could give a coherent answer as to why they liked him.
Reagan was a proto-Trump, Bush I was a proto-Trump, and Bush II was a proto-Trump. Trump is not some new phenomenon, he’s just a somewhat more repulsive version of shit that’s been going on for 45+ years now.
Reagan actually is a proto-trump. The others I’d argue aren’t. Reagan was an actor who won because of a populist push using their charisma (which I don’t see with Trump but it works for some reason). The Bush family were politicians who got into power through the normal political path. Sure, they were still fairly populist, but they weren’t outsiders working off of only stardom. Hell, MAGA is a Reagan slogan. He’s the proto-trump.
The Bush family were politicians who got into power through the normal political path.
AKA providing material support to and doing business with the Nazis, iirc.
Yep. Not abnormal really. Lots of our elites became elites by doing horrible things, including working with Nazis.
NASA: exists
Reagan was a union leader in the 40s and 50s, governor of California in the 60s, and elected president in 84 - he didn’t just go from acting to being president, he had a lot more political experience and track record than Trump.
Sure he had charisma and was a good public speaker, but that’s pretty much what got Obama the presidency as well.
[Regan] had a lot more political experience and track record than Trump.
That’s like saying I have a better high jump than someone born without legs. Sure I can jump so much higher than them, but that’s nothing to brag about.
Regan was still a massive idiot who was woefully unprepared to be president, and was such an idiot that he would let his wife call a psychic to advise him on the most random bullshit around, down to when to land the fucking plane.
Begs the question: How are these dumbasses going to one-up this guy?
Dear God, I knew he was the worst already,
He cut off funding to Israel after their illegal attacks on Palestinians.
And he thought the tax rates on the wealthiest should be higher than most modern Democrats do now.
Still a total shitshow of a president. But “the worst” is a stretch. I mean shit, trump hasn’t been out of office 4 years yet. He was a lot worse than Reagan.
If we’re only allowed to use trump as a comparison these days, Reagan wasn’t that bad
But only comparing a president to trump isn’t logical.
Ronny “trickle down economics” Reagan thought taxes should be higher on wealthy folks? Are you insane? The top tax bracket went from 70% at the start of his presidency to 28% by the time he left office. What Democrat have you heard calling to drop the top tax rate below 28%?
He was WORSE than “that bad”. Have you ever heard of something called the Iran Contra scandal?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Contra_affairAnd oh, by the way, he didn’t defeat the USSR, Carter did. Funding the Taliban’s war against the Soviet’s started under his watch. Ronny just took credit for it.
Trump ignored covid, Reagan ignored and cheered on AIDS. So I guess that’s a bit of a wash. What did trump do equivalent to or worse than colluding with Iran to keep American hostages in order to win an election. And then go on to illegally sell weapons in circumvention of a US embargo to Iran and fund terrorists in South America. Then after being caught lying to Congress had his former VP pardon them both and Olly North.
Trump literally tried to overthrow our government and had nuclear weapons documents stored in an unlocked shed. And then there’s the Russian involvement in his campaign.
If by overthrow you mean riled up the gravy seals. Then sat back and did the one thing an incompetent narcicist is good at, stall. Then sure.
Highest security documents in an unlocked bathroom? Again we’ve established that he is a selfish un-thinking narcissistic moron who is incompetent.
If by Russian involvement you mean the fact that the Russians have always been involved regardless of trump. And have no strong ties to him in any way other than using him for the only thing a narcissistic moron is good for. A Chaos Agent. Then sure.
I’m not saying Trump wasn’t a danger. He’s as dangerous as an epileptic willfully off their medication constantly carrying around a running chainsaw with them everywhere. Had Bush Nixon or Reagan attempted similar to what Trump tried. You can bet we wouldn’t be chuckling about how incompetent it was and how we luckily dodged a bullet. Especially not after the last time a bush was caught out in a coup plot that failed. It’s just a different kind of danger. Trump was more dangerous because of the people around him than because of himself. Every single one of them enabled his every narcissistic whim. Had it not been for them he would have universally been remembered as a joke.
Trump tried to extort Ukraine into manufacturing evidence against Biden, tried to break the postal system just to mess with absentee voting
Yup, all failed spectacularly. Despite his cruel selfishness, he never had a moment of competence approaching the focused malevolence of Reagan destroying the air traffic controller’s union.
As much as Trump sucked, he didn’t ignore covid. He was the initial dude behind project lightspeed. I fully expect to be downvoted to hell for this.
Know what he did before that. Downplayed and ignored covid. Claiming it would be over in a week. That no one needed to take precautions. Only after his narcissism screwed things up so badly. We’re some lawmakers finally able to appeal to him and stroke his hubris enough to get him to go along with the light speed plan. And even then afterwards he did little to nothing to promote it.
You are not being downvoted for mentioning that he had a part in Project light speed. But for misrepresenting his handling of the situation.
you’re not wrong. he also wanted people to stick lights up their asses and take horse pills. still, he didn’t ignore it completely and despite his silly shit managed to actually be helpful overall.
“He thought tax rates should be higher than most modern Democrats do now.”
Holy shit, what a take. And, uh, why is it that modern Dems are at that point, again?
I don’t mean literally the worst as Trump absolutely holds that position. I meant it as a figure of speech in regard to how bad he was.
I would argue Trump was only able to run because Reagan walked it out first.
My point was on how remarkably and terrifyingly similar they were.
Similarly, Obama tried to set up a training exercise to show the incoming Trump people how to deal with a potential epidemic. Trump blew it off.
Donald deliberately dismantled the pandemic response specifically to spite Obama. He is one of the most fragile dimwits on the planet.
And somehow between this, multiple indictments AND his awful independent pandemic response a bunch of people want to try to reelect him.
Like half of the USA?
More like a third, abetted by the apathy of another third
Those people just want to see the world burn so that everyone can be as miserable as they are so they can say “See, we said that life was miserable, and now you can feel it too.” A bunch of fucking dimwits…
Not just Obama. The previous National Security Advisor was pals with the Admiral who ran the office; when the NSA guy called Trump an idiot Donnie retaliated by getting rid of the Admiral. Government by spite.
Nixon, Reagan, Bush1, Bush2, Trump. The GOP pattern of criminality, ineptitude, and ignorance is clear as ever.
But it keeps getting swept under the rug every election cycle. No one realizes or points out how terrible the GOP are at running anything. Like every recession starts because of a conservative idea or policy that gets cleaned up by the left.
BuT CoNsErVaTiVeS ArE GoOd wItH MoNeY!1
Now do trump
More and more
“No one”? Where you been mate?
Prescott Bush was pals with the Nazis and helped plot a little insurrection against the United States.
Can’t begin to imagine how Obama felt passing the baton to the pumpkin
The entire world lost that day but at least Obama didn’t lose an election to that orange idiot.
Obama was smart. He fucked off to a long vacation away from everything when he left office. Those pictures of him enjoying himself are legendary.
What they don’t show you is him spending every second wondering when the bombs would start falling
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guys, im starting to think that this ronald guy was kind of a shit head.
“Hostages in Iran? Nah, that problem will go away soon. Don’t ask me how I know.”
Carter had his issues but he was and intelligent and thoughtful person that was ultimately screwed over.
So he didn’t help the genocidal maniacs of El Salvador? (Reagan did too)
I don’t understand why anyone is ever charitable with politicians in terms of their morals. They volunteer for the job, it is extremely well compensated financially and in lifelong privileges for high offices, and yet when they display principles beforehand and then don’t act on them it isn’t their fault?
Sure it may not 100% be their fault but it isn’t like many have the guts to resign, or fire the people under them making bad decisions, or anything of consequence.
God, if we are going to be forced to elect a goddamned fossil, could it be Carter instead of Biden or Trump? Please. He has only had one term. He was truly Tue last president who really was just a genuinely good guy. Obama was good and he did a lot of good things, Biden is really trying to push on stuff, but has a dubious history at best. I wasn’t even fucking alive when Carter was president, but I know he is the only past president in my lifetime who STILL HELPS BUILD HABITAT FOR HUMANITY HOUSES. Period. Full stop. That is ignoring the fact he is 99 years old. Like, can we have that energy in politics please?
Um Carter had been in hospice for some time unfortunately. He has lived an amazing life and was super active into his 90s but we are unfortunately past that. I get what you’re saying though and it’s sad he lost originally.
Only mark against Carter I can think of is the deregulation of air travel.
Even there Reagan was like, “Hold my Movie Script” and crushed the airline industry union, essentially leading to the post-labor era.
With all the news about Air Traffic Controllers falling asleep and making poor decisions, would be nice if Democrats connected this failure to Reagan’s fuck-up, but I guess the electorate is too short-sighted to connect the dots.
Oh yeah, in typical repub fashion he made things worse.
His most odiously visible legacy, methinks, is “trickle down economics”. Never has a more blatantly pro-Parasite-Class lie been punted so effectively.
The Volcker Shock, his mishandling of Iran and Afghanistan, and his heavy reliance on privatization as a means of devolving federal powers to the states all paled beside what Reagan eventually put us through. But they moved us in a similar direction.
Carter was the last President to win the votes of the segregationist south. Perhaps his brand of moderate centrism was the best the Dems could field against Ford. But I would not have called him a particular good President. A lot of what he said and did upon leaving office contradicted what he said and did while in office. Similar to LBJ in that regard.
Ahh those are good points to raise, im not a yank and I wasn’t alive in the early 80s. But thanks for letting me know!
“I’m glad Reagan dead.” ~Killer Mike
Ronald Reagan? The psychopath??
Ronald Reagan? The fascist?
Anyone have the article?
Thank you, fun read
Hoover had a similar description of FDR
Which isn’t to say FDR and Reagan were in any way qualitatively close. But both men had political agendas that varied substantially from the prior administrations. And they both moved rapidly away from the direction of prior administrations.
Reagan was the first real neoconservative President, the closest thing to a Libertarian president the country has had since Coolidge, and a man who had surrounded himself with leaders of the conservative congressional minority with the intent of flipping the legislature.
I’m not shocked to hear he was blind and deaf to Carter’s “Top 20 issues” given that these simply didn’t concern a guy whose priorities were deregulation, tax cuts, privatization, and military exports.
Fascinating I had no idea. Sounds familiar.
