Blame Reagan. Catalyst or Cause?

[Zardnaar]

He was in charge of the country at the time.

Additionally, if you want to talk about other elected leaders in other countries, be my guest, but that's outside the scope of this thread.

It's somewhat fair AIDS wasn't really understood well espicially early 80's.

Not a Reagan fan but yeah.

 

[amadeus]

What use is invoking Mitterrand when talking about the AIDs crisis in the US specifically?

He was in charge of the country at the time.

Spliced your post here because that is the reason why: they were in charge of their respective countries.

The American president is now not only expected to be smarter than his domestic rivals but also his foreign contemporaries? That’s why I didn’t mention it, because I’m not holding him to this unattainable standard.

 

[Gorbles]

Spliced your post here because that is the reason why: they were in charge of their respective countries.

The American president is now not only expected to be smarter than his domestic rivals but also his foreign contemporaries? That’s why I didn’t mention it, because I’m not holding him to this unattainable standard.

I don't consider it unattainable given the fact health officials were aware from '81 onwards, and I feel your attempt at saying he was hard done by "left and right" alike is in effect indulging in your own mythology of the man.

Everyone should've done better with HIV and AIDs. That's the point of criticising these figures. Because they can and should've done better. Instead of being rationalised as somehow (never) being capable of such.

Invoking other world leaders is whataboutism in a thread about Reagan and what he should be blamed for (or not). I'd be saying the same kind of thing if someone made the (very niche) equivalent of a Mitterrand (or Pierre Trudeau) thread.

Also, yes, the President is supposed to be better than their domestic alternatives. That's the whole thing about being a leader. That's the responsibility of being in charge. He won, he gets held to that standard.

 

[amadeus]

The good thing about my position is that I don’t need to backpedal or rely on sarcasm.

Huh.

 

[Gorbles]

The good thing about my position is that I don’t need to backpedal or rely on sarcasm.

One of the dangers of discussing something on the Internet is reading sarcasm when none is actually there. The same goes for starting the fallacy game, i.e. "moving the goalposts". Moving the goalposts is what you're doing here, funnily enough (which is why the fallacy game is often zero-sum, because everybody makes use of things that can be called fallacies in regular conversation, because we're not submitting proofread theses for peer review).

I'm not saying your position is inconsistent or anything like that. I'm just saying you're indulging in the same things you accuse others of doing. Everyone has blind spots, it's natural, but if we're discussing Reagan and his legacy, I'm always going to go to the HIV/AIDs crisis, because it was a disaster. Categorically, factually. No mythology required.

 

[amadeus]

One of the dangers of discussing something on the Internet is reading sarcasm when none is actually there.

If that is the case, then I misread your post. I would say that if in the future you don’t want the wrong inferences made, ask a direct question about the issue. “Huh” came across to me as sarcastic.

The same goes for starting the fallacy game, i.e. "moving the goalposts". Moving the goalposts is what you're doing here,

I disagree because I don’t think I ever changed my metrics. I was never asked for my opinion on the matter, or why I did not think the Reagan/AIDS was significant in this discussion.

Everyone has blind spots, it's natural,

I admit to having biases, but those biases do not prevent me from trying to take a more objective, if there is such a thing as objectivity in politics, look at the Reagan legacy.

but if we're discussing Reagan and his legacy, I'm always going to go to the HIV/AIDs crisis, because it was a disaster.

I don’t think a hypothetical 2nd Carter term or a Ted Kennedy presidency, by which we could compare the results, would be dramatically different from the present outcomes.

I know it’s hard to come up with the what-ifs, but I’m just going by how the Democrats, and the general public, reacted in Reagan’s first term. By my standard, I don’t think he was any better or worse than the alternatives.

 

[Gorbles]

“Huh” came across to me as sarcastic.

A noteworthy "huh", much like I'd say it out loud. It's an observation. The question is what was implicit, to be fair. But I wasn't obliging anything, just making the observation.

I disagree because I don’t think I ever changed my metrics. I was never asked for my opinion on the matter, or why I did not think the Reagan/AIDS was significant in this discussion.

The pivot to "I don't have to use sarcasm nor backpedal" in response to an ongoing tangent about world leaders (that you started), which seemingly had no connection at all except to cheekily connect back to my use of "huh" The emote is genuine, I'm not annoyed or anything. It was a cheeky linguistic choice (imo).

We're talking about inferences, and you avoiding the topic of HIV/AIDs and not answering why you didn't think it was significant because you weren't asked is again, well, bias. Right? Optics and all that. Maybe a position should be volunteered, so we all know where we stand? Generally speaking, for future reference, as in this thread you answer me here:

I don’t think a hypothetical 2nd Carter term or a Ted Kennedy presidency, by which we could compare the results, would be dramatically different from the present outcomes.

I know it’s hard to come up with the what-ifs, but I’m just going by how the Democrats, and the general public, reacted in Reagan’s first term. By my standard, I don’t think he was any better or worse than the alternatives.

And this is where we're talking past each other I think. I'm not talking about who could've done better. I'm saying why his response was bad. If anyone else had been in, and anyone else had done (arguably) as poorly as he, we would be discussing them instead, and this thread wouldn't exist in its current form.

I'm not interested in justifying past failures by the unprovable assertion of "likely nobody could've done better". Not only is it unprovable, it's made in such a way to be complimentary. But someone else could've been better. We'll never know. What we do know is what happened, factually. And people are going to criticise him for it. You may consider this unreasonable, but I would consider the fact that the AIDs crisis was so devastating to LGBTQ communities (literally devastating) a justifiable black mark on whatever legacy he hoped to have.

 

[Farm Boy]

Ryan White bought the perception shift with the time he had. More accurate than throwing it a Reagan, that I can tell.

 

[Hygro]

Well, the good guys were getting assassinated.
Then the followup good guys weren't that good.

Reagan was one of the bad guys. But the Democrats had a lot of bad agents in the 1970s. Carter was awesome except one of the absolute worst for monetary policy, which set the stage, when he should have pushed back against what Nixon and Ford were doing that were laying the groundwork.

Since it's easiest to criticize the people most similar to me in terms of "sides", I will place my blame on those who were so stupid as forget their economics in the face of media criticism, and too cowardly to speak the truth before, when they remembered it. Teach someone the truth, and two days later they hear something reasonable but wrong, can't connect the dots so they synthesize something easier, and then straight up forget what's real.

The American people deserved to know how money and debt worked, the Democrats didn't tell them. Instead the Republicans took that knowledge and printed trillions since Ronald Reagan for the existing rich. The problem has been the takeover through paid media, and the bad guys have been getting new free printed money, a minimum of tens of billions virtually every year a Republican has been president since 1981, and literal trillions in a year when the PPP loans were forgiven.

How do you compete with that?

It's so bad that the economically horsebutt gold standard was better the otherwise superior system of pure chartalism.

 

[Farm Boy]

The cross of gold itself?

That's a statement, Hygro! I'm surprised, but why better? Like what made it so?

 

[Hygro]

With great power comes great responsibility. The gold standard is objectively bad economics, lower power. But we didn't act responsibly after getting rid of it. Tax cuts for the rich, aka money printing for the already successful, free money for future oligarchs, doesn't cause general inflation. Where it does cause inflation makes people excited to get theirs (stocks, housing prices). It causes people to erroneously worry about "the debt" so then they want to cut spending for others, but not raise taxes so much. And as the worry is erroneous, as we don't run out of money, this bad economic regime is as stable as the political regime that runs it, which, while should collapse into dictatorship and war (democracy fails into oligarchy which fails into dictatorship into war), is bad the entire it time it is getting worse. There's no rush for it to collapse, and there's no assurance of something better if it does. So it should be fought head on, primary by primary, general by general. But the fight takes money on all sides, and the bad guys are getting free infusions with every Republican government.

The good news, the Democrats finally figured it out. 3rd Way is dead. It only took two generations. But until we can correct course and make the full fiat system work in our (the USA, the people of the world, capital D Democracy) favor, during peacetime it was better under gold. Inevitably 3rd Way will find a way back, but hopefully we can shove them off to the Republicans. Let them be anxious about not scaring the ignorant center.

 

[Farm Boy]

Gold was awful. So much despair.

But that's some stuff to think about. Thank you for the time to share it.

 

[Joij21]

It began with Woodrow Wilson creating the J.P Morgan global banking cartel after J.P. Morgan himself killed off his enemies by blowing them up on the Titanic (which he owned btw) then blaming it on an iceberg and collecting the insurance.

All while he was financing the various military industrial complexes of Europe over the previous decades and incited not long thereafter the Black Hand to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand, thus triggering the whole mess we find ourselves in today.

 

[Zardnaar]

It began with Woodrow Wilson creating the J.P Morgan global banking cartel after J.P. Morgan himself killed off his enemies by blowing them up on the Titanic (which he owned btw) then blaming it on an iceberg and collecting the insurance.

All while he was financing the various military industrial complexes of Europe over the previous decades and incited not long thereafter the Black Hand to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand, thus triggering the whole mess we find ourselves in today.

Needs more Jews.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

USA had serious problems long before Reagan, like never particular great to begin with, like at 1945 its life expectency was lower than a recently occupied Denmark, if you compare the situation most other countries was at the time after ww2 and before Reagan USA don't look particular impressive and afterwards that clearly starts to show. You can't blame anyone particular for the problems in USA, a country wiht over 300 million people today did not go from good to bad due to one president decades ago, also not everything is worse today, such as innovation seems way better today for USA than it was during and before Reagan era. Also things like life expectency still trended upwards after Reagan.

Even in worst case, USA is likely a better country today than it was during or before Reagan. All the bad stuff about USA today existed in USA of the past before Reagan as well, the povetry, the awful work conditions and so on.

This graph I made using the values here https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/us_stat.htm given an idea USA actually have become significantly more innovative decades after Reagan, assuming patents per capita translate to innovation. Last time USA reached similar numbers was like 1880-1920s.

 

[Remorseless1]

The worst thing Ronnie Raygun did in office was his "Southern Strategy,
" using many southerners' extreme dislike of the Voting Rights and Civil Rights acts to get them to switch to the GOP, which in turn led to the creeping takeover of the party by southern evangelicals that was complete by the Bush 43 administration. From there grew the Tea Party movement, which produced the basic template the Trump Party uses in elections and governance, heavy on grievance and bigotry while ignoring legislating and oversight.