RobAnybody
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Oh, I didn't mean to imply there was a reason for it. Just to say how he is perceived. It's a point of faith. It's a given. An axiom, kinda. I can't support it. It just... is.
Ronald Reagan
- Thread starter LucyDuke
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BasketCase
Username sez it all
Then what is? The Voter has the final say in American elections; is there some authority above the Voters.....? Unless somebody can come up with something else, my answer is the best one: it's the Voters who decide. And, unlike most other Presidents, Reagan's approval ratings have continued to go up after he left office, and indeed after he died.
He was one of the very few Presidents who actually did manage to reach across "The Aisle". Probably the jewel in Reagan's crown was that he actually got the Jewish vote. (Jews almost always vote strongly to the left)
Every President since has said they want to get the two parties working together, but all of them, right up to Obama today, lied.
The oil embargo ended two years before Carter was even elected. While ancillary effects from the embargo continued throughout the Carter administration, they also affected the country during Reagan's tenure; they also obviously gave the Ford administration serious fits.
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
I think Ajidica might have been referring to the 1979 crisis, not the oil embargo. The 1979 crisis being entirely a government-created crisis: Nixon imposed price controls and other ridiculous regulations. Carter, to his credit, scrapped the price controls but didn't get rid of the other regulations, so there were still shortages and lines. This only happened in the U.S.; everywhere else, you could still get gas and no lines.
Then what is? The Voter has the final say in American elections; is there some authority above the Voters.....? Unless somebody can come up with something else, my answer is the best one: it's the Voters who decide. And, unlike most other Presidents, Reagan's approval ratings have continued to go up after he left office, and indeed after he died.
He was one of the very few Presidents who actually did manage to reach across "The Aisle". Probably the jewel in Reagan's crown was that he actually got the Jewish vote. (Jews almost always vote strongly to the left)
Every President since has said they want to get the two parties working together, but all of them, right up to Obama today, lied.
I guess you missed the Rep filibustering the last few years there...
Oh, and Napoleon´s ratings also went up after he left the stage. The fact that someone´s ratings go up after death should actually tell you something about how human memory works. (Or that people like him better know they know for sure the person in question is dead.) How it relates to how good someone was in office is entirely unclear, however.
Btw, following your line of reasoning FDR was a way better president then Reagan, since he got elected more often, you know, by the Voters.
bathsheba666
Fast 'n Bulbous
Is the takeaway that delusion is an essential component of decline ?
Tahuti
Writing Deity
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Price controls can make sense if increased prices are the result of increasing demand (expressed in currency) but supply can keep up: Think of for-profit health care for instance. However, it is complete idiocy to apply price controls when increased prices were the result of supply shrinkage, like in the 1973 oil blockade by the Arab countries. And as Mbest95 noted, the oil crisis was in 1973.
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
You're judging popularity. That's not the same as quality. The voters or approval ratings do not decide quality, they decide popularity.Then what is? The Voter has the final say in American elections; is there some authority above the Voters.....? Unless somebody can come up with something else, my answer is the best one: it's the Voters who decide. And, unlike most other Presidents, Reagan's approval ratings have continued to go up after he left office, and indeed after he died.
By your metric Bush jr. at one time was a way better president than Reagan.Is that the case you're going to make?
So the popularity among people who weren't there is more important than the popularity of those that were? 
It's particularly funny because those who weren't there are constantly told false things about Reagan. Things like "He won the Cold War" " He defeated communism" and all the other mythology that has been invented to make the man a hero. While all the negative stuff about him is hidden. The vast corruption of his cabinet officials and appointees. The doubling of the national debt, not for any great need, but because as an executive he fundamentally lacked the ability to manage those people who answered to him face to face in his own office. His core of true stupidity that made him believe that people's honesty, integrity, competence and correctness was defined by their political ideology and loyalty.
It's particularly funny because those who weren't there are constantly told false things about Reagan. Things like "He won the Cold War" " He defeated communism" and all the other mythology that has been invented to make the man a hero. While all the negative stuff about him is hidden. The vast corruption of his cabinet officials and appointees. The doubling of the national debt, not for any great need, but because as an executive he fundamentally lacked the ability to manage those people who answered to him face to face in his own office. His core of true stupidity that made him believe that people's honesty, integrity, competence and correctness was defined by their political ideology and loyalty.
kochman
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Actually, yes. In the heat of the moment, some things aren't taken into consideration, facts are unknown to the general public, etc.
After a while, we see how everything shaked out... and in Reagan's case, it shook out quite well. I don't know why this bothers you so much, it is typical for most presidents... they have a legacy.
We all tend to look back at Clinton with a rosier perception than most had at the time too, and FDR, Lincoln (I mean, the country went into Civil War over him for crying out loud... talk about wildly unpopular! Draft riots, etc...)...
Don't be offended that Reagan, for all his warts and pimples, was a great president. It doesn't make today's Repub party better or something...
Only it didn't come out extremely well, did it? It came out extremely poorly. Your children, your grandchildren, and your great grandchildren will be materially poorer throughout their lives because Reagan was president. That's Reagan's real legacy.
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
So Reagan wasn't that much different from his predecessors or successors after all.
useless
Social Justice Rogue
Except he is idolized to a bizarre degree.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Have they exploded his face into the side of a mountain too?
He was the opposite. Those presidents who followed the Keynesian model made the nation and all of the people in it far richer over time. Half the total annual GDP of the nation only exists because of positive intervention in the economy. If you want to go back to the more "free market" approach that existed before that, and that Reagan set us back on a course to, then you lose up to a 1/4 of annual growth per year in perpetuity.
kochman
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Except, it did come out extremely well. The Soviet Union fell, Eastern Europe was freed... the specter of WW3 and MAD went away...
The fact that you are trying to blame Reagan for not only my non-existent kids, or grandkids, but great grandkids have a harder time... it's completely insane. Completely. I won't even address it further... as if whatever "damage" you perceive as having been done could never have been undone in the following 100 years of presidents, etc... unbelievable.
That's like blaming Hoover for today's problems, completely insane.
Except, of course, that Reagan was irrelevant to what happened in the USSR and Eastern Europe. But he was very relevant to ruining US economic policy.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
I'm still waiting for you to explain what any of this has to do with Ronald Reagan. Nobody ever attributes this stuff to Thatcher or Mitterand, so what makes him so special?
kochman
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Wow, so, based on nothing more than your very strong opinion, you've completely changed my mind.
Even top Soviets gave Reagan/Arms Race credit is catalyzing the fall, not "completely irrelevant".
You've yet to detail this PERMANENT economic damage, which according to you, is about the only thing he actually did... it should be easy to demonstrate.
Please, support your opinions with more than foaming at the mouth over it... Reasonable sources, too, please...
Even top Soviets gave Reagan/Arms Race credit is catalyzing the fall, not "completely irrelevant".
You've yet to detail this PERMANENT economic damage, which according to you, is about the only thing he actually did... it should be easy to demonstrate.
Please, support your opinions with more than foaming at the mouth over it... Reasonable sources, too, please...
