I don't get it. I was too young when he was prez. Can someone explain? I always hear the term reagan republican. Looking back at his policies they seem dumb and I think he probably had Alzheimer's during his presidency.
Because after Repubs abandoned Abe, disowned Teddy, and distrusted Eisenhower, they needed somebody to name airports after.
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Reagan was charismatic enough to be an effective crossover candidate. His main prowess was in communication. He conveyed a sense of hope for the future. That was necessary at the time since with hostages in Iran, gasoline lines, and stagflation, this nation needed a morale boost in the worst way. Reagan was what this country needed at the time he provided it. And please...tell me what specifically was "dumb," and how could you as boy genius have done differently that was somehow magically better?
reagan = uniter not divider though he certainly swayed from the goldwater principals that today's neocons like to think he held dear. i too, do not put him at the end all be all, need to achieve, prototypical republican president.... but as a leader, similar to kennedy, he got the job done.
I wouldn't mind hearing you elaborate on your Eisenhower comment. Is it because he continued government expansion, a-la the Military-Industrial complex? Is he genuinely less well-regarded than Reagan by conservatives?
he stood toe to toe w/ the russians and didnt back down. great charisma which allowed him to deflect criticism on his policies.
His policies helped lead to the Fall of the Soviet Union without ever directly engaging them in war. It truly was the defining event of the latter half of the 20th Century. It was a great enough single event that history overlooks a ballooning deficit, the ill-advised domestic policies such as the War on Drugs, and inability to get any of his good domestic ideas passed.
Exactly. He was a crappy president, but this one achievement pretty much blinds people to all his failures.
Crappy President? Carter left a mess behind. Are you saying Reagan had nothing to do with turning the economy around, rebuilding the military, and defeating the Soviet Union?
He was great in much the same way I think Barack Obama could be great --- When he speaks you want to listen and you want to believe him. He had a way of unifying people.
Vision. All the Presidents that we remember fondly were men of vision -- and who could communicate that vision. Reagan, Kennedy and both Roosevelts were such Presidents.
Reagan was not a great President. He continue his predecessors' policies of containment against the Soviet Union, yet gets all of the credit for Soviet down fall. BTW, the Soviet down fall surprised everyone when it happened (after Reagan left office), especially the US intell community. Thus it is specious to claim that Reagan knew that the US containment policy would succeed in the short run. Reagan like JFK and Clinton was charismatic. He was the leader of the Republican party when they took over the Deep South. Some even claim that he was responsible for the Republican Resurgence of the 1980s. I see him more as the tipping point.
Uh..... no. I never said any of those things. I'd call him crappy because his only method for achieving these "accomplishments" was unprecedented defecit spending. Couple that with assinine social policies and the joys of iran-contra and the savings and loan bailout make him (in my opinion) average at best.
i think it was dumb for reagan to support terrorists in latin america. and to do business w/ saddam hussein. and to provide saddam with chemical weapons which he used against the iranians and his own people. and to covertly support the iranians in the iran-iraq war while at the same time supporting the iraqis. and it was also dumb (and illegal) to sell the iranians weapons and take the money from those illegal weapons sales and use it to fund terrorists in latin america. reagans big-government, deficit-driven economic policy was also dumb - he is probably the biggest fiscal liberal we have ever had next to bush. his domestic social policies hurt alot of people too. basically, all he has is the fall of the soviet union and that had less to do with him than the fact that he happened to be president at the right time.
But it's more than that, too. Reagan reminds me of the movie, "Crash." You find out that the guys you thought were good guys had their faults too...and you find out that the guys you thought were bad guys had their better sides as well. Reagan effect on the country had more to do with psyche than anything else. Coming out of economic craphole and Vietnam, he rallied people...he made them believe that things were possible again. He was, in some sense, a figurehead sort of person. A cult of personality. But you could argue that was most urgent at the time.
