Today Republicans are celebrating a high holy day of their own, the 100th birthday of Saint Ronald the Immaculate. Conservatives come from far and wide to extol the virtues of the perfect president. However, I remember the Reagan years too well for this to make sense. Even though Reagan was an arch-conservative in his day, the political spectrum has shifted so far to the right, that today’s Republicans would consider him a liberal and hound him out of the Republican Party, as they have others that have shown the slightest inkling of moderation.
…ThinkProgress has compiled a list of the top 10 things conservatives rarely mention when talking about President Reagan:
1. Reagan was a serial tax raiser...
2. Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit…
3. Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts...
4. Reagan grew the size of the federal government tremendously...
5. Reagan did little to fight a woman’s right to chose…
6. Reagan was a “bellicose peacenik.”…
7. Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants…
8. Reagan illegally funneled weapons to Iran…
9. Reagan vetoed a comprehensive anti-Apartheid act…
10. Reagan helped create the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden…
Conservatives seem to be in such denial about the less flattering aspects of Reagan; it sometimes appears as if they genuinely don’t know the truth of his legacy… [emphasis original]
Inserted from <Think Progress>
I provided only a small part of the original article here. There is more before and after and a section documenting each of the numbered headings here. It’s worth the read.
I would disagree with the author on one point, number 9. I think today’s republicans would be in favor of Reagan’s veto.
Even Republican mythology is based on lies.
15 Responses to “Today’s Republicans Would Kick Reagan Out”
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I disagree that Reagan had much in common with liberals. Liberals and Progressives:
– Do not grow government
– Do not raise taxes
– Do not throw mentally ill people out into the streets
– Do not grow deficits
– Do not illegally trade arms to foreign dictatorships (right now, we just give them money)
– Do not raise unemployment
So, he seems to fit right in with today’s neo-conservative thinking. What they say and what they do are at opposite ends of the spectrum, mainly because they’re lying hypocrites. In that latter sense, every one of today’s neo-cons are Reagan’s brothers and sisters. And the other similarity is that all of them appear to have a disease akin to Alzheimer’s.
Marva, I agree. When I said that he is too liberal, I didn’t mean that he was actually liberal. I was s[peaking from the perspective to today’s Republicans, for whom Goebbels might be too liberal.
TomCat,
Gats off to you and Think Progress for exposing the lies found in the Reagan myth. The guy was a poor and minority-hating medicre President who appealed to the country’s darker, more self-centered side. The “ME Generation” began with the start of his presidency and we are still suffering the bad aftereffects of it! Good riddance, Reagan!
Thanks Jack. He was a personable actor playing a role, while others pulled the strings.
It is business as usual for the imperial state to give or trade arms with autocrats and to give or loan money to undemocratic regimes to buy arms. This is true of Republican and Democratic administrations, and it is certainly true under liberal Democrats. In fact, post-WWII militarism is largely a liberal project that the conservatives have been happy to go along with and to use as a club against the Left (the cynicism and emptiness of conservative support for the military can be seen in its treatment of returning veterans). Although since the 1970s, the GOP has controlled the WH for more years than the Democrats, the Congress has been mostly Democratic. This coalition has presided during the decades in which this country has suffered a prolonged economic decline, in which the lives of the majority of people have gotten steadily meaner, and liberties that took decades of struggle to achieve have been eaten away. There is no question that Liberal rhetoric is more palatable than the palaver that issues from the Right, but in practical terms it has been the so-called Liberals (if you identify Clinton and Obama as such) who have delivered for their corporate and military overseers. The only way the country can recover from 40 years of mismanagement is with different leadership: a New Deal-style Democratic Party; a Labor party; a socialist party. One, two, many Bernie Sanders!
Welcome John. 🙂
I agree with much as what you say. I am a Democrat, because I may have some slight influence improving that party’s faults, while the Republican party is beyond hope of restoration and needs to go the way of the Whigs. If I could clone Bernie, I would.
A humorous Birthday Cartoon “honoring” Ronnie Raygun “accomplishments” (and we’re still reeling from those “accomplishments”):
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2011/2/4/059/83775/98#c98
Love it!
Lets not forget that before his first election he actively subverted Carter’s foreign policy by negotiating with Iran to release the embassy hostages 15 minutes after he was sworn in. sounds near as treasonous as W invading a sovereign nation that actually was a secular buffer between Iran and the rest of the world. but what the hell Ronnie was a god of fiction and film as SAG president then knowing how to bust unions which makes him a treasonous hypocrite.
Oh how I miss the man!
Good point, Mark. How despicable that was!
Reagan bullshitted his way into the presidency on the premise that government was the enemy, and then spent his entire time in office making government the enemy. When future historians write about the rise and fall of America, they will point to the election of Ronald Reagan as the beginning of the end. I attended one of his whistle-stop speeches the first time he ran for president and walked away thinking “this man is a joke, no one could possibly ever take him seriously.” I wish I’d paid closer attention. Now that the party of nyet has made such things socially acceptable, I also wish that Hinkley had been a better shot.
John I agree with everything you said except for the last. Assassination is not the answer, even for one as vile as Reagan.
Reagan was nothing more than an actor playing the part of a President. Nothing more, nothing less.
An excellent point that echos my own sentiments.