Opinion of Ronald Reagan?

[Red Velvet]

The Margaret Thatcher of the US, but way less interesting and not as controversial as her. Hardcore neoliberalism injected in the veins.

[Red Velvet]

People can argue that Reagan is bad, but no one can deny he set the stage for a generation.

He was considered way too radical before being elected and after he left power both democrats and republicans molded themselves under his influence: Light Reaganism vs Hard Reaganism.

So he obviously was “great” in terms of power and impact. Discussion whether that impact was great or terrible. And it depends for who, for millionaires he certainly was the best of all time. Income inequality skyrocketed in US during the 80s and only keeps growing since then.





All the drastic drop of inequality thanks to FDR work in the 30s and 40s, which set the stage for his successors, is practically almost all reversed by now. Rich keep getting richer and the poor are poorer and Reagan started the trend.

No wonder US is on brink of a Democratic collapse lol. There was massive civil unrest with the 1929 crisis, in a time inequality was at the highest ever recorded in the US, but at least there was someone smart to apply the policies needed at the time, as FDR did.

It’s an open question Biden will break away from Reaganism and go back to a FDR track, he should start listening to Bernie.

[Red Velvet]

A right-wing extremist who shared his fellow Californian Richard Nixon’s criminality and racism but with worse economic policies and a sunny affect to more effectively mask the cruelty of his policies. Responsible for so many negative developments, ushered in the stifling bipartisan conservative consensus, and paved the way for Donald Trump (the Boomer New Yorker version of Reagan). Massive HP.

Can I ask you why you think you know better than a survey of independent political scientists who ranked him 7th of all presidents?

And, did you seriously just compare Reagan to Trump? They are not even close in terms of governance.

The long term effects of the Washington consensus formed in late 80s and how it shaped the world are very damaging. The longer time it passes, the easier it gets to notice.

Pinochet in Chile, Thatcher in UK and Reagan in US is like the trinity of hell to many people. You can disagree about the negative effects being overstated or not, but you’re missing the point people make when you bring the “US political scientist” perspective that deliberately judges these people based on very specifically picked patterns and indicators cold data, ignoring all human subjectivity and also all the long-term effects.

So much that these “specialized” rankings usually diverge a lot from each other. They also change a lot as time passes, because you can’t take out the subjectivity aspect. If anything, the reckoning that comes from current unrest makes Reagan look worse because it all can be traced back to him. Naturally people who just want a more Keynesian capitalism back will hate him.

Even then, not all rankings are that favorable of Reagan. Siena puts him on par with Clinton and Obama, which even if they consider it decent enough, it’s far from the “greatness” associated to FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Lincoln, etc. But it’s a mistake to base yourself on these too firmly regardless of what they say. They’re mostly pointless and serve better to understand how these people tend to be remembered by specific groups.

It’s quite something to see people who identify as patriotic conservatives with angry anticapitalist discourse about corporations and elites invading the US capitol wanting to kill their neoliberal leaders. And yet they are really convinced they’re fighting against communism/socialism. That’s the biggest evidence that some major political “castration” happened in the past and they were increasingly brainwashed. And a lot of that can be traced back to Reagan, even if the effects increased slowly.