Opinion of Ronald Reagan?

[NYDem]

I really don't care about the study

This is why I don’t take Democrats seriously when they say, “we’re the ones who listen to the scientists!”

Dude, evaluations of presidents cannot even remotely be compared to scientific studies. It’s not even close. It’s something that’s inherently subjective and unscientific.

[TheReckoning]

I really don't care about the study

This is why I don’t take Democrats seriously when they say, “we’re the ones who listen to the scientists!”

Dude, evaluations of presidents cannot even remotely be compared to scientific studies. It’s not even close. It’s something that’s inherently subjective and unscientific.

If they’re so subjective and not based on science at all, why has if Reagan been ranked in the top half in every presidential ranking this century, and often in the top 3rd- including by Democrats?

[NYDem]

I really don't care about the study

This is why I don’t take Democrats seriously when they say, “we’re the ones who listen to the scientists!”

Dude, evaluations of presidents cannot even remotely be compared to scientific studies. It’s not even close. It’s something that’s inherently subjective and unscientific.

If they’re so subjective and not based on science at all, why has if Reagan been ranked in the top half in every presidential ranking this century, and often in the top 3rd- including by Democrats?

There’s no ifs about it. Science and the scientific method have definitions, and this isn’t it. The existence of a consensus opinion on a subject does not make that opinion a fact or make that opinion scientific. A majority of professional football analysts rank Tom Brady as the best quarterback of all time, and a majority of Christian theologians agree on the existence of the Trinity. Neither of those statements are in any way scientific, nor do they represent facts.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

ITT:

What do you think of (genocide financing) chocolate ice cream?
It sucks!
I'll have you know this survey of food scientists ranked it the 9th best flavor. Why are you so biased?

[GoTfan]

What happened in the Capitol a few days ago is the culmination of 40 years of Reaganism infesting American politics.

[Badger]

The first President I voted for and the best in my lifetime.

His 1980 tax cuts raided the SSA trust fund while giving huge tax cuts to millionaires. Iran Contra sold weapons to our enemies, he isn't Saint😭😭😭

No he isn't, but it speaks to the (lack of) quality of presidents in our lifetimes.

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were vastly better Presidents than Ronald Reagan.

What makes you so confident in that assessment, given how most independent political scientists disagree?

Because I teach history and economics and I know of the same events they do.  I believe what is going on is the right wing political scientists and historians in these surveys deliberately vote Reagan as the best President ever (or, at lowest, third best) in order to put him higher up the rankings than he would be otherwise.

Other than that, I can understand also understand some of it.  After Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter, all men essentially defeated by their offices, there were, at least, arguments in academia that the office of the Presidency should be replaced in favor of the Swiss governing model.

Reagan did restore the idea of a 'strong Presidency' and he also did play a role in successfully addressing the two top issues of the day: inflation/stagflation and the Cold War.

Gorbachev deserves the credit for ending the Cold War and Reagan's brinksmanship with the Soviet Union could have ended in a much different way, but Reagan deserves the credit for recognizing that Gorbachev was genuine.  In this, Reagan had to marginalize his own cold war hawks like Richard Perle.

Beyond that though, I invite you to try to argue that Reagan's Presidency was not 'short term gain for long term pain.'

However, because of these two major accomplishments, this is why I put Ronald Reagan as the 10th best President since 1901, out of the 20 Presidents.

Let me play Devil's Advocate on that. First regarding the elimination of stagflation / inflation. Could one not argue that inflation was ground out of the economy only at the cost of absolutely brutal depression level unemployment, the highest the country had seen in over 40 years? Furthermore wasn't it also minimized by oil development in Mexico and Venezuela which help to break the OPEC Bubble Witch had been screwing Carter and Ford previously? Please recall that in one of these touted rankings by us historians that plays Greg and 11th and actually listed the presence of on various categories such as dealing with Congress, communication with the public, Etc, Reagan was ranked near the top in the category of "Luck". This is arguably exhibit a

I'll particularly dispute the Cold War mythology. Just because Reagan barely controlled The excesses of the truly dangerous Hawks in his cabinet Like Richard Perle - - widely called The Prince of Darkness in Washington for his views - - was that particularly much of an accomplishment? After all, he couldn't control Admiral Poindexter, Oliver North, etcetera from running a shadow foreign policy. It seems like not getting into a hot War of great magnitude seems to be a very low level threshold of success, and certainly doesn't speak to any of Reagan's policies actually materially contributing towards the end of the Cold War.

1.Oil prices stabilized sometime after Reagan became President, but were still high long after the end of the recession in 1983.

https://inflationdata.com/articles/inflation-adjusted-prices/historical-crude-oil-prices-table/

It was not until 1985-1986 that oil prices collapsed.

I agree with the rest
2. At the same time as Reagan allowed Paul Volcker to enact monetary policies that Reagan knew would place the economy into a deep recession and cause massive unemployment ("if not now, when?  If not us, who?"  Reagan quoted when asked about this),  Reagan simultaneously demonized people on welfare ("welfare queens in their limousines") and massively cut welfare spending.

3.As I mentioned earlier, Reagan's large government budget deficits led to the return of inflation.  By 1990, the inflation rate (CPI) had gone from 1.9% per annum in 1986 (no doubt lowered by the collapse of oil prices) to 5.4% in 1990.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FPCPITOTLZGUSA

The higher real interest rates the Federal Reserve implemented to re-fight inflation ultimately destroyed the George H.W Bush Presidency.

4.In regards to Reagan and Gorbachev.  I mean, they did reach an agreement to actually reduce the number of nuclear weapons each side had.  I think Reagan deserves credit for recognizing Gorbachev as a different type of Soviet leader and not being bound by cold war thinking.

Sure, I will grant you that. I misspoke earlier in stating that Reagan was the only post-war president to fail to achieve any Arms Control treaty with the Soviets. He did in fact ratify the INF treaty in the last several months of his presidency. I admit remembering that that was a campaign talking point of mondale's in 1984, when it was of course true , but forgot about INF.

I'll gladly give credit where credit is due and acknowledge that Reagan's foreign policy success achieving that treaty. However, likewise needs to be acknowledged that It ultimately came about from Reagan abandoning his hard-line bellicose foreign policy which had followed for most of his administration, and giving diplomacy a chance like a grown up instead of catering to the better dead than red crowd in much of his administration. Consider all the idiotic and needlessly bellicose  policies throughout the first three quarters or so of his administration, such as supporting the Nicaraguan contras, coddling the South African apartheid regime, allowing Military Arms to be traded to a ran throw it back door Channel circumventing the will of the our elected Congress, firmly refusing to meaningfully attempt arms reduction negotiations with the Soviets (even though that last one was admittedly hampered somewhat by the Soviet leadership repeatedly dying on him) etc etc. None of these so-called tough on communism policies in any way help Reagan achieve his late Administration successes like INF, and frankly and be considered to have harmed our fight against the Soviets by tending to isolate us diplomatically from our allies, when set alliances were aren't number one strength against the Communist world.

In the end, for all Republicans rever Reagan for supposedly winning the Cold War by getting tough on the commies, he was no more than a single Link in the chain, or perhaps one more nail in the coffin, extending all the way back to Truman right up through Carter before him and the ongoing bipartisan policy of containment, which Reagan initially tried to undermined until halfway through his second term. Furthermore, his few foreign policy successes stem from abandoning needless belligerence the first several years which brought no successes of note, and it worst undermined our efforts to defeat communism with our International alliances and standing. The Republican memory of Reagan and what impact he had on ending the cold war is quite Divergent from actual history.

As painful as it is for Republicans to hear, if they really want to celebrate the person who did more than anyone else in history to breaking up the Eastern Bloc, they shouldn't look to Reagan, but rather Mikhail Gorbachev.

[TheReckoning]

What happened in the Capitol a few days ago is the culmination of 40 years of Reaganism infesting American politics.

How so?

[TheReckoning]

I really don't care about the study

This is why I don’t take Democrats seriously when they say, “we’re the ones who listen to the scientists!”

Dude, evaluations of presidents cannot even remotely be compared to scientific studies. It’s not even close. It’s something that’s inherently subjective and unscientific.

If they’re so subjective and not based on science at all, why has if Reagan been ranked in the top half in every presidential ranking this century, and often in the top 3rd- including by Democrats?

There’s no ifs about it. Science and the scientific method have definitions, and this isn’t it. The existence of a consensus opinion on a subject does not make that opinion a fact or make that opinion scientific. A majority of professional football analysts rank Tom Brady as the best quarterback of all time, and a majority of Christian theologians agree on the existence of the Trinity. Neither of those statements are in any way scientific, nor do they represent facts.

I mean, if there’s a general consensus of scientists, you can bet they’re right. This isn’t something they pulled out of their ass either, they’res actual research into how good presidents were- which is why people like Lincoln always rank in the top, and people like Buchanan always rank in the bottom.

[Badger]

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.

To answer your question, in these polls I have seen ranking Reagan in the decent category somewhere around low double-digits or even high single-digits, I've yet to read any explanation from the polled experts as to why he is ranked so relatively favorably. As mentioned, the one poll I saw that ranked him 11th at least further ranked the presidents in a number of categories, Reagan was very high on the list for communicating with the public, which is undeniable, as well as I kid you not, luck. Which come to think of it is also pretty undeniable.

But until then, I'll gladly stick by my own analysis, having live through and followed his presidency like a hawk from the day he was elected.

 His foreign policy is insanely overrated by Republicans when, at best late in his term he got aboard the internationalist Diplomatic train and had some moderate successes, and was thus merely a link in the chain running back to Truman rather than St Ronnie Slayer of the Communist dragon, and at worst were outright counterproductive embarrassments like Iran-Contra, his Nicaraguan policy, supporting the apartheid regime, etc etc.

His economic policy, despite some laughable attempts to credit the economic growth that arose years after he left the presidency with an intervening recession as being somehow related to him, created several years of growth with the economic equivalent of a debt-fuelled sugar high. He slashed social welfare programs for the poor and working-class and in its place slashed income taxes for very wealthiest individuals and corporations in the country, and thereby further started truly disastrous blueprint which continues to the present day of running our government inordinately on issuing debt rather than collecting Fair taxes from the wealthy.

His social policy brought the religious right into a full governing partnership with the GOP, again another dangerous precedent which continues to this day. He furthermore started the Republican policy of being overly and unapologetically opposed to civil rights and minorities in order to double down on the white vote that firmly launched the gop's trajectory towards even attempting to be the party of Lincoln towards eventually evolving into the de facto white nationalist party it has become today under Trump.

Yes, polled expert presidential historians, I'm all ears for your reasoning as to why Reagan even reaches the level of average president let alone hovering near the top 10!

[TheReckoning]

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.

To answer your question, in these polls I have seen ranking Reagan in the decent category somewhere around low double-digits or even high single-digits, I've yet to read any explanation from the polled experts as to why he is ranked so relatively favorably. As mentioned, the one poll I saw that ranked him 11th at least further ranked the presidents in a number of categories, Reagan was very high on the list for communicating with the public, which is undeniable, as well as I kid you not, luck. Which come to think of it is also pretty undeniable.

But until then, I'll gladly stick by my own analysis, having live through and followed his presidency like a hawk from the day he was elected.

 His foreign policy is insanely overrated by Republicans when, at best late in his term he got aboard the internationalist Diplomatic train and had some moderate successes, and was thus merely a link in the chain running back to Truman rather than St Ronnie Slayer of the Communist dragon, and at worst were outright counterproductive embarrassments like Iran-Contra, his Nicaraguan policy, supporting the apartheid regime, etc etc.

His economic policy, despite some laughable attempts to credit the economic growth that arose years after he left the presidency with an intervening recession as being somehow related to him, created several years of growth with the economic equivalent of a debt-fuelled sugar high. He slashed social welfare programs for the poor and working-class and in its place slashed income taxes for very wealthiest individuals and corporations in the country, and thereby further started truly disastrous blueprint which continues to the present day of running our government inordinately on issuing debt rather than collecting Fair taxes from the wealthy.

His social policy brought the religious right into a full governing partnership with the GOP, again another dangerous precedent which continues to this day. He furthermore started the Republican policy of being overly and unapologetically opposed to civil rights and minorities in order to double down on the white vote that firmly launched the gop's trajectory towards even attempting to be the party of Lincoln towards eventually evolving into the de facto white nationalist party it has become today under Trump.

Yes, polled expert presidential historians, I'm all ears for your reasoning as to why Reagan even reaches the level of average president let alone hovering near the top 10!

Have you actually read any analysis of his presidency by political scientists?

Im aware you think Reagan was abysmal. But Republicans also think Obama was abysmal.

I’m sure you would disagree with the analysis of Republicans.

It sounds like you believe there is some sort of massive conspiracy among political scientists (who mostly are left-leaning) to make Reagan look far better than he actually was.

[NYDem]

I really don't care about the study

This is why I don’t take Democrats seriously when they say, “we’re the ones who listen to the scientists!”

Dude, evaluations of presidents cannot even remotely be compared to scientific studies. It’s not even close. It’s something that’s inherently subjective and unscientific.

If they’re so subjective and not based on science at all, why has if Reagan been ranked in the top half in every presidential ranking this century, and often in the top 3rd- including by Democrats?

There’s no ifs about it. Science and the scientific method have definitions, and this isn’t it. The existence of a consensus opinion on a subject does not make that opinion a fact or make that opinion scientific. A majority of professional football analysts rank Tom Brady as the best quarterback of all time, and a majority of Christian theologians agree on the existence of the Trinity. Neither of those statements are in any way scientific, nor do they represent facts.

I mean, if there’s a general consensus of scientists, you can bet they’re right. This isn’t something they pulled out of their ass either, they’res actual research into how good presidents were- which is why people like Lincoln always rank in the top, and people like Buchanan always rank in the bottom.

It’s not objective, it’s not falsifiable, it’s not science. A consensus of historians is not science, no matter how much you want it to be.

[TheReckoning]

I really don't care about the study

This is why I don’t take Democrats seriously when they say, “we’re the ones who listen to the scientists!”

Dude, evaluations of presidents cannot even remotely be compared to scientific studies. It’s not even close. It’s something that’s inherently subjective and unscientific.

If they’re so subjective and not based on science at all, why has if Reagan been ranked in the top half in every presidential ranking this century, and often in the top 3rd- including by Democrats?

There’s no ifs about it. Science and the scientific method have definitions, and this isn’t it. The existence of a consensus opinion on a subject does not make that opinion a fact or make that opinion scientific. A majority of professional football analysts rank Tom Brady as the best quarterback of all time, and a majority of Christian theologians agree on the existence of the Trinity. Neither of those statements are in any way scientific, nor do they represent facts.

I mean, if there’s a general consensus of scientists, you can bet they’re right. This isn’t something they pulled out of their ass either, they’res actual research into how good presidents were- which is why people like Lincoln always rank in the top, and people like Buchanan always rank in the bottom.

It’s not objective, it’s not falsifiable, it’s not science. A consensus of historians is not science, no matter how much you want it to be.

It’s only subjective to a point. There’s a reason why Reagan is highly-ranked even among Democratic scholars- even though, if they’re anything like the Democrats on this forum, think he’s the AntiChrist.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

What do you think a political scientist does TheReckoning?

[Alcibiades]

What do you think a political scientist does TheReckoning?

These rankings are actually generally done by historians, so they’re even less scientific. (This is not to try to discredit the discipline in any way, in fact I loathe natural scientists who engage in humanities-bashing and think they’re so superior, but it is just simply not quantifiable or falsifiable in the way even a social science study might be, let alone a natural science one.)

[vitoNova]

Many of our current social/political dysfunctions can be directly traced back to him.  

[Oregon Eagle Politics]

textbook definition of "HP"

[TheReckoning]

What do you think a political scientist does TheReckoning?

These rankings are actually generally done by historians, so they’re even less scientific. (This is not to try to discredit the discipline in any way, in fact I loathe natural scientists who engage in humanities-bashing and think they’re so superior, but it is just simply not quantifiable or falsifiable in the way even a social science study might be, let alone a natural science one.)

The ranking I’m referring to was done by political scientists, not historians.

[TheReckoning]

What do you think a political scientist does TheReckoning?

Analyze politics.

[TheReckoning]

textbook definition of "HP"

Didn’t the guy in your signature send 120,000 people to prison for the crime of being a certain ethnicity?

That definitely sounds like a HP to me.

[VAR]

Meh/okay/decent president, but not a fan of him as a person. Didn't vote

[MillennialModerate]

The fact that the Democrats on this board are calling the 7th best president ever (according to independent analysts) a HP show they aren’t as objective as they think.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/19/opinion/how-does-trump-stack-up-against-the-best-and-worst-presidents.html

I wanted to agree with you but then I clicked on that link.

That survey has JFK at 16 which is hysterically bad and Truman at 6?!?! (uh No). LBJ shouldnt be near the Top 10. If this was purely domestic then okay but Vietnam drops him into the 20's.

I think Reagan was a hypocirte in many areas especially on the deficit.

I do think he was a good if not GREAT President for the 8 years he was in office and I guess thats what the rankings are judging but his economic policies have led to DECADES of middle class decline

[TheReckoning]

The fact that the Democrats on this board are calling the 7th best president ever (according to independent analysts) a HP show they aren’t as objective as they think.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/19/opinion/how-does-trump-stack-up-against-the-best-and-worst-presidents.html

I wanted to agree with you but then I clicked on that link.

That survey has JFK at 16 which is hysterically bad and Truman at 6?!?! (uh No). LBJ shouldnt be near the Top 10. If this was purely domestic then okay but Vietnam drops him into the 20's.

I think Reagan was a hypocirte in many areas especially on the deficit.

I do think he was a good if not GREAT President for the 8 years he was in office and I guess thats what the rankings are judging but his economic policies have led to DECADES of middle class decline

Go check out the rankings by independents. They are a bit more fair, I believe, since they get partisanship out of the way.

I also think that these are meant to be rankings extending past their presidency’s as well, since Reagan’s standing in these surveys have increased post-presidency (not remained the same, as would be true if he was only judged on his presidency itself).

[Alcibiades]

The fact that the Democrats on this board are calling the 7th best president ever (according to independent analysts) a HP show they aren’t as objective as they think.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/19/opinion/how-does-trump-stack-up-against-the-best-and-worst-presidents.html

I wanted to agree with you but then I clicked on that link.

That survey has JFK at 16 which is hysterically bad and Truman at 6?!?! (uh No). LBJ shouldnt be near the Top 10. If this was purely domestic then okay but Vietnam drops him into the 20's.

I think Reagan was a hypocirte in many areas especially on the deficit.

I do think he was a good if not GREAT President for the 8 years he was in office and I guess thats what the rankings are judging but his economic policies have led to DECADES of middle class decline

Go check out the rankings by independents. They are a bit more fair, I believe, since they get partisanship out of the way.

I also think that these are meant to be rankings extending past their presidency’s as well, since Reagan’s standing in these surveys have increased post-presidency (not remained the same, as would be true if he was only judges on his presidency itself).

I’m not sure how including Reagan’s post-presidency would improve his ranking, seeing as he had Alzheimer’s for most of it, so was not exactly active compared to say, Jimmy Carter.

[TheReckoning]

The fact that the Democrats on this board are calling the 7th best president ever (according to independent analysts) a HP show they aren’t as objective as they think.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/19/opinion/how-does-trump-stack-up-against-the-best-and-worst-presidents.html

I wanted to agree with you but then I clicked on that link.

That survey has JFK at 16 which is hysterically bad and Truman at 6?!?! (uh No). LBJ shouldnt be near the Top 10. If this was purely domestic then okay but Vietnam drops him into the 20's.

I think Reagan was a hypocirte in many areas especially on the deficit.

I do think he was a good if not GREAT President for the 8 years he was in office and I guess thats what the rankings are judging but his economic policies have led to DECADES of middle class decline

Go check out the rankings by independents. They are a bit more fair, I believe, since they get partisanship out of the way.

I also think that these are meant to be rankings extending past their presidency’s as well, since Reagan’s standing in these surveys have increased post-presidency (not remained the same, as would be true if he was only judges on his presidency itself).

I’m not sure how including Reagan’s post-presidency would improve his ranking, seeing as he had Alzheimer’s for most of it, so was not exactly active compared to say, Jimmy Carter.

What I mean by that is, they analyze the effects of the presidency extending beyond itself. Reagan left office in 89’, but he’s probably one of the most consequential presidents (in good ways and bad) since FDR.

[John Dule]

The fact that the Democrats on this board are calling the 7th best president ever (according to independent analysts) a HP show they aren’t as objective as they think.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/19/opinion/how-does-trump-stack-up-against-the-best-and-worst-presidents.html

Woodrow Wilson is also ranked in the top 10 presidents by """historical experts.""" Shows what they know.