Opinion of Ronald Reagan?

[OSR stands with Israel]

This poll is hilarious given he is ranked 8-12 to by most historians.


Anyway Massive FF

[OSR stands with Israel]

A president can be an HP and still be a good president.

I don't think Reagan was an HP. But I also think he wasn't a great president. He is very much overrated and gets too much credit and not enough blame for the things that happened during (and right) after his time in office.

He’s overrated by Republicans, but the Democrats on this Thread are acting like he’s the reincarnation of Hitler.

On character, Reagan started his campaign outside Philadelphia, MS (site of the Mississippi Burning murders of civil rights activists) with a speech on states' rights. He called African politicians monkeys in a leaked phone conversation with then President Nixon. He failed to respond to the AIDS epidemic because his party was apathetic toward gay people (even if he wasn't personally homophobic). In retrospect we can peg him as a prejudiced man who inflamed situations when he should have been a leader.

Mississippi was a swing state in 1980 and the event he was speaking at was one of the top political fairs in Mississippi so of course he would speak there. Also actually read the states rights speech instead of just looking at one soundbite and you will see the only time he was referencing states rights came to economics in the speech not civil rights

[OSR stands with Israel]

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

Where in the article does it say that? I skimmed it but didn't see the partisan breakout.

This was telling however:
"It wasn’t just Democratic support that would carve F.D.R. on Mt. Rushmore: All groups, including Republicans, named him as most deserving of that honor.

Roosevelt, the godfather of presidential liberalism, received more than twice as many votes from Republicans as Ronald Reagan, his conservative counterpart."

It's not even close either.



Nice try. I see Reagan ranked 9th, not 7th overall. So I guess only independent and Republican scholars count? I mean, comone on, even Republican scholars rank FDR higher Reagan. In the words of the Gipper, "There you go again."

So there were 8 better than him. He's ranked behind Obama, Truman, both Roosevelts, Eisenhower, et al. I am simply expressing my opinions of him growing as a teenager in the rural South sourrounded by family members who suffered under his policies but worshipped the ground he walked on.

Nice try, bro.

They oversampled Democrats in their survey, and both Democrats and Republicans will be biased. So instead, I went with Independents.

And even still, 9th puts him in the top 80% of presidents. Not exactly a HP in my book.

And have you considered how well your family members under his presidency were is not the only factor in gauging the leader of 250 million people?

It’s literally right there in the article, where Presidents are ranked as party.

Also, I’m not really understanding you’re point. You’re saying, “FDR was better than Reagan. Therefore, Reagan sucked.” How does that make any sense? I think FDR was a FF as well, as was Obama, even though he’s ranked lower by Independent scholars than Reagan.

Because in my experience he did. So what more do you want? I can't stand the man and never have, even when he was elected when I was in 5th grade. He was president during my formative years and I always loathed him even though I was in the minority where I grew up.

I'm sick of hearing about Reagan and his f***d up policies. I have been thinking about how his rhetoric has led us to where we are the last few days. I don't think I'm alone in this sentiment either.

Of all the people responsible for the Catastrophe of Trump (especially these last few days), Reagan is the last one you want to blame. Don’t pin this on him just because he also had an “R” next to his name.

Reagan was by no means perfect, and I’m sure your families experiences are a reflection of at least some of his flaws. But I’ll never get over how he was able to put the nail in the coffin for the evil Communist Bloc.

Obama made choices that hurt me and the people I care about as well. But he still had a charm that made all but the most hateful Republicans smile.

The key is that nail in the coffin was the final nail of meny hammered in over the preceding 45 years. Republicans like to mythologize Reagan is some great Slayer of the great communist Beast, when all he did was run the ball in over the goal line after the rest of the team made a 95-yard drive before bringing him in.

Seriously, name one Reagan foreign policy venture which wasn't either already supported by 98 + percent of Democrats anyway ( e. G. The Grenada invasion, supporting the mujahideen in Afghanistan which started under Carter), or wasn't a colossal mistake which did nothing to advance our victory over communism (E.G. favoring so-called constructive engagement rather than sanctions with the apartheid South African government, our support of the Nicaraguan contras which was universally reviled by every democratic government in this hemisphere , and of course led to the Iran Contra debacle).

Conservatives like to claim that the fight checks Reagan wrote the Pentagon in the 80s somehow spent communist Russia to death and push them over the edge. Unfortunately that's not true. Military documents Declassified and obtained after the fall of the Cold War demonstrated that Soviet military spending did not increase particularly much for the ladies more than the rate of inflation. Reagan baited them to try matching the spending, but the Soviets didn't bite. Instead, we spend ourselves into enormous debt and created an unparalleled precedent for deficit spending, and in the process / social programs relied on by the poor and working class set defense contractors could make a bundle ( oh, and of course Finance huge tax cuts for the wealthiest).

It’s not just “conservatives” who think Reagan was a good president. Even Democrats rank him in the top 3rd.

And I also don’t think you understand just how evil the government of Nicaragua was at the time. Fighting them was necessary.

The non-conta opposition to the Sandinistas understood they were bad, and they adamantly and furiously opposed our supporting the Contras.

In answer to your question, not all that evil since they left on their own after being defeated in elections. Hell, even Trump couldn't do that! By your own rationale NATO shoumd be actively funding left wing paramilitaries in the US to figbt against Republican attempts to subvert Democracy here.

The more salient question is whether you realize just hiw evil the Contras were?

I can’t help but find it ironic that you condemn Reagan for providing support for a group trying to overthrow people who mass executed indigenous people- because you believe he played a role in the mass executions of indigenous people.

Your post makes zero sense. Elaborate?

My point is that Sandinistas were just as bad as the Contras.

Only, if they got in power, and Communism spread through Latin America, the Cold War may have ended VERY differently. Remember that.

Ah, the discredited domino theory. Your statement is at once both hyperbolic and fantastical. To say we needed to support a group of far right-wing bloodthirsty paramilitaries to remove a government which ultimately step down after losing a free election, let alone that it would have spread communism throughout Central America or even reverse the Cold War entirely, shows a breathtaking lack of basic historical knowledge.

The Domino Theory wasn't discredited, the Soviets had the goal of turning the whole world communist.

Also Eisenhower took many similar actions in Latin America as Reagan did, and in many ways Reagan's FP was a return to Eisenhower FP which until Reagan's was by far the most confrontational to the Soviets during the Cold War.

[OSR stands with Israel]

A president can be an HP and still be a good president.

I don't think Reagan was an HP. But I also think he wasn't a great president. He is very much overrated and gets too much credit and not enough blame for the things that happened during (and right) after his time in office.

He’s overrated by Republicans, but the Democrats on this Thread are acting like he’s the reincarnation of Hitler.

He called African politicians monkeys in a leaked phone conversation with then President Nixon.

In summation: HP

You focus only on the bad while leaving out important context. Yes, Reagan said a racist thing once. He was born in 1911 and had his early childhood under a president who supported the KKK, and he held some of the prejudices of that time. If you’re calling every president who’s said something racist once a HP, then Washington, Lincoln, LBJ, and pretty much all presidents pre-Reagan were HP.

I judge people's values and deeds based on the time they lived in. There were plenty of people who were not bigots in the 1960s and 1980s, and people who had plenty of exposure to outside groups and still were bigoted are worse human beings. Reagan was an adult in control of his facilities when he chose to deliberately pander to racists for their votes. Other Republicans who had presidential ambitions chose not to, even though they were doubtless aware of previous Lily White strategies. Not valuing the humanity of some of your constituents more than votes makes a politician an HP.

You think the same of FDR?

He didn’t just make a racist comment once. He sent hundreds of thousands to an internet camp.

How’s that for “not valuing the humanity of some of your constituents more than votes”?

Yeah, I think FDR was a sh**tty guy, though an effective wartime leader and one of the best American presidents on economic policy. He sent parts of my family back to Europe to die, I'm not championing his character or actions. Pointing to another president is running from the question asked. The question is if Reagan was a Freedom Fighter or a Horrible Person. He was an HP.

And dismissing eight years of giving voice and legitimacy to racists to act like it was just a few comments is why Republicans are not going to win back people of decency.

I would argue that Reagan set of a better economic boom than FDR did, and would argue 1983-2001 was when we were at our peak not 1946-1963. The neoliberal consensus set out by Reagan did a lot of good and yes eventually it broke down but so did the post-war consensus as not everything can last forever and not everything is positive.


Bill Clinton mostly followed this economic consensus with deregulation, expansion of the type of free trade Reagan first proposed, welfare reform, capital gains tax cuts showing how influential Reagan was as a Democratic President economic policies turned out to be more similar to Reagan's than even the Rockefeller Republicans of the 1960s were let alone the Democrats of that era

[OSR stands with Israel]

A president can be an HP and still be a good president.

I don't think Reagan was an HP. But I also think he wasn't a great president. He is very much overrated and gets too much credit and not enough blame for the things that happened during (and right) after his time in office.

He’s overrated by Republicans, but the Democrats on this Thread are acting like he’s the reincarnation of Hitler.

On character, Reagan started his campaign outside Philadelphia, MS (site of the Mississippi Burning murders of civil rights activists) with a speech on states' rights. He called African politicians monkeys in a leaked phone conversation with then President Nixon. He failed to respond to the AIDS epidemic because his party was apathetic toward gay people (even if he wasn't personally homophobic). In retrospect we can peg him as a prejudiced man who inflamed situations when he should have been a leader.

Mississippi was a swing state in 1980 and the event he was speaking at was one of the top political fairs in Mississippi so of course he would speak there. Also actually read the states rights speech instead of just looking at one soundbite and you will see the only time he was referencing states rights came to economics in the speech not civil rights

I think his audience understood perfectly well what he meant by “states’ rights”, the most infamous racial dogwhistle in all politics.

lmao the problem with his admin was he abandoned any pretense of sending powers back to the states and instead helped grow the powers of the federal government as well

There was nothing wrong with the statement once you look at the context and the only problem actually is he didnt follow through on it

[OSR stands with Israel]

A president can be an HP and still be a good president.

I don't think Reagan was an HP. But I also think he wasn't a great president. He is very much overrated and gets too much credit and not enough blame for the things that happened during (and right) after his time in office.

He’s overrated by Republicans, but the Democrats on this Thread are acting like he’s the reincarnation of Hitler.

On character, Reagan started his campaign outside Philadelphia, MS (site of the Mississippi Burning murders of civil rights activists) with a speech on states' rights. He called African politicians monkeys in a leaked phone conversation with then President Nixon. He failed to respond to the AIDS epidemic because his party was apathetic toward gay people (even if he wasn't personally homophobic). In retrospect we can peg him as a prejudiced man who inflamed situations when he should have been a leader.

Mississippi was a swing state in 1980 and the event he was speaking at was one of the top political fairs in Mississippi so of course he would speak there. Also actually read the states rights speech instead of just looking at one soundbite and you will see the only time he was referencing states rights came to economics in the speech not civil rights

" gosh fellas, the dog whistle was only a couple lines in the speech. I'm sure no one in the crowd noticed!"

He. Knew. Exactly. What. He. Was. Doing.

He said it one time and not about civil rights , but about economic policy where Reagan was perfectly correct.

[OSR stands with Israel]

A president can be an HP and still be a good president.

I don't think Reagan was an HP. But I also think he wasn't a great president. He is very much overrated and gets too much credit and not enough blame for the things that happened during (and right) after his time in office.

He’s overrated by Republicans, but the Democrats on this Thread are acting like he’s the reincarnation of Hitler.

He called African politicians monkeys in a leaked phone conversation with then President Nixon.

In summation: HP

You focus only on the bad while leaving out important context. Yes, Reagan said a racist thing once. He was born in 1911 and had his early childhood under a president who supported the KKK, and he held some of the prejudices of that time. If you’re calling every president who’s said something racist once a HP, then Washington, Lincoln, LBJ, and pretty much all presidents pre-Reagan were HP.

I judge people's values and deeds based on the time they lived in. There were plenty of people who were not bigots in the 1960s and 1980s, and people who had plenty of exposure to outside groups and still were bigoted are worse human beings. Reagan was an adult in control of his facilities when he chose to deliberately pander to racists for their votes. Other Republicans who had presidential ambitions chose not to, even though they were doubtless aware of previous Lily White strategies. Not valuing the humanity of some of your constituents more than votes makes a politician an HP.

You think the same of FDR?

He didn’t just make a racist comment once. He sent hundreds of thousands to an internet camp.

How’s that for “not valuing the humanity of some of your constituents more than votes”?

Yeah, I think FDR was a sh**tty guy, though an effective wartime leader and one of the best American presidents on economic policy. He sent parts of my family back to Europe to die, I'm not championing his character or actions. Pointing to another president is running from the question asked. The question is if Reagan was a Freedom Fighter or a Horrible Person. He was an HP.

And dismissing eight years of giving voice and legitimacy to racists to act like it was just a few comments is why Republicans are not going to win back people of decency.

I would argue that Reagan set of a better economic boom than FDR did, and would argue 1983-2001 was when we were at our peak not 1946-1963. The neoliberal consensus set out by Reagan did a lot of good and yes eventually it broke down but so did the post-war consensus as not everything can last forever and not everything is positive.


Bill Clinton mostly followed this economic consensus with deregulation, expansion of the type of free trade Reagan first proposed, welfare reform, capital gains tax cuts showing how influential Reagan was as a Democratic President economic policies turned out to be more similar to Reagan's than even the Rockefeller Republicans of the 1960s were let alone the Democrats of that era

Of course you would give Reagan credit for everything positive that occurred from 1983 on for the following several decades, writing up to and including rainbows and nice weather.

Bill Clinton raised upper income taxes, remember? And the reaganites of your party, that is every single one of them, decried how this would utterly destroy the economy and vibrant gross started by Clinton. Remember that also? And then, we had at the strongest. Of post-war growth ever during the next several years under Clinton's watch. Any of this ringing a bell?

1983-1991 was a huge boom too , and again yes Clinton broke Reaganite polciy some of the time but look at the rest : Welfare Reform, Deregulation, Capital Gain Tax Cuts, Reagan style Free Trade Agreements. 

Reagan also broke with his orthodoxy when he raised capital gains tax rates in 1986 so you can say he wasnt a real Reaganite either.


Just like people credit FDR for 1946-1963 as Eisenhower continued the vast majority of FDR's Policies, Clinton continued most of Reagan's policies and actually expanded upon them.

[OSR stands with Israel]

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.

Not anymore

https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2017/?page=overall

[OSR stands with Israel]

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

Of course we're not objective. How do you think opinions work?

Saying that Reagan was a horrible president is like calling Trump an amazing president. If you want to say that’s simply an opinion and not objectively wrong, then go ahead.

Political opinions can't be "objectively" anything. Ranking Presidents is an opinion no matter how you slice it. I believe Reagan and Trump were both very bad Presidents (although Trump has certainly proved himself to be worse) and my ratings would reflect that.

I think the question then becomes: why is your opinion so out of line with effectively all political scientists, including Democrats? Why do you believe you know better than them?

Usually most rankings by political scientists and historians of recent Presidents judge them without prejudice to their accomplishments, and rather just the amount of accomplishment they had or effect on the country, although I believe Reagan's effect on the country was terrible, there's no doubt he had a massive effect on it. Although I suspect this attempt at objectivity of recent Presidents will not apply to Trump, as his "administration" was so obviously and egregiously terrible.

That’s how presidents should be judged , and  not based on how much you agree with them on the issues

[OSR stands with Israel]

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

Of course we're not objective. How do you think opinions work?

Saying that Reagan was a horrible president is like calling Trump an amazing president. If you want to say that’s simply an opinion and not objectively wrong, then go ahead.

Political opinions can't be "objectively" anything. Ranking Presidents is an opinion no matter how you slice it. I believe Reagan and Trump were both very bad Presidents (although Trump has certainly proved himself to be worse) and my ratings would reflect that.

I think the question then becomes: why is your opinion so out of line with effectively all political scientists, including Democrats? Why do you believe you know better than them?

Usually most rankings by political scientists and historians of recent Presidents judge them without prejudice to their accomplishments, and rather just the amount of accomplishment they had or effect on the country

Yeah that’s... not true. George W Bush definitely had a larger on the county than his father, but one of them is ranked higher than the other.

Well Bush again, obviously egregious and horrible. The full scope of the disasters of Reaganism are less subtle than Bush's, who left office with the economy obviously on fire.

Eh, those were still great times of massive prosperity compared to what we're dealing with now.

In 2008, everyone I knew was doing fine (at least economically). Myself and my whole family has been devasted by this 2020-2021 great depression though.

The long term impacts of 2008 were worse , and unemployment currently is at Jan 2014 levels .

Heck on Election Day 49% of Americans thought the economy was good while that number was 36% in 2016

[OSR stands with Israel]

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

Of course we're not objective. How do you think opinions work?

Saying that Reagan was a horrible president is like calling Trump an amazing president. If you want to say that’s simply an opinion and not objectively wrong, then go ahead.

Political opinions can't be "objectively" anything. Ranking Presidents is an opinion no matter how you slice it. I believe Reagan and Trump were both very bad Presidents (although Trump has certainly proved himself to be worse) and my ratings would reflect that.

I think the question then becomes: why is your opinion so out of line with effectively all political scientists, including Democrats? Why do you believe you know better than them?

Usually most rankings by political scientists and historians of recent Presidents judge them without prejudice to their accomplishments, and rather just the amount of accomplishment they had or effect on the country

Yeah that’s... not true. George W Bush definitely had a larger on the county than his father, but one of them is ranked higher than the other.

Well Bush again, obviously egregious and horrible. The full scope of the disasters of Reaganism are less subtle than Bush's, who left office with the economy obviously on fire.

Eh, those were still great times of massive prosperity compared to what we're dealing with now.

In 2008, everyone I knew was doing fine (at least economically). Myself and my whole family has been devasted by this 2020-2021 great depression though.

The long term impacts of 2008 were worse , and unemployment currently is at Jan 2014 levels .

Heck on Election Day 49% of Americans thought the economy was good while that number was 36% in 2016

Yeah i have a hard time believing that. Empirically it just doesn't make sense.

Well with polling we all know what a joke that is. You can just make it say what you want it to say.

And with the unemployment rate, i think the difference is in 2008 people were still trying to find work. In 2020 many simply aren't bothering as there's no work out there. And you're not counted as unemployed if you're not actively looking for work.

It makes perfect sense for economic fundamentals to be better now than the Great Recession, as there has been no credit crunch this time at least to anywhere near as the levels of the Great Recession. Also the fast growth since June makes sense as the bad economic numbers last spring were inflated due to the lockdowns not really cause of any major fundamental problem with the economy.

Also unemployment rate even if you include discouraged workers is lower now than that number was from  2009-2012

[OSR stands with Israel]

FF and much better President than everyone since.

I’m surprised that you think so highly of Reagan, considering how you’ve spelt out your vision of a Republican Party which is a sensible check on the more outlandish currents within the Democratic (a vision which I have a lot of sympathy for, even if I think it is a bit optimistic given the party’s current state). It was Reagan after all, who destroyed any hope for this kind of GOP; while the Rockefeller faction had passed its sell-by date at that point, it was by no means inevitable that the GOP had to end up as a coalition of the various particularly toxic elements Reagan worked to bring together, including the Religious Right (whom, remember, Goldwater hated with a passion) and the white resentment/ex-segregationist Southern crowd; there was of course frequent overlap between the two. Not to mention, of course, Reagan being the first to pursue (again, very successfully) the kind of fact-free, responsibility-free rhetoric which has come to define the modern GOP, to again reference MT Treasurer. I think it is a stretch to say that Trump is Reagan’s spiritual successor, but by no means inaccurate to say that, without Reagan, the kind of GOP which gave rise to Trump would not have been possible.

Reagan is liked by all wings of the Republican Party given how successful he was(definitely are most successful president at least since Eisenhower).

Also the Reagan gop was pretty different than the type of gop Trump wants to  bring and if you actually look at the 1976 GOP map , Ford  does better in the Trumpian blue collar areas than Reagan does while Reagan is obviously the candidate of sunbelt suburbs .


Reagan is probably the most popular candidate our nation ever had in the suburbs