Happy Birthday Ronald Reagan – Liberals Really Miss You

[egbertowillies]

This week, February 6th was President Ronald Reagan’s birthday. Reagan was the charge the conservative movement needed in the early 1980s. Just like the country’s malaise ushered a black president into office before many in the country could cope with it, so did the malaise of 1980 usher conservative Ronald Reagan into office.

President Obama in an interview during his primaries called President Reagan a transformative president. He did not mean it as a complement but as kudos to what he was able to accomplish, have America support policies that are diametrically against their own interest. This is evident when one examines his last inaugural speech and contrast it with Reagan’s motto; “government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem.”

Liberals believed Reagan was Satan incarnate. Compared to the crop of conservative right wing Republicans, Reagan was simply Paul. After all Paul went from the destructive Saul of Tarsus to Paul the apostle. Not that Reagan redeemed his ways; he just became marginally pragmatic, from voodoo economics to simply mathematically deficient economics.

•Today’s right wing continues to work towards the destruction of the unions, PATCO notwithstanding Reagan supported unions.
•Today’s right wing consider raising taxes, even if it is a reversal of a temporary tax cut or a legally expiring tax cut (the Bush Tax cuts), a line in the sand, while Reagan raised taxes several times and actually supported raising taxes on the wealthy.
•Today’s right wing demeans and attacks immigrants even as Reagan supported sensible immigration policy.
•Today’s right wing is trying to destroy America’s social safety net even as Reagan supported keeping social security viable.

Today’s right wing Republicans sing Reagan’s praises for every bad deed they attempt to move forward. With a clear record that shows they share little in common with their Messiah, they make willful ignorance vogue. One can only wonder if Reagan could win in today’s Republican Party. After all, he was divorced, raised two very liberal kids (Ron and Patti – who posed for Playboy), and had lunch with many liberal politicians.

Reagan, while following a proven failed economic policy, never displayed the hate the current crop of right wing Republicans have shown for immigrants, women rights, human rights, and the social safety net. It is obvious why many liberals yearn to work with Republicans like Reagan in retrospect. Ronnie, liberals really miss you.
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[Mnemosyne]

1. Evil bastard. nt

[flamingdem]

2. I heard a report that he is roasting in h*ll

One man, so much damage.

[Wounded Bear]

3. Kind of like how so many modern Christians follow the original teachings....

Not to side track this, but it really strikes me as an apt metaphor, since modern Republicans like to trumpet their religion while promoting policies that fly in the face of what was actually taught in the New Testament.

I lived through the Reagan era. It pretty much sucked. I guess I earned a lot of money then, but I could see the roots of all of our current problems, especially the smug 'I know what I'm doing' mindset of conservatives.

I'm a liberal and I don't miss him at all. He was obviously a mindless figurehead, operated by his puppet masters. Anybody who could listen to one of his droning monologues during the debates and not think of his deranged Uncle Sid had more denial than I could stomach. He had very obvious signs of dementia and encroaching alzheimers, even as early as his first term, but was proclaimed as some kind of intellectual god.

Then, after he left office, the Repubs made a concerted effort to name everything everywhere after him. You can't go anywhere, it seems, without finding a Ronald Reagan government building.

Fuck him.

[av8r1998]

4. I could not have said this better

I have 1 thing to add:

Reagan and Tip O'Neil, about as polar opposite as you can get, with house SuperMajority and a Senate Majority for (I believe) 8 years, they passed "Great" things. (By "Great" I mean big, not necessarily "good&quot

Similar for Clinton and Gingrich, but things sadly went south in Clinton's 2nd term, thanks in no small part to Rush Limbaugh and the Christian Right. They did manage to get the economy on the right track, make changes to taxes, welfare, and leave the country in a better state than they found it.

What is with the current crop? (Other than the above)
Political differences aside it is sad that the acrimony has gotten so the "negotiators" required to avoid fiscal meltdown are the third string..... McConnell and Biden. Boehner cant reign in his own caucus, and nobody will negotiate with Reid or the President.

And even at that, all they did was kick the can again.


Reagan, while following a proven failed economic policy, never displayed the hate the current crop of right wing Republicans have shown for immigrants, women rights, human rights, and the social safety net.

AND THE OPPOSITION PARTY!!!

The rancor that exists in Washington goes beyond political or idealogical differences.

Unlike past leaders, these people actually HATE each other.

[Jamaal510]

5. I'm a liberal

and I really don't miss him that much. I'm glad that I wasn't born yet to see him in office, or else I would've been breaking my TV whenever he was on. Sure, there may be few things listed in the OP that he did correctly compared to today's Republicans, but Reagan sounded like an evil SOB, perhaps even more evil than Mr.Burns from The Simpsons. This is the same guy who was the architect of Vulture Capitalism in the first place, and he exploited conservative resentment against blacks in order to win elections a la the "Welfare Queen" myth. Despite what most people on the Left say about him not having a shot to win today's GOP primaries, I very much think he could have fit in even today.

[Rozlee]

6. Reagan set the modern goalpost for following Republican politicians.

Incurious, heartless, elevating greed to a virtue, using empty jingoism instead of true patriotism, vilifying the needy in our country and igniting racial tensions while using them to rob us all blind and divert all our wealth upward. The religious right were mobilized and married to corporate interests until even the poorest fundamentalists in West Virginia were spitting on the ground whenever coal miners in unions protested unsafe conditions and AIDS was allowed to become an epidemic in our country while Washington turned it's head away. If our country ever had a political Dark Ages, it might have been said to have been the time before, around or after the Civil War, but the decades since Reagan to today's GOP obstructionism haven't lagged far behind those unsettled times. In fact, despite the fact that Reagan was never a child of the South, he was responsible for what became the greatest Southern divide since the Civil War and Civil Rights. Our country might have made a rough transition from the post-Civil Right's Era, but Reagan and the Republicans that his movement spawned kept the flames burning into an inferno that still rages today. It's ridiculous that this country fought a stinking war over a hundred and fifty years ago and that demagogues keep routinely rising and pouring gas on the embers to fan it into flames again to this day. I keep hoping that the old guard of the segregationist era will die out soon and purge the worst of them out, but hatred always tends to sow dragons' teeth. I don't miss that fucker one bit, and sometimes, I'm sorry I'm an atheist. I'd like to see a hell just for him. Maybe a place where cackling demons shove flaming hot jellybeans up his ass everyday until he explodes, then, the next day, start all over again.