Ronald Reagan Wasn't the Good Guy President Anti-Trump Republicans Want You to Believe In
History has a way of repeating itself, making the passage of time feel like riding a nauseating carousel. In this spinning spiral, we are constantly asked to descend into the past, to revisit familiar faces of evil, and, too often, to remember them for their good, not their bad. Historical revisionism is, in short, not cute!
The carousel of history really threw me for a loop this week as a new ad attacking President Donald Trump asked viewers to compare the 45th president unfavorably to the 40th, Ronald Reagan. Unsurprisingly, a bunch of Republicans want us to remember the movie star turned president as an emblem of American greatness and contrast to the reality star turned president.
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Where to even begin? First, I guess, let me acknowledge that Reagan — who spent nearly 30 years acting before moving into politics — sure could talk pretty on camera. The former actor’s charisma was a hugely consequential part of his appeal in the ’80s, 20 years after television had altered presidential elections forever. And that charisma, in turn, helped Reagan capitalize on the conditions that gave way to his landslide victory over Democratic president Jimmy Carter in the election that took place the day after the “Shining City on a Hill” address now being used to attack Trump.
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Reagan was the first Republican elected after Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace following the Watergate scandal. The GOP needed someone like him: a charismatic, TV-ready smooth-talker who could turn the economic dissatisfaction of the last year of Carter’s presidency into a reason to vote red. But despite what the Republican Voters Against Trump might want you to believe, Reagan’s economic model — Reaganomics, as it came to be known — is exactly what Trump has been pushing for years.
It’s difficult to boil an entire administration’s worth of economic policy down to a few words, but for a working definition of Reaganomics, let’s look at a few key features of Reagan’s policies: cutting taxes (especially for the rich) for trickle-down economics, cutting social welfare spending, increasing military spending, and deregulating economic activity in the name of “free” markets. Reagan’s path to American greatness meant making rich people pay less in taxes, giving poor people less help, building the imperial forces he used in foreign policy, and making life easier for the capitalist class.
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/ronald-reagan-bad-president-anti-trump-republicans
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