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Reagan was one of the worst things to happen to the US. Maybe we should just stop electing shitty actors to do a difficult job.
Reagan (or more specifically Michael Deaver) taught us that propaganda works incredibly well, almost every time.
Most of us didn’t learn it though. And here we are.
Reagan (or more specifically Michael Deaver) taught us that propaganda works incredibly well, almost every time.
Hitler (and many mfers before him) already taught that lesson, people fall for it every, single, time.
That’d require learning a lesson. And we’re collectively far too stupid to do that.
Reagan was a shitty actor with a good persona and voice. He was simply hired to act as POTUS, reading the script written by American billionaires.
And that’s been the president’s role ever since
It was attempted many times before that. Rockefeller and Carnegie and many others attempted it at the turn of the century and lost.
To the world even, because everyone copies the US.
I genuinely wish we were in the timeline where the worst thing he ever did was Bedtime for Bonzo. The fact that people worship this ass clown… it tears the heart…
OTOH, some actors have done pretty good jobs as politicians. Schwarzenegger–a GOP governor that actually listened to people!–Jesse Ventura (not a great governor, TBH, but decent), and Al Franken are examples of actors that ended up being pretty solid politicians. Ideally, a good politician is someone that has connections to people that understand good public policy, and can then communicate that effectively to the public in order to lead well.
The problem with Reagan isn’t the acting per se, but that he was an awful person, and so good at connecting with people that a lot of people couldn’t see his rotten core.
I should’ve emphasized “shitty”. Have we had a terrible actor that’s a good politician yet (genuinely don’t know)? I want to believe that being a good actor requires some measure of empathy, so it’s not surprising that reagan and the current pissy creamsicle were hacks.
We’ve had terrible politicians who were even worse actors if that counts. I’m thinking of “B-1” Bob Dornan to be specific.
When he was younger maybe but as he got older reagen needed teleprompter for virtually everything. He had lost his ability to speak off the cuff as his alzheimers progressed
The continued idolization of Reaganomics is a huge reason why the US continues to enshittify.
Maybe there shouldn’t be such a focus on cults of personality and electing celebrities. Imagine qualified people being in office.
The thread of anti-intellectualism runs deep.
I have a suspicion that anti-intellectualism and unaffordable education go hand in hand.
Education is unaffordable also due to classism, which reagonomics is really drenched in.
I did. I was told I was transphobic and pro-genocide by some totally not russian trolls.
And if we have to have a cult of personality dictator, why is it they always have such shitty policies?
The most prosperous decade of the 20th century was the 1950s.
The top tier tax rate in 1950 was 84%, and that was the lowest it would be until 1964. The rest of the 1950s were at 91%-92%.
The important thing to remember is that nobody ever paid the top-tier tax rate. Instead, they spent their income. When they found themselves $10,000 over the line in 1955, and about to pay $9100 to Uncle Sam, they said “Hold up. Let’s spend $10000 on something useful and deduct it as a business expense”.
That spending turned into paychecks for the workers who produced the purchased item.
$10,000 over the line in 1988 meant they got to put $7,200 into their stock portfolio, send $2,800 to Uncle Sam, and the worker is laid off because they had no incentive to actually spend their excess income.
Infographic is correct, though it left out how he destroyed labor unions and a bunch of other stuff, but you can only fit so much in there. Reagan and his despicable cohorts like Gingrich were the beginning of the end for not just the ability to reach the middle class, but indeed for the middle class itself in this country (as his contemporary partner in crime, Thatcher was for the UK).
It was an absolute tragedy. If Trump wasn’t coming back in, Reagan would still hold the top rank in amount of devastation caused, but I’m pretty sure Trump will manage to surpass him on that front in his second term.
The good news is Trump will be the architect of his own downfall, just like Hitler and Nero
The bad news is Ronnie was also senile and the people surrounding him still managed to cause generational harm.
This man is responsible for the nightmare that is my life.
Fuck going back in time to kill Hitler, if I ever get into a DeLorean or a phone booth, I’m coming for that ass Reagan! THIS ONE’S GONNA BE FOR FREDDIE MERCURY!
Edit: Just got back, I think I got the wrong year or something, missed my shot too. Feds tried to stop me from getting back to the car, I got them to go bother some dickhead who wouldn’t shut up about some Crazy Taxi movie or whatever the hell he was talking about. Can’t try again for awhile, DeLorean’s out of plutonium.
If I could go back in time and kill three people from history, I’d kill Reagan three times.
Hey, get rid of Ayn Rand and Nixon too
Milton Friedman
Mmm… Fried man. salivating
Sorry I’ve been in the mood to eat rich powerful people lately… Was he one?
In 1971 he explicitly told all of the business world (with help from the Business Roundtable) that the only social responsibility of businesses is to increase profits. This set the course of acceptable practices for 50 years, until the Business Roundtable reversed their decision in 2019, to include stakeholders. Of course, the damage and cultural shift had already been done.
1976 he was awarded the fake Nobel prize they invented for Economics.
Might as well give Trump a prize for Humility… Jesus Christ, how can America be a “Christian Nation” if it believes the only Virtue we need is greed?
I think a lot of self professed Christians just believe in Jesus as if he’s the adult version of Santa claus and a magical genie who grants wishes if you pray hard enough
Allen Dulles deserves scrutiny.
Come on. You wouldn’t use one of those tokens to stop by east Germany and wax Putin in the KGB? You wouldn’t even need to change years to get Reagan and Putin in the same trip
Also kill Nancy Reagan. Pretty sure that succubus would have had a negative impact on people with HIV even if she wasn’t First Lady. The blowjob queen probably would have used her influence on Hollywood elites to create a hate campaign against the people with HIV
There was this one time a painter couldn’t hack it
Sold 500 missiles to Iran is such a hilarious understatement of the shit show that actually was Iran Contra.
The whole situation was very complex, and only a mastermind would be able to comprehend the whole thing.
I know he was really bad, but Trump promised he will do everything in his power to be worse.
the caption of a political cartoon i remember from back then:
“ronald reagan did for this country what pantyhose did for finger-fucking”
The mental institution thing… That’s maybe not entirely fair. Prior to Reagan, most residential mental institutions were terrible places, worse than some of the worst prisons in the US. Closing them seemed better for the residents than keeping them open and attempting to reform. But it’s certainly had a lot of unintended consequences.
If you ever happen to visit Berlin in Germany, make sure to spit on his memorial plaque, as he is worshiped as a freedom fighter in Germany.
I (german) know of nobody that does that
https://withberlinlove.com/2012/10/01/ronald-reagan-memorials-in-berlin/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_honorary_citizens_of_Berlin
https://www.berlin.de/rbmskzl/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/2024/pressemitteilung.1452879.php
https://www.parlament-berlin.de/Das-Haus/Berliner-Ehrenbuerger/ronald-w-reagan
Maybe nobody of the normal people, but in the political elites they love to praise Reagan.
Same shit in Poland. What’s crazy is that we are suffering from his incompetence here as well.
The working class and thus the creation of the middle class was subsidized by our government from FDR up until Reagan. The 1950s wealth and family focus BOOM was a result of this subsidization that began with FDR. It is why everyone (white and male) owned a house, a car, and had a job.
We are living the end result of the Reagan experiment, the flip from subsidizing the working class and thus subsidizing the creation of a middle class, which does not happen organically in capitalism, to the subsidization of corporate and the top 1% instead. The claim was it would be more efficient to subsidize corporate and simply have the wealth trickle down through the rest of the economy.
This, right now, is how trickle down pans out after the 40yr experiment. We’ve equalized woman and non white people under the law, great, but did it in a time without subsidy. So now we are all equally shit upon, barring some holdover family accumulations dating back to the 50s.
And now, drum roll, we’ve elected President Musk, the grand winner of said 40yr subsidization experiment, the ultimate welfare queen, to decide our working class government efficiency going forward.
I wonder how that will work for working class going forward?
I don’t think it is mental illness causing the homeless crisis. Homelessness is up 20% from 2023 and I’m pretty sure the high cost of living is to blame.
A lot of homeless people are mentally sound, but are struggling with sky high prices, or dont have the motivation to work 60 or 80 hours, facing, constant exhaustion to live in a hole in the wall.
The number of people that died of AIDS each year under his watch was in the millions. Not 90k.
He was re-elected in a landslide because America is and has been–for at least my entire lifetime–all about aesthetics.
And it’s a damn good looking Guici belt.
