If this next administration isn’t the actual downfall of democracy and just another blip in history I wonder if trump will have the same sort of vibe to his legacy that Regan has.
Reelected in 1984 when the national unemployment rate was 10%
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.
There was this one time a painter couldn’t hack it
No offense, but mental institutions were/are horror farms. Could have been better, should have been better, never was.
Among the highest, if not the foremost rate of undeclared abuse. Dumping grounds for the unwanted, unrestricted experimentations for sadistic monsters, no-man’s-land for the so-called human rights.
Whatever other evil might have been done, putting an end to those mental institutions can only be a kindness.
I’m lucky (unlucky?) enough to have worked at a day program for special needs and some of our clients were old enough to have been in institutions, released “to the wild” and then reintegrated into the modern system.
The ones capable of remembering and verbalizing their experiences had some wild stories, and while instutuons were often hell, being kicked out on the streets with no options was worse.
Like, it would be if Biden announced he was fixing the issues with our healthcare system by outlawing medical care.
Sure, the existing system sucks and in a lot of ways it’s good it’s gone…
But for fucks sake it was better than literally nothing.
That’s not even getting into how it demonized mental illness and led to people in rural areas still refusing to get children diagnosed because the label is what they’re afraid of. Because all they know about mental illness is all the desperate homeless people Reagan released and they passed those biases down to their children
There were always options. People didn’t take them due to lack of knowledge or of care. And as easy as it is to blame one person for it, truth is we’re all at fault. We as the populace lack the unity and desire to help one another as we should.
You say something was better than nothing. Well, nothing stopped us/them from building a better something else. That was always an option.
Most of their funding was state/local too and in decline well before Reagan due to the effect of the book (and later, movie) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
President is an unnecessary position and draws the eye of narcissists and fascists. Give veto power to the Senate President & drop the VP title, move civilian oversight of the military to a bipartisan court, and pick someone from the majority party house or senate to be your figurehead.
This seems like an awful lot of work to get to a system that is only slightly less shitty than before. At that rate, America should become a parliamentary system, with RCV.
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.
Worst thing so far.
To the world even, because everyone copies the US.
Thatcher has her part of the blame as well. Mulroney in Canada and so on…
The whole Luigi Mangione thing has made me wanna rewatch V for Vendetta. Really hope the case turns out like that movie.
That’d require learning a lesson. And we’re collectively far too stupid to do that.
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.
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
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.
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.
Reagan was one of the worst things to happen to the US.
100% agree
Maybe we should just stop electing shitty actors to do a difficult job.
I’d argue the opposite on that tho.
We kept hearing with Biden that a president can’t do much, it’s all Congress.
So why are we running career politicians when the majority of America hates politicians? Why did we just one an ex-prosecuter when most Dem voters hate our justice system?
Like, we can at least halfway it with someone like Al Franken, someone that started out somewhere else then switched to politics. But why not just say fuck it and run Taylor Swift for president? Count on her carrying the entire down ballot and getting dual majorities and she just has to not veto what lands on her desk.
Either the president doesn’t really do anything and is just a figurehead or it has to be someone with decades of government experience.
It can’t be both.
But there’s certainly no reason to keep picking people with zero charisma for what’s basically a convoluted popularity contest. Even foreign relations, I guarantee foreign leaders would give Brad Pitt a better deal than Joe Biden. They’re not getting down into the nitty gritty, the drones work out the details anyways.
Obama and Bill won off their charisma above all. Biden as well was incredibly charismatic back in the day, it’s just as came out recently, his health had been an issue basically the entire term. I’m not saying this as a dig, but he is a shell of his former self. 40 years ago he was considered the best public speaker of his generation.
As much as I want a progressive and think they’d win on policy, what matters before the platform is charisma and we need to admit that.
It’s insane we didn’t learn it after Al Gore, but clearly the DNC didnt.
Either the president doesn’t really do anything and is just a figurehead or it has to be someone with decades of government experience. It can’t be both.
The lack of understanding is simply astounding, all for mental gymnastics.
The president has to do a ton to navigate the political mess, negotiate with others, and press the issues they want with both their party and with the other party. That takes skill, knowledge, and experience.
But they are NOT a king that gives orders. That’s where you are twisting the presidents limited power to “doesn’t really do anything”. Ultimately the bill has to be written and passed by Congress, to be signed by the president. The President has to use their words (not their power, because that’s not how it works) to convince others to do it. Again, because they are not a king.
I don’t always agree with you but I appreciate the effort you put into your posts. Thank you for contributing
This guy’s cooking.
We kept hearing with Biden that a president can’t do much, it’s all Congress.
Keep in mind that while the president can’t do a lot of things unilaterally, there are a lot of things he can do to block, delay, and disrupt. Biden’s plans were mostly creating new things, which takes Congress. Trump just wants to destroy. It’s always easier to destroy than build.
Very true and right alongside “a lie makes it halfway around the world before the truth gets its shoes on”.
It’s so fucking depressing. Makes me want to give up on cold, dark, rainy days when I’m alone like today.
Isolation makes it much harder to be compassionate. Don’t forget, you’re not alone
Thanks friend. I know. I just hate the winter. If I could develop the ability to hibernate 3 months of the year and still pay my bills I would take it.
You’re an interesting person. Sometimes I outright despise the things you say and other times I think you’re on the right track.
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Note: Not Musk.
Yes, an apartheid white overlord is what we need. This blows my mind. I just argued with a relative over Christmas who thinks he’s super cool. MAGA of course.
It doesn’t matter how good you are at a job if you can’t get hired.
The most important quality of any presidential candidate is being able to win a convoluted popularity contest.
So we need to look at people that fit that criteria, then find a good candidate. Not find someone who would be a good president, that’s the easy part, there’s a shit ton of people who could be a good president like Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho, he didn’t have to be smart, just be popular and listen to a smart guy who told him what to do.
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Exactly.
They do not have the experience or necessarily even the qualities required to win a popularity contest on that scale.
So I’m saying we find an empty suit that is good at winning popularity contests then listen to the party leaders in the House and Senate, since they’re the ones with decades of political experience, and I was about to write “and they write the laws” then remembered it’s mostly lobbyists and think-tank employees these days writing legislation.
But that’s a whole nother issue.
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We can worry about that once we can consistently keep Republicans out of the White house
For the past 3 elections we’ve been told that’s all that matters and we’re 1/3
But it has led to Republican voters getting what they wanted. Roe v Wade is no more. We’re getting tariffs that career politicians know are harmful.
So a leftist equivalent would support Medicare For All, which is very popular with the public but unpopular with career politicians.
“Most career politicians are
fine and will do a competent job given the chance” only concerned with keeping their position.This may be ego, greed, self preservation, or most likely a combination. On the Dem side I’ll pick Pelosi and Schumer as examples. Each thinks they are the best for the position, each has become rich, each continues to make deals to keep their position.
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…
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”
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.
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 think a lot of those criticisms are fair. But blame for aids as if the president is some god whose fault it is that nature exists says a lot about the role presidents take in our mind. It isn’t healthy.
The issue is more that his administration didn’t give a shit about ‘gay cancer’ because it was almost exclusively affecting gay people at the time, so they did absolutely nothing about it.
The number of people that died of AIDS each year under his watch was in the millions. Not 90k.
