Why Reagan?

[VanceMack]

Sad that you think you know American history better than I do when you completely miss the point. :roll:

Ford finished out the Nixon presidency which had ended in disaster and disgrace. The Democrats ran their campaign against Nixon, not Ford, and why shouldn't they have?

Carter was elected in the aftermath of Nixon. Ford was irrelevant. Ford could have been anybody. It didn't matter. The Democrat was going to win. Because of Nixon.

You can lead to the horse to water...you cant make him think. Especially when his mind is set against thinking and about proving some inane point...

I love Canada...

 

[Middleground]

Sad that you think you know American history better than I do when you completely miss the point. :roll:

Ford finished out the Nixon presidency which had ended in disaster and disgrace. The Democrats ran their campaign against Nixon, not Ford, and why shouldn't they have?

Carter was elected in the aftermath of Nixon. Ford was irrelevant. Ford could have been anybody. It didn't matter. The Democrat was going to win. Because of Nixon.

I don''t disagree with that. But as irrelevant as Ford was, he still took the oath and became President. So technically, you were wrong.

 

[Crunch]

No, it has been going on since Reagan was President.

The main reason? Jimmy Carter. Everything was so ****ed up during the Carter years that Reagan seemed like a reincarnation of George Washington by comparison.

I remember it well.

And the same will happen with the next President...... no matter who it is.

 

[Crunch]

So I guess Obama is going to look like the second coming of Jesus to historians then.

More like the second coming of Jimmy's brother Billy.

 

[Mensch]

I apologize if this has been asked already, but why did the Republican Party choose to idolize and worship Reagan out of all their former leaders?

Can any republicans explain why they like Reagan so much. I see a lot of young people praising Reagan, and they weren't even alive when he was president. I seriously doubt they even know why they like him, so I am asking all of the republicans here. Please explain your love of Reagan.

All of this Reagan love seems sudden too. My uncle has been a republican his entire life, but just recently he named his dog Reagan.. :lol:

It just seems to me that the republican party started this suddenly during the Bush admin for some reason..

As an archivist for the Reagan Library, I believe it was this speech that set the inspiration:

 

[SheWolf]

Because the Libertarians already claimed Calvin Coolidge.

that is funny, because I can see why he would be idolized more

 

[SheWolf]

It's not sudden. 1984, go look at an electoral map. Tell me how many red states there were.

And he isn't the only Republican to win a large majority of the electorate.. Nixon won more states than Reagan ever did in 72, and Franklin destroyed the electorate map more than twice so it doesn't prove anything....

In all honestly I think this Reagan stuff is big bandwagon lead by the Republican Party, because a lot of young kids don't even know why they like Reagan. But I am really not very partisan, so I am trying to see if my assumptions are justified or not.

So if you independently decided that Reagan deserves hero status,
1. Why?
2. Who is second to Reagan?

 

[SheWolf]

A few of the reasons I appreciate Reagan:

"To Milton Friedman, the Nobel prize-winning economist, Reagan's tax cuts -- especially the 1986 bill -- were 'one of the most important factors in the boom of the 1990s.' Adds Robert A. Mundell, another Nobel laureate: '[They] made the U.S. economy the motor for the world economy in the 1990s, on which the great revolution in information technology was able to feed.'"

BW Online | June 21, 2004 | Reagan's Economic Legacy

Reagan ended the Cold War.

He appointed Libertarian-leaning justices to the Supreme Court (O'Connor and Kennedy) being well aware of their positions on certain issues before nominating them.

Thanks for your response, but I don't think Reagan ended the Cold War.. Mikhail Gorbachev did a lot more to end the Cold War through glasnost and perestroika. He gave people in the USSR more rights than ever before, and believed a sovereign country had the right to self determination. He allowed freedom of speech like no other leader of the USSR and his policies lead to openness.. and the deterioration of Communist history revisionalism.

Reagan was just there cheering him on and working on ending the arms race.. but Gorbachev is the real hero in the former USSR for giving the people freedom back.

 

[Psychoclown]

There are a lot of reasons why Reagan is worshipped. First off, he came after a rather dismal string of Presidents - Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter. It was easy for him to look good by comparison to his predocessors. He's given credit for ending the Iran hostage affair. He sucessfully negotiated arms reduction with the USSR, while keeping pressure on the "evil empire" that helped facilitate its collapse. He modernized the American military and restored a sense of national morale. He cut taxes, which helped spawn economic growth - something the 70's didn't see much of.

He was the most successful and popular Republican President since Eisenhower. And given that the current GOP still uses rhetoric similar to Reagan's, it's no stretch to see why Reagan be the poster boy of the GOP.

As for who would be second to Reagan ... among small government conservatives and libertarian types like myself, I'd say Barry Goldwater. But its a distant second in most people's minds. Goldwater never had the success and popularity of Reagan.