Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Worst President in a Generation?

I did a poll recently (as of writing this, the results are still up, but it won’t be forever). I asked, “Who was the worst President of the last 40 years?” Here are the results:

Nixon - 11 (6%)
Ford - 1 (0%)
Carter - 10 (6%)
Reagan - 18 (11%)
Bush I - 1 (0%)
Clinton - 2 (1%)
Bush II - 101 (62%)
Obama - 17 (10%)

(161 votes total)

I did not vote, in anticipation of writing my own opinion after the poll closed.

I’m a little surprised by the results. From them, I can infer a few things. One is that about 17% of my readers lean to the political right (more than I would have thought, and certainly more than I will have after this post). But more importantly, I am assuming that my readers are relatively young, or conversely, have poor memories.

Only 11 votes for Nixon, the only president to have resigned in disgrace,
is quite shocking to me. I had expected him to get far more votes. I had even begun researching his policies in preparation for defending him (opening ties with China, starting the EPA, signing anti-ballistic missile treaties with the USSR, enforcing desegregation in the South…). I guess there’s no point, since history has been relatively kind to Nixon, it seems.

Personally, I would say Reagan was the worst president of last 40 years, hands down. I’m actually shocked more people didn’t select him, and I have to believe it’s largely due to how fresh the George W. Bush wound is. Bush II was bad, but he wasn’t Ronald Reagan bad.

I wouldn’t even know where to begin with explaining how damaging Reagan’s presidency was to the nation. The man basically invented the modern system of extreme deficit spending as an overt strategy for bankrupting the nation. He called it “starving the beast,” the idea being that once the Federal government was indebted, it could no longer do certain things (like provide welfare). The national debt tripled under this “fiscal conservative.”

He also helped American homelessness balloon out of control. He cut funding for low-income housing, he closed down mental health institutions for the poor, and the end result was millions of impoverished Americans (many of whom are mentally ill) living literally on the streets. He even fabricated the myth of the “welfare queen,” a non-existent schemer who keeps having children in order to collect ever growing government hand-outs while never working, a practice that has never been demonstrated to have occurred in America, ever.

Reagan also cut taxes for the rich more than any president in history. When he was elected, the highest marginal tax rate was 70%, a rate that had been in place (or higher) since FDR. When Reagan left office, it was 28%. Meanwhile, taxes on middle- and lower-income families all went up. Reagan actually raised taxes seven out of his eight years, just not for the wealthy.

Reagan traded weapons and money to Iran for the release of hostages. Among most people, that’s called “negotiating with terrorists,” and it encourages terrorism. Reagan was a big fan of terrorism, having also funded the mujahidin fighters in Afghanistan known as the Taliban. With billions in American arms and cash, not to mention CIA training, the Taliban and bin Laden made good use of it for the next few decades, consolidating power in the Middle East before bringing down the Twin Towers; 9/11 wouldn’t have been possible without Reagan. He might as well have been the 20th hijacker (I assume he just forgot to board the plane due to his Alzheimer’s).

His record on unemployment is also abysmal. There was 7.5% unemployment when Reagan took office in 1981, and by 1982, that had jumped to 11%. Reagan took a hard stand against unions, and fired 11,345 air traffic controllers who went on strike for safer working conditions and better pay. And yet, Reagan was a lifetime member of SAG (the Screen Actors Guild). He was even SAG’s president on two separate occasions, from 1947 through 1952, and again in 1959. His presidency for SAG saw him fight for the first pension and healthcare plans for SAG members… but his US Presidency saw him rejecting the very idea of collective bargaining (I guess because it didn’t benefit him, personally).

While we’re on his acting career, Reagan also named names to the FBI regarding who he thought was a communist, and he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Classy. Anyway, back to his wretched presidency…

Reagan was also horrible on social issues. He made a concerted effort to ignore the AIDS outbreak, the first cases of which were identified in the same year he took office. Despite this growing epidemic, Reagan ignored requests for funding and his own communications director, Pat Buchanan, claimed that AIDS was “nature’s revenge on gay men.” Reagan himself did not even publicly address the issue until 1987, near the end of his second term, after which point over 36,000 Americans had been diagnosed with the disease and over 20,000 had died. On being asked why there was nothing but silence from Reagan, his Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop, said Reagan’s advisors “took the stand, ‘They are only getting what they deserve.’”

He also escalated the drug war initiated by Nixon, with him and his wife popularizing what will arguably go down as the dumbest anti-drug campaign in history, “Just say no.” Reagan signed increasingly punitive minimum sentencing laws (notably singling out crack cocaine), a legacy that has left us with packed jails, increased racial tensions, and the world’s highest incarceration rate.

Reagan also escalated the Cold War, spending billions on stockpiling arms and fighting proxy wars (like his funding for the Taliban). Military spending went up 40% in his first term alone. He would go on to suggest building a space-based missile defense system.

Even if you’re a conservative who worships him, just a cursory glance at his real record (not the myth surrounding him) would turn any Neocon against him. Besides raising taxes seven out of his eight years (actually raising taxes 11 times in total), Reagan granted 3 million illegal immigrants amnesty through the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. He also sided with his former assistant and White House Press Secretary James Brady’s efforts to enact the Brady Bill. I’m also not sure how conservatives can claim they hate “Hollywood Liberals,” when it is the Republican Party who elected an actor to the White House.

But what I think has been most damaging is the utterly nonsensical idea popularized by Reagan that government can’t solve anything, and that government is actually the cause of all our problems. He not only went around saying that the government is a bunch of screw ups, he seemed to purposely embody this idea by consciously screwing up over, and over, and over again… to the point that I’m surprised anyone alive at that time thinks government can accomplish anything after his presidency. He almost single-handedly caused an entire generation of Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers to adopt a defeatist attitude when it comes to government. He is the cause of more political cynicism than any president in my lifetime, both through his words and his actions.

George W. Bush, on the other hand, I shouldn’t have to go over. Maybe I assume too much, but I think most people know what he did wrong. We’re living with the consequences of his policies right now, but it’s important to note how much of W’s ideology and policies are rooted in the so-called Reagan Revolution.

It was Reagan who initially courted the Religious Right for the Republicans. It was Reagan who championed tax cuts for the wealthy. It was Reagan who advocated for careless deregulation. Even the problems faced by Bush in the financial sector trace their roots back to the Savings and Loan Crisis during Reagan’s presidency. When Reagan deregulated the savings and loan industry, hundreds of banks failed, contributing to the 1987 stock market crash. Reagan borrowed billions to bail them out.

Basically, if you hated W, you would despise Reagan, and without Reagan, there never could have been a President George W. Bush. You can even see it in the way Reagan and Bush talked… Reagan called the USSR “the evil empire.” When asked about the Iran-Contra scandal, Reagan “couldn’t recall.” Reagan even had a reputation for taking too many breaks and vacations, and for being little more than a puppet who read what he was told.

Even his allies didn’t think much of the man. Margaret Thatcher famously said of him, “Poor dear, there’s nothing between his ears.” His press secretary, Larry Speakes, described prepping Reagan for a press conference as “like reinventing the wheel.” Clark Clifford, his Defense Secretary, called him “an amiable dunce.”

As far as I’m concerned, the only nice thing I can say about Ronald Reagan is that he’s dead.

36 comments:

  1. ...not to mention (on a minor note) that he is responsible for the US not switching over to the metric system.

    I couldn't agree with you more!

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    1. You bring up an interesting point I left out, though: anything even perceived as being "European" is somehow tainted, thanks to conservatives like Reagan and their obsession with defining Americans as special and exceptional.

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  2. Hah. I voted for Reagan, and I had much the same thought process as you outline above.

    One thing I think deserves mention: I actually considered putting Ford in, believe it or not.

    You see, the thing which enabled all the post-Nixon conservative douchebaggery is that Nixon got away with it. Relatively few of the people who were involved in Nixon's various ethical and legal debauches faced any serious long-term penalty, and many of them paid effectively no penalty at all.

    These same people have been behind pretty much all the nastiness we've faced since then. They were major players in Reagan's administration and both Bush administrations. Karl Rove, for example, was a minor figure in the Watergate scandal, and he was deliberately left out of the hearings even though they apparently had evidence against him -- they had bigger fish to fry and thought people would get bored if they actually punished all the evildoers. (There is evidence, right there, that "news as entertainment" has harmed America; enforcement of justice was truncated because it might be BORING!)

    The worst thing was the pardon of Nixon by Ford. It not only told everyone that We Do Not Punish The Powerful, it precluded any further investigation and punishment of other figures. Had there been no pardon of Nixon, all sorts of later things would have turned out differently. Obama's decision not to prosecute anyone from Bush's administration for the various crimes committed no doubt springs from this precedent, but lots of other things do as well -- the Iran/Contra scandal, for instance. And I doubt we would keep running off to war if presidents thought they could be held responsible for the results of their actions.

    Nixon would not have been such a bad precedent, properly handled -- where "properly handled" means "everyone involved goes to prison for life with no parole to demonstrate that lawbreakers in the executive branch receive WORSE punishment than other lawbreakers because their transgressions are also betrayals of the public trust". Instead, we got Ford's "the executive branch is not responsible" stupidity, and everything else follows from there.

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    1. Ford's pardoning of Nixon was probably one of the single worst decisions of a president in history. It certainly signals the end of accountability from our public officials, and the beginning of an era where politicians are free to act as if they are above the law (unless you're black and doing drugs (right, Marion Barry?).

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    2. Oh, just to clarify: when I say "I voted for Reagan", I mean "I voted for Reagan in the poll". I was too young to vote when Reagan was elected, although I was alive back then. I don't think there has ever been a point in my adult life where I would actually have cast a vote for Reagan in an election.

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  3. "When he was elected, the highest marginal tax rate was 70%, a rate that had been in place (or higher) since FDR. When Reagan left office, it was 28%."

    Are you implying that 70% is better than 28%? If 70% of my income was being confiscated I would find another country to live in.

    Guess who does most of the hiring in this country? It's wealthy business owners, that's who. How can they expand their businesses and hire more employees if the government steals most of their money?

    Worst president in my lifetime? Carter. Thanks to Carter there were long gas lines that disappeared when Reagan ended price controls on gasoline.

    Liberals have no idea how capitalism works.

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    1. Are you implying that 70% is better than 28%? If 70% of my income was being confiscated I would find another country to live in.

      It is better. I would say it's better if only because it would cause you to leave the country. *fingers crossed*

      Guess who does most of the hiring in this country?

      The government...

      It's wealthy business owners, that's who.

      Not according to "statistics" and "facts." Lemme guess... Fox News watcher? Or are you more of an Alex Jones guy? How do they get you to repeat everything they say like that? Did they pay you, or are you just a parrot?

      How can they expand their businesses and hire more employees if the government steals most of their money?

      I don't know, ask the prosperous post-WWI Golden Era of America.

      Worst president in my lifetime? Carter. Thanks to Carter there were long gas lines that disappeared when Reagan ended price controls on gasoline.

      You hated a president because you think he made you wait in line...

      Get the fuck out of my country you piece of shit.

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    3. Touche. Not sure why you deleted it.

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    4. Human Ape, I'm disappointed that you discontinued your blog. Out of ideas? I never run out. Just ask Bret, he knows all about my wildly inventive, original idea-filled posts.

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    5. Bret, I agree with you assessment of Reagan. He did terrible damage to this country. However, I do not feel as if you correctly rebutted the Human Ape's argument. Especially when you say "Not according to "statistics" and "facts." and then go on not citing said facts.

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  4. Your anger filled rant belies the emptiness of your stance (whatever the hell it is; you're incoherent as usual).

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    1. Here's the difference between us:

      You don't even like America and you don't want there to be an America, yet you complain about how it's being run into the ground. I just think the country is being run into the ground, and would prefer not having to move because so many of you Baby Boomers and Gen X'ers are suffering from some horrible lead poisoning or something (I'm still not sure what's wrong with you guys).

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    2. I hate the state that claims this land as its territory, sure. So what? That means I hate the country? WTF?

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    3. Have you ever read your own blog?

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    4. The term "country" is often used synonymously with state, but the state specifically is the ruling gang that controls the country or "land". Either way, it doesn't alter my point.

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  5. I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment of Ronald Reagan. However, I am definitely troubled by the last line of your post. I just hope you didn't mean that to be taken literally, kind of the bible :). But seriously, the only nice thing you can say is that he is dead??? I would say that about Hitler, Stalin, or Poul-Pot, but not an American president who probably believed that what he was doing would genuinely improve the country. He was a gifted orator and a fine actor. He gave hope to many through his speeches, although he didn't really fulfill them. All in all, a bad president, but not someone who I would wish death upon.

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    1. Is there some harm in wishing someone were dead? I didn't do that, but I certainly would. I just said it's nice that he is dead.

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  6. Preaching to the choir here Ginx. I voted Reagan worst. In spite of all of his flaws, Nixon wasn't really that bad a president, for all of the reasons you pointed out and more. I don't even consider Ford a president as he was simply a placeholder. Why don't you turn the question around and ask who was the best president and see if the result coincides.

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  7. Do you have any comments on my question directed towards you?

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  8. "the utterly nonsensical idea popularized by Reagan that government can’t solve anything"

    You're contradicting yourself. You say the above, then in the same breath you say:"I’m surprised anyone alive at that time thinks government can accomplish anything after his presidency."

    It's like Schroedinger's kitty cat. It cannot solve anything, and cannot not solve anything at the same time until you open the f*cking box.

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    1. First off... always feel free to curse on my blog. I think I remember you writing that you would stop doing that on your blog, but this is a swear-friendly zone. Fuck fuckity fuck fuck cunt.

      Those statements do not contradict each other, at least in how I meant it (but I see what you mean).

      I am genuinely surprised when I meet people who are much older and have any positive view of government, especially given the presidencies in their lifetime (I can see why someone who was an adult during Reagan would be disillusioned by government, and Bush II certainly reinforced the idea and is repopularizing it now for a new generation of future apathists). I think that Republicans and libertarians have effectively made this a nation of do-nothing cynics.

      I just also know they're wrong. It isn't the first time I thought the vast majority are wrong, or "nonsensical," as I put it. I don't think much of people, so it just doesn't surprise me when a lot of them believe something dumb. It both saddens and angers me, but it definitely doesn't surprise me.

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    2. I know I said I wouldn't swear anymore, but as you also said, resolutions are made to be broken.

      It just... it just felt like the most appropriate way to end that sentence...

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    3. It's fucking fine. Don't fucking worry about it.

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  9. I voted for Reagan in your poll Ginx and I'm not even from the USA. Similarly I'd vote for Thatcher as the worst British PM. And I'd also be tempted to vote for David Lange as the worst New Zealand Prime Minister despite him being left wing, because under his administration the world famous Rogernomics market-liberal assault on New Zealand's economy was instigated. Roger Douglas (of Rogernomics) ended up leaving the Labour Party (New Zealand's centre-left) and forming the extreme ring wing party ACT.

    There's a bit of international politics for you! In my books, Magaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Roger Douglas are among the worst things to happen to Western society in the last 40 years by far.

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    1. Knew about Thatcher (aka: the Iron Cunt). I was definitely ignorant of Kiwi politics though.

      How can you go from the Labour Party to being an extreme right winger? Did he sustain a head injury?

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    2. Even today, the Iron Lady could still kick Bret's ass!

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    3. Maybe, not that she'd be able to remember it.

      I find it rather telling that these conservative icons all suffer from dementia/Alzheimers, a disease that can be combated early in life by exercising one's mind. I'm not surprised theirs have atrophied to the point of failure.

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  10. Have you thought that maybe conservativism is a symptom -rather than a cause- of mental feebleness?

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/27/intelligence-study-links-prejudice_n_1237796.html

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    1. I assume conservatism can't cause someone to be stupid, you just have to be stupid to be conservative. I would guess they're stupid because their parents drank or they grew up near a power plant or something, maybe just intellectual laziness.

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  11. "Starve the beast" meant stop the tax raises, not start the deficit spending. Deficit spending is the love child of the spend-o-crats.

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    1. Factually inaccurate. Deficit spending ballooned under Reagan and Bush, more than any Democrats. Look it up.

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