As Jeopardy! ads keep reminding me, there's a Hollywoodified Reagan movie coming out. If history is anything to go on: 90-95% fiction and dramatization, but morons will treat it as a documentary spreading the gospel truth. This is America, after all: why spend a few afternoons reading a book when you can plop your ass in a chair for some CGI explosions, stock dialogue, a script as dictated by Save the Cat!, and walk away with a feeling of jingoistic nationalism?
You don't even have to deal with those tricky nuances of history!
Now, this is far from a comprehensive rundown on Reagan, his personal history is hardly even touched on: nothing about his time as a GE spokesman, his alcoholic father, or him forgetting the name of one of his sons at that son's graduation ("Hi, my name's Ronald Reagan. What's yours?"), nor his taking part in the BS Red Scare in Hollywood during McCarthyism's heyday, nor his shift from a liberal to a "got mine, fuck you" conservative. He's likely a figure I'll return to, like it or not.
Reagan's also a president due for a historical reevaluation. He's often been ranked in the top ten our nation has had, but that thin veneer seems to be wearing down. There's plenty of hagiographies out there if you want to go straight to biased sources like Peggy Noonan. There are more neutral, popular sources as well, like HW Brands' excellent biography or the chunk of Edmund Morris' Dutch I've gotten through (need to finish). Even here, he kinda comes across as an absentminded airhead who was in over his head at best. Landslide by Jane Mayer and Doyle McManus is another good read in this category, especially in regards to Iran-Contra (a scandal, in my opinion, much worse than Watergate that was disgracefully covered up and still is mostly overlooked).
From the other side, you can find plenty of books criticizing him that are unreliable for similar reasons as hagiographies. There are critical books that are based in fact, provide solid arguments, and therefore overcome this hurdle. I would classify Will Bunch's Tear Down This Myth and Will Kleinknecht's The Man Who Sold the World as two.
So let's hit some highlights of a Reagan Rundown!
—Reagan's 1980 campaign included a stop at Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi, where he spoke about "states' rights." Why is this significant?
Because in 1964, three civil rights workers registering Black Mississippians to vote were murdered nearby with the help of local police. They were abducted, murdered, and their bodies unceremoniously buried.
Reagan's speech was interpreted, at the time and going forward to the present, as a massive dogwhistle to the racist segment of the party, a demographic that republicans had been targeting harder than ever since the 1964 Civil Rights Act LBJ passed and a demographic that remains deep red to this day.*
—Reagan's 'trickle down economics,' mocked by Bush Sr. as "voodoo economics" also used to be known as "horse and sparrow economics." It was derided and compared to overfeeding a horse oats in hopes that some would make it through the digestive track untouched, therefore providing food for the sparrows in its droppings. Akin to, "If taxes are cut for rich people, they'll have more to give out!" except it ends up being hoarded mostly.
Over the course of Reagan's two terms in office, the United States went from being the world's largest creditor nation (lending money) to the world's largest debtor nation (borrowing money). But for some reason, I hear republicans are better at handling the budget? Reagan had Black Monday, Bush the Great Recession, Trump's economy fucked everyone but the rich over... anyway.
—One of Reagan's big things was slashing regulations and how they only cause issues. This is a stupid opinion. Anyone who has read some Upton Sinclair or history in general regarding the Gilded Age pre-regulations should be able to understand that regulations have a lot of benefit beyond their price tag. Regulations are why we catch, say, formaldehyde in fish or ensure that products are safe for market. Hear about that Boar's Head plant that spread deadly food poisoning? That's what a lack of regulations will get you.
This tendency toward deregulation tends to come from the libertarian wing of the party; libertarianism is a philosophy that reached its 'best by' date long before the Gilded Age, but really showed its uselessness there. As the joke goes, Ayn Rand, Rand Paul, and Paul Ryan walk into a bar and order drinks. The bartender serves them wood alcohol, causing death. Since this is a Libertarian Paradise, there are no consequences because they should have taken personal accountability and done their research instead of expecting the government to do it for them. Buyer beware.
—Naturally, there's my implication to make a joke about 'Just Say No' Nancy being more like 'Just Suck a Golf Ball Through a Garden Hose' Throat GOAT Nancy, but that's just funny and hey, who doesn't like a bit of head?
What people don't like so much is running your home in a paranoid manner while being a massive pill-head and running with an excuse familiar to many wealthy people who doctor-shop today: "It's a prescription!"
Yeah, cause I've certainly never heard about famous celebrities abusing doctors who are happy to be a pill prescription pad with an easy signature. Some of the details could be fuzzy because I never poked too much into the cases, but doesn't this apply to Michael Jackson, Prince, and Matthew Perry among others?
—As far back as 1986, MIT studied the conservative approach to the economy and debunked Reaganomics; a study found that "excessive taxes and regulation and high labor costs were not responsible for the loss of America's productive supremacy. Rather it was the myopia of US industry, the refusal to sacrifice short-term profits in the interest of long-term investment to plant and equipment." Kleinknecht also discusses those much-lauded tax cuts and how they helped out—oh, wait, they primarily helped the rich. For the wealthy, the hollow mergers and acquisitions of the eighties were a great time to profit.
(Don't we see a similar attitude with all the republicans who are eager to vote against infrastructure investment as socialism or communism, then rush out to take credit for the funding they voted against when those federal dollars come to their districts?)
Don't be fooled by this. The average household rose for the average person by a very modest level (under 10%, so roughly a barely-keeping cost-of-living adjustment while for the wealthier among us, you're talking 25%+ growths in net worth. This can be seen in the great equalizer, the stock market, which far too many people have begun to see with sparkles in their eyes and all the responsibility of being drunk with endless credit trapped in a high-roller casino. While the bottom 40% of people did profit from some investments, we're talking going from ~$400 to ~$1700. For the rich, we're talking about going from $1.6 to $2.5 million.
A lot of this money is also made by cutting through regulatory "red tape," but Kleinknecht suggests a more comprehensive way of considering cost-benefit analysis here. Say, drawing on Jane Mayer's Dark Money, the Koch Brothers are pouring benzene (a carcinogen) into the environment rather than properly disposing of it. But it costs money to pay those regulators. Dump them, save the money, and why not just trust the industrial polluters to monitor themselves? (Remember Boar's Head, went real well with them).
That carcinogen is now poisoning the environment. Destroying wildlife, trees, mixing with groundwater and god forbid there's a nearby clean stream that's used for water or swimming or anything, really. Who knows what happens? Maybe you've got birth defects. Rising rates of difficult-to-treat cancer or other malignant illnesses. This happens to both the community and to the employees.
When the plant or the warehouse or whatever is shut down, they close up shop and leave the place to rust and rot away, taking the jobs with them as they move to a more business-friendly place (after all, if the government tries to hold them accountable, there's going to be some political campaign willing to blame immigrants for taking jobs or whatever other convenient demonized "other" of the day is, the culprits walk away scot-free and wealthy to a place with better "tax incentives," the people suffer, and the government, funded by the taxpayers these companies continue to hurt, picks up the tab).
This is a shitty way to do it; a better cost-benefit analysis would have been keeping those regulators and regulations around. An ounce of preventative is a pound of cure, and, similarly: the salary and other necessary components of functioning regulatory agencies is a lot cheaper than cleaning up a toxic wasteland, pay victims' families for those who have passed, and try to win a judgment for medical bills in a years'-long class action case that, ultimately, will not cover even a fraction of the actual damage, just like BP and that oil spill.
Exhibit A: This is an Asbestos Shoveling Competition. This is a stupid behavior to engage in. They don't happen anymore for a reason.
—Per Will Bunch's book, some at the University of California were confused by the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center rename considering he attacked University of California as a "hotbed of communism and homosexuality" to win the governorship; the university's president, who Reagan fired, snarkily remarked, "I didn't know Reagan was interested in UCLA's Medical Center." Reagan, in general, seemed to have a real thing about despising students; the Wikipedia article there does a decent job, but Perlstein's description of the National Guard being called in on People's Park is pretty horrifying, brutal, and dictatorial. The Invisible Bridge is the source for that one, I believe.
—Mental health is becoming a more open discussion, slowly, in the US: from Fetterman discussing his struggle with depression after his stroke to republicans refusing background checks because it's the mental health of people, not the easy availability and access to firearms leading to school shootings. Back when, Jimmy Carter was able to get a Mental Health Systems Act passed through Congress and signed into law. Reagan, who had played a pivotal role in shutting down California's mental health facilities, did not like this federal law and shook himself out of Sleepwalking Through History (another solid book on Reagan, Haynes Johnson) to get most of it repealed.
So, we can thank Reagan for: setting back mental health treatment in this country by a few decades, as well as the homeless problem that conservatives love to bitch about to this day. And his party, let's be honest: they still don't give a shit about mental health, it's just a convenient way to keep easy access for those who want to overcompensate for being a small person by carrying a big gun.
(Tangential, but from working grocery in an area with a decent chunk of hicks: the most common usage of open-carry I've seen in real life tended to be one of a few guys who shared the habit of wifebeaters, looking like they were days late for a shower a few days ago, and cutting in front of other customers, generally the elderly or mothers with just their children. Whether in aisles or in line, any murmur of dissent from the person they'd shove by would get a threatening glance down at the gun, then a low look back up at the person, and silence. And at some point, it's like, "Come on, man, is that Dinty Moore really worth the implied threat to someone who wouldn't stand a chance even without your faux penis?")
—I cannot recall if it was Bunch of Kleinknecht, but I recall a discussion of how 'scripted,' essentially Reagan's funeral was, to the point it had been planned long in advance, I recall it being mentioned even Nancy kissing the coffin in the last rays of the sunset was a scripted moment. Not entirely surprising for an actor-turned-president, I suppose, but an interesting glimpse behind the bizarre curtain of propaganda.
—I've heard varying accounts, and this I also believe comes from Bunch as Kleinknecht focuses more on domestic policy, however, there's a claim in one of these books I believe that that famous line—even in the trailer for that new movie—"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
Yeah, he almost really shit the bed per one of the accounts I've read. Prior to this, the US/USSR meetings had been pretty even-handed because the two superpowers were, ah, egotistical and sensitive about being the 'big one.' My understanding is that there were at least some on the US team who saw the initial Soviet reaction and feared Gorbachev would respond poorly to this shift from behind-closed-doors respect to public bellicosity and triumphalism. Think of it a bit as the difference between a graceful winner and an asshole who spends the rest of the night rubbing it in and mocking you.
—Iran-Contra. Boy, this is a thorny one and such a tangled web even I get bewildered about it and need some refresher crash-courses. Nixon's Watergate was bad and undermined faith in the electoral process—though even his ratfucking was nothing compared to Donald inciting a domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol on January Sixth. But Iran-Contra gets kinda passed over, almost brushed under the rug. Iran-Contra was arguably worse than Watergate.
For starters, we have a separation of powers for a reason. In 1982, the United States limited aid to the Contras in Nicaragua with the Boland Amendment. The Contras were a far-right terrorist group trying to overthrow the government of the Sandinistas. The Contras employed various methods of terrorism and human rights' abuses: they targeted clinics and health care workers; kidnaped, tortured, and executed civilians, including children; and generally, well, just all of the awful things you associate with terrorists: rape, pillaging, drugs, burning, killing... Reagan loved 'em. Normal people didn't. So, we got the Boland Amendment to prevent further sending aid and money to the Contras.
Reagan didn't like that. So he worked with his team, most prominently Oliver North, to set up a covert plan: why don't we sell weapons to Iran, then take that money and give it to the Contras?**
Now, I know what you're thinking: "The Contras must have been hooking the Reagan administration up with some stellar nose clams cause these guys are flying high in delusion land."***
Reagan's testimony, when it came down to it, was just running with "I don't recall" (there is an argument to be made the early signs of Alzheimer's began to reveal themselves during his second term, but as ever, these armchair diagnoses are to be taken with a grain of salt—I mean, I've spent months hearing about Biden's alleged mental decline because of a lifelong stutter and seem to hear crickets about Trump going off about windmills killing birds, post-birth abortions in six states, using electric batteries to fight sharks, and any number of other insane shit and that didn't lead my local news with, "Has he lost it?" several times a week; liberal media my ass; I digress).
And even look at his weak-ass defense of Iran-Contra: "A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not.”
I know when I was a kid, if I tried to apologize like this ("My heart says I didn't take an extra cookie, but the facts and the evidence indicate that there are crumbs around my mouth and half a cookie in my hand...") I would probably have landed myself in more trouble for not taking accountability for my actions.
Let's talk some more about avoiding accountability. Prior to "I don't recall," Reagan and HW Bush also set up plausible deniability. Instead of getting directly involved, like Nixon on his recordings, they'd, say, be sitting in the office while Ollie North talks to someone else about what's going on. They're there to listen and be updated, of course, but kinda like a mob lawyer (say, Trump mentor Roy Cohn****), they're able to pretend that, "Oh, I didn't hear much about that, I don't eavesdrop. It wasn't my conversation."
Here's a fun, cryptic hint about just how much was covered up:
In 1991 and 1992, Independent Counsel uncovered important evidence in the form of withheld documents and contemporaneous notes that raised significant questions about the earlier accounts provided by high Administration officials. The personal diary of Vice President Bush was disclosed to Independent Counsel only in December 1992, despite early and repeated requests for such documents. This late disclosure prompted a special investigation into why the diary had not been produced previously, and the substance of the diary.
December 1992. Guess who got a pleasant Christmas Surprise that year when Bush Sr. felt the walls closing in and the threat of legal peril for his actions?
On December 24, 1992, President George H.W. Bush granted pardons to six defendants in the Iran-Contra Affairs. The defendants were Elliott Abrams, a former assistant secretary of state for Central America; former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane; former CIA officials Duane Clarridge, Alan Fiers, Jr., and Clair George; and former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.
Awful convenient.
On a closing note, one of these books brings up an interesting theory about the lionization of Reagan for a long time, a process we can arguably see happening right now with Donald Trump.
The logic goes like this: take a look at the preceding Republican presidents. Ford, unelected and not too popular; Nixon, one of the most unpopular to this day; Eisenhower, who wasn't exactly a big ideological Republican and, frankly, the Eisenhower International Highway System would probably get him labeled as a socialist by today's GOP. Going back before that, you have the 20s presidents leading up to the Great Depression; none of then are good standard bearers for the party.
Taft and Roosevelt come before that, but Taft's not the most impressive president and you're talking over seventy years ago for Roosevelt. Prior to that, you've got a great man in Grant despite his scandal-ridden presidency—but that's not going to go over so hot with the Southern Strategy. Lincoln, well, he's basically your party's national birth and considered one of the Top Three Presidents with FDR and Washington, so you gotta stick with him.
Republicans didn't really have a popular figure like a Wilson (then—thankfully not now), an FDR, a Truman, a JFK or an LBJ. Democrats had options when it came to charismatic leaders. Even Carter, not a great president, is a paragon of a phenomenal, kindhearted person with his charity work. Reagan had to be made into this figure to keep the party going.
And the process continues: HW Bush was one of the better post-Eisenhower Republicans, but he's not the head of the party. Bush Jr. certainly isn't going to be given him being a laughingstock. Trump, on the other hand, well, he's got a bizarre, cultish hold somehow, the party's sticking by him, and we're getting to a point where the glitz and glam is peeling from Reagan. Barring a new leader who can galvanize the party in a new direction, it seems we're going to be fated to see Trump become lionized like Reagan was.
Just a crackpot theory.
—
*"During that same month, Johnson told Richard Russell, his dear friend and former mentor—and the leader of the Southern filibusters—that, without civil rights legislation and perhaps even with it, “there will be a bunch of killings this summer”. Russell, unmoved, stated that, if Johnson went forward with the legislation, “you will not only lose the election, you will lose the South forever.” LBJ’s quiet response was, “Well, Dick, if that’s the price I have to pay, so be it.”
**American Dad did a surprisingly apt song, actually, on Iran-Contra.
***Let's discuss, for a moment, why this was such an incredibly stupid decision, because as of 2024 it doesn't take a genius to see we haven't been on great terms with Iran for quite some time. It precedes Reagan, as this is one of those thorny geopolitical situations we can thank Ike Eisenhower and the Dulles Brothers for! FDR, too, though to a lesser extent, but all to do with that thorny morass known as the Middle East.
Iran was almost a natural ally to us as a nation: they did not care for Soviet overreach, and weren't fans of Britain, either, due to colonialism. Iran is also an oil supplier and an alternative to Saudi Arabia.
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