Reagan was a "divide-and-conquer" master, playing on working/middle class white's hatred and distrust of anyone he deemed "lesser" and "lazy".
His PR team successfully painted the modern Republicans as take-charge he-men cowboys and Democrats as everything from effete pantywaist elitists to communist subversives, a myth that still holds true today with many Americans.
He governed using ramped-up 50's fear and the threat of nuclear holocaust, something our society and children stressed out over all through the 80s.
He made racism acceptable, the wealthy as benevolent overlords (who he ushered in the White House to permanently camp and "advise" ) and Horatio Alger as a tongue-in-cheek blueprint for all American workers . . . the idea that with just the right amount of pluck and extremely hard work, anyone can make it big.
Long after he was out of office and well on the journey into cerebral oblivion, Reagan's long stenchy shadow unfortunately looms over American life. Even though political parties have changed, Reaganomics never LEFT. We STILL practice this incredibly destructive pure Freidmanite capitalism despite all evidence that it's killing economic progress for everyone except a select few, whose incomes and wealth are inflating daily.
We still constantly have to be at WAR with someone, support dictatorships and exploit cheap resources and labor.
This backwards wooden fundamentalist puppet ruined and continues to ruin America. Reagan was a lousy president, a twisted human being and a laughingstock. While still following and lauding his supposed "legacy", America will remain a laughingstock also.
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