Does anyone under 30 have any good memories of Raygun?

[pstokely]

I don't, people who won't alive during his reign are nearing drinking age. Many who can now vote probably don't even have good memories of the Clinton years.

[JI7]

1. while they may not have personal memories, reading helps a lot

but i do think the younger generations don't get the Reagan "appeal" . what made Reagan popular to voters back then would not work with many people today.

hopefully we see a decline in people who thought Reagan was a good, and espcially great President and he is finally seen in an objective way as one of the worst. W still being THE WORST though.

[Jeep789]

2. I was alive (albeit young) but I don't remember the appeal

Nobody I knew "appreciated" Reagan at the time or since.

[Lasher]

10. That's because Saint Ronnie's popularity is a myth.

Propagandists have been hard at work ever since Reagan left office.

More Gloss for the Gipper

The Myth of Reagan's Popularity

Reagan left office bolstered by the oft-repeated media myth that he had been far and away the most popular of any president since World War II. But bearing in mind Mark Twain's observation that a lie gets half-way around the world before truth puts its boots on, the U.S. public deserves to know what the polling data actually says.

According to Gallup polls taken throughout his presidency, Reagan was not one of the more popular presidents in the post-Roosevelt pack. At various points during his presidency he rated lower than the other presidents during comparable periods of their terms in office. For instance, during the first two years of Reagan's presidency, the public was giving President Reagan the lowest level of approval of all modern elected presidents. Reagan's average first year approval rating was 58 percent--lower than Dwight Eisenhower's 69 percent, Jack Kennedy's 75 percent, Richard Nixon's 61 percent and Jimmy Carter's 62%.

<snip>

For anyone who cares to look at the actual polling data, the facts show that Reagan was definitely not the most popular post-war president, and during many comparable periods he was among the most unpopular.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1192

[Zywiec]

11. Yeah, it was just a myth...

[Lasher]

16. That's intellectually dishonest.

I offered comparisons with other Presidents, which are much more relevant to the discussion than your contribution.

[WI_DEM]

22. Well Nixon won with 49 states too, does that mean he was among the most popular presidents in all

history? It just means that more people preferred him over his opponent in that particular election. In both cases the electorates made a terrible mistake.

[Lasher]

29. And Junior was around 90% at one point.

Ironic how so many people got behind him for such a colossal fuckup. But few people today would consider Junior a popular president. And rightly so; his numbers were below 50% for all his second term.

Tricky Dick was relatively popular until we learned that he was actually a pretty evil guy. Approval ratings stand out more toward the end than the beginning where history is concerned. In that respect Junior and Nixon were about the same. Clinton came out a little better than Saint Ronnie.

[lostnotforgotten]

3. I'm 53 - My Memories Of Reagan Are Mush Less Than Fond

eom

[drm604]

6. Same here. n/t

[Democracyinkind]

4. My Dad, who is a critical thinker to some extent, can't come to believe that Reagan was a jerk.

He has changed like 99% percent of his beliefs thru the talks I had with him. He has changed his mind on Vietnam, on the cold war in general and everything, he was always really open when it came to reading other opinions and accepting them when they are factual. Yet, somehow this doesn't include the Reagan topic. No matter how many facts about Reagan I pile up on him he simply refuses to change his ideas about him.

That brought me to think that most people who adore Reagan are sentimentalists. Ask anyone of them what actions of Reagan they liked. They will say " he made America strong again " or " he gave America back its pride ". It's just that this perceived "strength" and "pride" are the two things that will eventually lead to the US's demise... but anyways... My Dad and other people don't think Reagan was a good politician. They just didn't know that they were victims of a spin doctor ambush and that their perception of Reagan is that of a celebrity, not a politician. No wonder, the guy was an actor and that's exactly what he did 8 years long. Act. He never was the president - only in name - and certainly never came near being president after he was shot.

[Hannah Bell]

15. I thought you were Swiss? Why would your dad feel sentimental about

reagan unless he were american?

[Democracyinkind]

32. I'm both, Swiss and American. :-) May Dad is Swiss though.

And quite frankly that is a question I have asked myself many times. For him, it has to do with his belief that Reagan brought down the evil empire. Even though he agrees that most of what he knows about the Soviet Union is western propaganda, he never could accept that the fact that most of what he thinks he knows about Reagan is propaganda from the same source.

Then again. My Dad was born in the mid-40's, just after the war, heir to (he then assumed) an empire of factories - a real bourgeois background if there ever was one. The concept and the politics of the Soviet Union really was a threat to him (something I agree and understand) and he felt the real need " to stand up to them" and he considered it quite plausible that the red tanks would one day come rolling into the city. I think that part was mostly based on propaganda.

A second thing that he always loved to talk about is how Reagan "cleaned up the economy" and bla bla blah, something he doesn't believe that strongly anymore - my achievement. But still this romantic notion of Reagan as a real leader figure somehow survived within him.

Never underestimate a Europeans sentimentality about a US president :-) People here do commonly believe that they have a stake in what direction America is taking. Just as the love for Reagan by my Dad baffled me, the hysterical dislike for Bush seemingly every European that I met held did too.
I mean, there's allot of reasons for that hysterical dislike, I just never understood how somebody who hasn't got the slightest idea about US politics can have such a strong opinion about it.

[Misskittycat]

5. I'm 58 and never liked Reagan at all.

Never understood why he was considered such a great "communicator." And, of course, he was a shitty president with crappy, destructive ideas. Never understood the whole "Reagan Democrat" thing.

[drm604]

7. It's all marketing.

The danger is that people who aren't old enough to remember him will end up with false ideas about him because of the efforts of people like Grover Norquist.

[Lasher]

13. Exactly right.

It annoys me to see someone repeating Reagan bullshit, about how great he was - when he was actually an idiot. But we can help set the record straight.

The Real Reagan Record

Debunking Myths About Reagan

Ronald Reagan, the Bonzo President

Even Reagan was no Ronald Reagan

[bulloney]

14. Reagan is a fabrication of RW talk radio.

The Limbaughs, Hannitys, etc. constantly pound their propaganda unchallenged. After doing this for so long, a percentage of the population accepts it as fact and repeats the myths to their friends and then you have a bunch of zombies just repeating what the talk shows are saying without challenging these claims.

Reagan myths vs. reality:

Myth: Reagan was a fiscal conservative
Fact: Never submitted a balanced budget. Largest budget deficits in history at the time. Added more to the national debt than all preceding presidents combined. This, despite the fact that the Republicans controlled the Senate during Reagan's first six years in office.

Myth: Reagan ushered in less government.
Fact: Government grew under Reagan. The defense department budget grew. Farmers became more dependent on government subsidies and less on the markets under Reagan farm policies. The list goes on and on.

Myth: Reagan put America back to work.
Fact: On a per-annual basis, Reagan didn't do much better than Carter in job creation: l9 million jobs in 8 years of Reagan vs. 9 million in four years of Carter. Analysts will tell you that much of Reagan's job creation stemmed from his enormous increases in military spending.

Myth: Reagan ended the Cold War.
Fact: The wheels were coming off the Soviet Union before Reagan took office. Reagan followers want you to believe that his speech where he told Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall was the crowning touch of his efforts to end the Cold War. Many thought the Soviets during the Carter years passed the U.S. in military strength. Yet, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and were driven back. I met a university instructor who visited the Soviet Union before Reagan took office and showed slides of a country whose infrastructure was falling apart. Reagan just happened to take office when we could see signs of the Soviet Union falling from outside the iron curtain. Besides, are you telling me that 40-some years of arms races and talks did nothing, but Reagan's cute little speech in Berlin was all it took to bring down the Soviet Union?

Myth: Reagan personified conservative family values.
Fact: Reagan is the only divorced president in U.S. history. Check the date he married Nancy and check the date their first child, Patti was born. I'll give you a clue: The two events were less than 9 months apart.

[reprehensor]

8. whoa...

I'm so not under 30...

[rfranklin]

9. He marketed racism and class warfare with a smile...

and a lot of folks lapped it up. He preyed on the racism of workers who were losing their livelihoods, telling them it was the blacks that were taking their jobs while the MBAs were shipping the factories off to China. He sold the lie that if we only built more bombs we would be safer, etc. Meanwhile, he was just reading his lines off index cards.

[Norrin Radd]

12. 36

I grew up during the 80's, and I don't recall ever hearing an adult at that time expressing any fondness or positive words for Reagan -- only from fictional characters on TV, like Alex P. Keaton, and even he mentioned Nixon more than Reagan.

[droidamus2]

17. Don't remind me

I unfortunately had to live through not only 8 years of Ronnie as President but also 8 years with him as California governor. He sucked at both of those jobs as far as I am concerned.

[shadowknows69]

18. I lost my virginity during his administration. That's about it.

And it's unfortunate I have to relate the two at all in my mind.

[Tyler Generation]

19. No not really

I'm 27 and all the Reagan's were to me was another set of famous people on tv. No different from Mr. T or Alf.

[lpbk2713]

20. My memory of RayGun is kinda vague.

http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2004/06/06/chimp,0.jpg

Which one was he again?

[LWolf]

21. I can't think of any valid reason for anyone of any age

to have "good" memories of Ronnie. I was a Californian for his tenure as governor and president. He's the only president I've seen live.

[TuxedoKat]

23. I'm not under 30

but don't have any good memories of him either. Now that he's passed on and the Republican's are out of power people are finally speaking up about him.

Funny thing, I really like his son, RR, Jr., so he and Nancy must have done something right to have raised him the way he did.

[graywarrior]

24. I can't get over the dems who voted that guy in.

[tabbycat31]

25. I'm 29 with zero memories of him

all I know is that my parents did not like him.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

26. I'm 25.5 (today) and I don't remember Reagan at all. My first political memories are of the

election between Bush and Dukakis.

[Bandit]

27. I don't know whether reagan actually had anything to do with it but he was given credit but

Inflation was killing the USA at the time and both Ford with his WIN buttons (whip inflation now) and Carter's Oil embargo because of Iran, neither could do a thing. Reagan came along and inflation ended. It was something very Major and someone needs credit for it. Reagan got the credit...

[Ishoutandscream2]

28. The original "teflon" man

He could say the dumbest shit, and not get called on it. He was (to me, anyway) lazy, rude, and didn't care about common people. Oh, he gave that impression that he was for the common man, but I never bought in to it.

The 80's remind me of this previous Bush decade. A lazy president (Reagan was always vacationing), intellectually lazy, gaffe prone (and the press seemed to not make an issue of it), and just flat out dumb. I never thought someone would surpass him, but the Chimp makes Ronnie look like Albert Einstein.

[Odin2005]

30. Nope. I was born in 1986 and St. Ronnie was the archetypal Evil Puke for me growing up.

My parents HATED Reagan. Oddly enough they ADORED Jimmy Carter so I was fortunate enough not to run into the Carter-bashing BS until I was far enough into my teens to realize it was BS.

[kentuck]

31. More and more, I agree with John Locke...

Unless you have experienced it, you cannot really know it. A lot of younger people think they know Reagan from what they hear from the media and from what they read. They do not know.

[callous taoboy]

33. Reagan, and the 80's in general, sucked big-time.

The only thing good to come out of that decade for a young dude coming of age was that it forced me to go back to earlier time periods to find meaningful music and literature. I discovered the beats, great jazz from the 50's, delved deeper into music from the 60's.

[callous taoboy]

34. dupe