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Once again, much of the state of America can be summarized as "this awful experience is a direct result of the Reagan administration, but most people don't real

Once again, much of the state of America can be summarized as "this awful experience is a direct result of the Reagan administration, but most people don't realize it".

pavel_lishin 2y ago
I was listening to a podcast that mentioned something today that got worse in the eighties, and one host asked the other to guess the cause. I blurted out "Reagan" as I was listening, and was correct. Alas, I don't remember what specific thing they were discussing.
- selimthegrim 2y ago
  This is reminiscent of Uncle Ruckus’ visit to White Heaven in The Boondocks
secabeen 2y ago
The GOP is the party that says government doesn't work, and when put into power, they make it so.
Loughla 2y ago
The problem is that about half the country still sees him as some sort of hero.
- tzs 2y ago
  The funny thing about Reagan is if you go onto /r/republican or /r/conservative on Reddit and for any problem today that is similar to one faced under Reagan you suggest the same solution Reagan used (but don't say it was Reagan's solution) you will get promptly banned for posting liberal talking points.
llm_trw 2y ago
If only a democrat majority had been elected at any point in the last 40 years that could have fixed this.
- smeej 2y ago
  The article even makes it sound like the law is still on the books, just not being enforced. Pretty sure enforcing the laws is the responsibility of the executive branch, isn't it? So it's not like any big combined majority action would be necessary, just an executive who said, "We enforce this now." I'd like to think the article left out some important context that I'm now missing, because it'd sure be a weird thing to complain about from a partisan perspective if it could have been solved with the stroke of a pen.
  - relaxing 2y ago
    The article does mention it at the end. The reality is Clinton, Obama, and Biden were all corporate-friendly centrists.
    - mrguyorama 2y ago
      Can you really blame the Democrat party for embracing pro-business liberalism when Reagan's landslide victory, and the house and senate control that came with it demonstrated so clearly that AMERICA wanted a pro-business liberal policy? If Democrats didn't adopt a more pro-business face, would there even be a democrat party anymore? People seem to want democrats to do what FDR did. FDR's democrats held like a 70% control in the Senate! He was able to cow the supreme court because he had a credible threat to actually pack the court, like, according to the actual rules. As long as party majority leader is not a democrat for example, you cannot guarantee any judge actually gets their appointment voted on. Yet young democrats are dissatisfied with democrats "letting" McConnell steal the appointments. Want democrats to do something? You have to give them the power to do so!
- JadeNB 2y ago
  > If only a democrat majority had been elected at any point in the last 40 years that could have fixed this. I think that thinking of it this way shifts the blame unduly; it's not like Republicans as well as Democrats don't bear the blame for continuing harmful policies, just because those policies were instituted by Republicans. As to Democrats, the first Democratic administration that was elected after Reagan did so by running away from many traditional Democratic priorities, and both other Democratic administrations had to deal with a recalcitrant Congress for at least a substantial portion of their time in office. Even if they hadn't, though, I think that the general fact is that it's much easier to create problems quickly than to fix them quickly, so that the idea that any administration, even a 2-term one with a hypothetical cooperative Congress, could undo such changes (as opposed to just starting to undo them) isn't plausible—or, if it could be done, then it would surely be as all-consuming of political capital as the ACA was, at the expense of pursuing any of that administration's other priorities—and being able to pursue a longer-term solution would require electoral patience with political promises that weren't accompanied by immediate delivery.
legitster 2y ago
This is an intellectually lazy argument. The 1980s was a huge inflection point for our economy overall. It was the beginning of the baby boom. The end of Bretton Woods was just being felt. Instantaneous international markets were a thing for the first time. You can pull as many threads as you want to make the case that it all points to the minutia of a single administration - but they just happened to be at the wheel when the tide was changing.
- lapcat 2y ago
  > It was the beginning of the baby boom. Which baby boom are you talking about?
  - legitster 2y ago
    Sorry, the introduction of the baby boomers into the economy. The baby boom was 50s and 60s, so late 80s is when they started working and consuming things.
    - lapcat 2y ago
      No, you're a bit off here. The Baby Boom started in the mid 40s, so Boomers started working and consuming things in the 70s. In the late 80s, GenX were reaching adulthood.

Once again, much of the state of America can be summarized as "this awful experience is a direct result of the Reagan administration, but most people don't realize it".

pavel_lishin 2y ago

I was listening to a podcast that mentioned something today that got worse in the eighties, and one host asked the other to guess the cause. I blurted out "Reagan" as I was listening, and was correct. Alas, I don't remember what specific thing they were discussing.

selimthegrim 2y ago
This is reminiscent of Uncle Ruckus’ visit to White Heaven in The Boondocks

secabeen 2y ago

The GOP is the party that says government doesn't work, and when put into power, they make it so.

Loughla 2y ago

The problem is that about half the country still sees him as some sort of hero.

tzs 2y ago
The funny thing about Reagan is if you go onto /r/republican or /r/conservative on Reddit and for any problem today that is similar to one faced under Reagan you suggest the same solution Reagan used (but don't say it was Reagan's solution) you will get promptly banned for posting liberal talking points.

llm_trw 2y ago

If only a democrat majority had been elected at any point in the last 40 years that could have fixed this.

smeej 2y ago
The article even makes it sound like the law is still on the books, just not being enforced. Pretty sure enforcing the laws is the responsibility of the executive branch, isn't it? So it's not like any big combined majority action would be necessary, just an executive who said, "We enforce this now." I'd like to think the article left out some important context that I'm now missing, because it'd sure be a weird thing to complain about from a partisan perspective if it could have been solved with the stroke of a pen.
- relaxing 2y ago
  The article does mention it at the end. The reality is Clinton, Obama, and Biden were all corporate-friendly centrists.
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    Can you really blame the Democrat party for embracing pro-business liberalism when Reagan's landslide victory, and the house and senate control that came with it demonstrated so clearly that AMERICA wanted a pro-business liberal policy? If Democrats didn't adopt a more pro-business face, would there even be a democrat party anymore? People seem to want democrats to do what FDR did. FDR's democrats held like a 70% control in the Senate! He was able to cow the supreme court because he had a credible threat to actually pack the court, like, according to the actual rules. As long as party majority leader is not a democrat for example, you cannot guarantee any judge actually gets their appointment voted on. Yet young democrats are dissatisfied with democrats "letting" McConnell steal the appointments. Want democrats to do something? You have to give them the power to do so!
JadeNB 2y ago
> If only a democrat majority had been elected at any point in the last 40 years that could have fixed this. I think that thinking of it this way shifts the blame unduly; it's not like Republicans as well as Democrats don't bear the blame for continuing harmful policies, just because those policies were instituted by Republicans. As to Democrats, the first Democratic administration that was elected after Reagan did so by running away from many traditional Democratic priorities, and both other Democratic administrations had to deal with a recalcitrant Congress for at least a substantial portion of their time in office. Even if they hadn't, though, I think that the general fact is that it's much easier to create problems quickly than to fix them quickly, so that the idea that any administration, even a 2-term one with a hypothetical cooperative Congress, could undo such changes (as opposed to just starting to undo them) isn't plausible—or, if it could be done, then it would surely be as all-consuming of political capital as the ACA was, at the expense of pursuing any of that administration's other priorities—and being able to pursue a longer-term solution would require electoral patience with political promises that weren't accompanied by immediate delivery.

legitster 2y ago

This is an intellectually lazy argument. The 1980s was a huge inflection point for our economy overall. It was the beginning of the baby boom. The end of Bretton Woods was just being felt. Instantaneous international markets were a thing for the first time. You can pull as many threads as you want to make the case that it all points to the minutia of a single administration - but they just happened to be at the wheel when the tide was changing.

lapcat 2y ago
> It was the beginning of the baby boom. Which baby boom are you talking about?
- legitster 2y ago
  Sorry, the introduction of the baby boomers into the economy. The baby boom was 50s and 60s, so late 80s is when they started working and consuming things.
  - lapcat 2y ago
    No, you're a bit off here. The Baby Boom started in the mid 40s, so Boomers started working and consuming things in the 70s. In the late 80s, GenX were reaching adulthood.