and now he is burning in hell with Tatcher and Pinochet ❤
Ronnie was a senile racist POS and he pushed the deregulation for the financial sector.
Reagan was one of the worst things to happen to the US. Maybe we should just stop electing shitty actors to do a difficult job.
Reagan (or more specifically Michael Deaver) taught us that propaganda works incredibly well, almost every time.
Most of us didn’t learn it though. And here we are.
Reagan (or more specifically Michael Deaver) taught us that propaganda works incredibly well, almost every time.
Hitler (and many mfers before him) already taught that lesson, people fall for it every, single, time.
That’d require learning a lesson. And we’re collectively far too stupid to do that.
Reagan was one of the worst things to happen to the US.
100% agree
Maybe we should just stop electing shitty actors to do a difficult job.
I’d argue the opposite on that tho.
We kept hearing with Biden that a president can’t do much, it’s all Congress.
So why are we running career politicians when the majority of America hates politicians? Why did we just one an ex-prosecuter when most Dem voters hate our justice system?
Like, we can at least halfway it with someone like Al Franken, someone that started out somewhere else then switched to politics. But why not just say fuck it and run Taylor Swift for president? Count on her carrying the entire down ballot and getting dual majorities and she just has to not veto what lands on her desk.
Either the president doesn’t really do anything and is just a figurehead or it has to be someone with decades of government experience.
It can’t be both.
But there’s certainly no reason to keep picking people with zero charisma for what’s basically a convoluted popularity contest. Even foreign relations, I guarantee foreign leaders would give Brad Pitt a better deal than Joe Biden. They’re not getting down into the nitty gritty, the drones work out the details anyways.
Obama and Bill won off their charisma above all. Biden as well was incredibly charismatic back in the day, it’s just as came out recently, his health had been an issue basically the entire term. I’m not saying this as a dig, but he is a shell of his former self. 40 years ago he was considered the best public speaker of his generation.
As much as I want a progressive and think they’d win on policy, what matters before the platform is charisma and we need to admit that.
It’s insane we didn’t learn it after Al Gore, but clearly the DNC didnt.
As popular as it is to hate “career politicians“ I actually completely disagree with that concept. Most career politicians are fine and will do a competent job given the chance.
I don’t want someone who promises me Mars and then spends 4 years figuring out the job and covering their ass. I want somebody who will get a rocket up in the air at all to start so we can build on it.
It doesn’t matter how good you are at a job if you can’t get hired.
The most important quality of any presidential candidate is being able to win a convoluted popularity contest.
So we need to look at people that fit that criteria, then find a good candidate. Not find someone who would be a good president, that’s the easy part, there’s a shit ton of people who could be a good president like Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho, he didn’t have to be smart, just be popular and listen to a smart guy who told him what to do.
Most career politicians are actually not as dependent on the popularity contest as presidential candidates.
Exactly.
They do not have the experience or necessarily even the qualities required to win a popularity contest on that scale.
So I’m saying we find an empty suit that is good at winning popularity contests then listen to the party leaders in the House and Senate, since they’re the ones with decades of political experience, and I was about to write “and they write the laws” then remembered it’s mostly lobbyists and think-tank employees these days writing legislation.
But that’s a whole nother issue.
I’m not sure I agree with the strategy because that’s kind of what Trump is and it has not led to the Republican Congresses somehow being more effective
But it has led to Republican voters getting what they wanted. Roe v Wade is no more. We’re getting tariffs that career politicians know are harmful.
So a leftist equivalent would support Medicare For All, which is very popular with the public but unpopular with career politicians.
We can worry about that once we can consistently keep Republicans out of the White house
For the past 3 elections we’ve been told that’s all that matters and we’re 1/3
Note: Not Musk.
Yes, an apartheid white overlord is what we need. This blows my mind. I just argued with a relative over Christmas who thinks he’s super cool. MAGA of course.
“Most career politicians are
fine and will do a competent job given the chance” only concerned with keeping their position.This may be ego, greed, self preservation, or most likely a combination. On the Dem side I’ll pick Pelosi and Schumer as examples. Each thinks they are the best for the position, each has become rich, each continues to make deals to keep their position.
We kept hearing with Biden that a president can’t do much, it’s all Congress.
Keep in mind that while the president can’t do a lot of things unilaterally, there are a lot of things he can do to block, delay, and disrupt. Biden’s plans were mostly creating new things, which takes Congress. Trump just wants to destroy. It’s always easier to destroy than build.
Very true and right alongside “a lie makes it halfway around the world before the truth gets its shoes on”.
It’s so fucking depressing. Makes me want to give up on cold, dark, rainy days when I’m alone like today.
Isolation makes it much harder to be compassionate. Don’t forget, you’re not alone
Thanks friend. I know. I just hate the winter. If I could develop the ability to hibernate 3 months of the year and still pay my bills I would take it.
Either the president doesn’t really do anything and is just a figurehead or it has to be someone with decades of government experience. It can’t be both.
The lack of understanding is simply astounding, all for mental gymnastics.
The president has to do a ton to navigate the political mess, negotiate with others, and press the issues they want with both their party and with the other party. That takes skill, knowledge, and experience.
But they are NOT a king that gives orders. That’s where you are twisting the presidents limited power to “doesn’t really do anything”. Ultimately the bill has to be written and passed by Congress, to be signed by the president. The President has to use their words (not their power, because that’s not how it works) to convince others to do it. Again, because they are not a king.
I don’t always agree with you but I appreciate the effort you put into your posts. Thank you for contributing
This guy’s cooking.
You’re an interesting person. Sometimes I outright despise the things you say and other times I think you’re on the right track.
Reagan was a shitty actor with a good persona and voice. He was simply hired to act as POTUS, reading the script written by American billionaires.
And that’s been the president’s role ever since
It was attempted many times before that. Rockefeller and Carnegie and many others attempted it at the turn of the century and lost.
Worst thing so far.
To the world even, because everyone copies the US.
Thatcher has her part of the blame as well. Mulroney in Canada and so on…
The whole Luigi Mangione thing has made me wanna rewatch V for Vendetta. Really hope the case turns out like that movie.
OTOH, some actors have done pretty good jobs as politicians. Schwarzenegger–a GOP governor that actually listened to people!–Jesse Ventura (not a great governor, TBH, but decent), and Al Franken are examples of actors that ended up being pretty solid politicians. Ideally, a good politician is someone that has connections to people that understand good public policy, and can then communicate that effectively to the public in order to lead well.
The problem with Reagan isn’t the acting per se, but that he was an awful person, and so good at connecting with people that a lot of people couldn’t see his rotten core.
I should’ve emphasized “shitty”. Have we had a terrible actor that’s a good politician yet (genuinely don’t know)? I want to believe that being a good actor requires some measure of empathy, so it’s not surprising that reagan and the current pissy creamsicle were hacks.
We’ve had terrible politicians who were even worse actors if that counts. I’m thinking of “B-1” Bob Dornan to be specific.
When he was younger maybe but as he got older reagen needed teleprompter for virtually everything. He had lost his ability to speak off the cuff as his alzheimers progressed
I genuinely wish we were in the timeline where the worst thing he ever did was Bedtime for Bonzo. The fact that people worship this ass clown… it tears the heart…
Fascists don’t actually care about anything other than attacking the poor, minorities, women, etc.
Reagan was “great” for that.
The continued idolization of Reaganomics is a huge reason why the US continues to enshittify.
Maybe there shouldn’t be such a focus on cults of personality and electing celebrities. Imagine qualified people being in office.
The thread of anti-intellectualism runs deep.
I have a suspicion that anti-intellectualism and unaffordable education go hand in hand.
Education is unaffordable also due to classism, which reagonomics is really drenched in.
I did. I was told I was transphobic and pro-genocide by some totally not russian trolls.
And if we have to have a cult of personality dictator, why is it they always have such shitty policies?
The mental institution thing… That’s maybe not entirely fair. Prior to Reagan, most residential mental institutions were terrible places, worse than some of the worst prisons in the US. Closing them seemed better for the residents than keeping them open and attempting to reform. But it’s certainly had a lot of unintended consequences.
Infographic is correct, though it left out how he destroyed labor unions and a bunch of other stuff, but you can only fit so much in there. Reagan and his despicable cohorts like Gingrich were the beginning of the end for not just the ability to reach the middle class, but indeed for the middle class itself in this country (as his contemporary partner in crime, Thatcher was for the UK).
It was an absolute tragedy. If Trump wasn’t coming back in, Reagan would still hold the top rank in amount of devastation caused, but I’m pretty sure Trump will manage to surpass him on that front in his second term.
The good news is Trump will be the architect of his own downfall, just like Hitler and Nero
The bad news is Ronnie was also senile and the people surrounding him still managed to cause generational harm.
I don’t think it is mental illness causing the homeless crisis. Homelessness is up 20% from 2023 and I’m pretty sure the high cost of living is to blame.
Libs prefer blaming the victims of capitalism rather than capitalism itself.
A lot of homeless people are mentally sound, but are struggling with sky high prices, or dont have the motivation to work 60 or 80 hours, facing, constant exhaustion to live in a hole in the wall.
This man is responsible for the nightmare that is my life.
Fuck going back in time to kill Hitler, if I ever get into a DeLorean or a phone booth, I’m coming for that ass Reagan! THIS ONE’S GONNA BE FOR FREDDIE MERCURY!
Edit: Just got back, I think I got the wrong year or something, missed my shot too. Feds tried to stop me from getting back to the car, I got them to go bother some dickhead who wouldn’t shut up about some Crazy Taxi movie or whatever the hell he was talking about. Can’t try again for awhile, DeLorean’s out of plutonium.
If I could go back in time and kill three people from history, I’d kill Reagan three times.
Hey, get rid of Ayn Rand and Nixon too
Milton Friedman
Mmm… Fried man. salivating
Sorry I’ve been in the mood to eat rich powerful people lately… Was he one?
In 1971 he explicitly told all of the business world (with help from the Business Roundtable) that the only social responsibility of businesses is to increase profits. This set the course of acceptable practices for 50 years, until the Business Roundtable reversed their decision in 2019, to include stakeholders. Of course, the damage and cultural shift had already been done.
1976 he was awarded the fake Nobel prize they invented for Economics.
Might as well give Trump a prize for Humility… Jesus Christ, how can America be a “Christian Nation” if it believes the only Virtue we need is greed?
I think a lot of self professed Christians just believe in Jesus as if he’s the adult version of Santa claus and a magical genie who grants wishes if you pray hard enough
Allen Dulles deserves scrutiny.
Come on. You wouldn’t use one of those tokens to stop by east Germany and wax Putin in the KGB? You wouldn’t even need to change years to get Reagan and Putin in the same trip
Also kill Nancy Reagan. Pretty sure that succubus would have had a negative impact on people with HIV even if she wasn’t First Lady. The blowjob queen probably would have used her influence on Hollywood elites to create a hate campaign against the people with HIV
The number of people that died of AIDS each year under his watch was in the millions. Not 90k.
The most prosperous decade of the 20th century was the 1950s.
The top tier tax rate in 1950 was 84%, and that was the lowest it would be until 1964. The rest of the 1950s were at 91%-92%.
The important thing to remember is that nobody ever paid the top-tier tax rate. Instead, they spent their income. When they found themselves $10,000 over the line in 1955, and about to pay $9100 to Uncle Sam, they said “Hold up. Let’s spend $10000 on something useful and deduct it as a business expense”.
That spending turned into paychecks for the workers who produced the purchased item.
$10,000 over the line in 1988 meant they got to put $7,200 into their stock portfolio, send $2,800 to Uncle Sam, and the worker is laid off because they had no incentive to actually spend their excess income.
I know he was really bad, but Trump promised he will do everything in his power to be worse.
If you ever happen to visit Berlin in Germany, make sure to spit on his memorial plaque, as he is worshiped as a freedom fighter in Germany.
I (german) know of nobody that does that
https://withberlinlove.com/2012/10/01/ronald-reagan-memorials-in-berlin/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_honorary_citizens_of_Berlin
https://www.berlin.de/rbmskzl/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/2024/pressemitteilung.1452879.php
https://www.parlament-berlin.de/Das-Haus/Berliner-Ehrenbuerger/ronald-w-reagan
Maybe nobody of the normal people, but in the political elites they love to praise Reagan.
Same shit in Poland. What’s crazy is that we are suffering from his incompetence here as well.
There was this one time a painter couldn’t hack it
Jimmy Carter lost to him, and while looking back from fifty years later Carter looks progressive…
At the time there was a fracture of the Dem party from the left because they considered Carter too moderate.
The most important part of learning about our political history is understanding what we’ve lost over time. Like the existence of a party even remotely leftwing.
Quick edit:
A big reason for Carter’s loss was the inability to solve the Iranian hostage crisis right before the election. Which we later found out Republicans colluded with Iran to not resolve it while Carter was in office, then the whole Iran-Contra shit.
Also reminiscent of how Nixon prolonged the Vietnam war for the same reason…
And I won’t be surprised to find out in a decade Trump did the same with Israel.
Like, people kept acting shocked about current events just don’t know we’re watching reruns. It’s like when people got excited about Game of thrones and waited years between seasons for cliffhangers. The books already existed and they could have just found out what happened.
But just like they wouldn’t read the books, nobody wants to read a history book anymore.s
The Iranian hostage crisis was not a major part, it was more symbolic for how people felt about him - it mattered way more to Reagan as an issue of optics.
Many Americans felt he was ineffective. What really drove that initial impression of being an ineffectual leader was the state of the economy, which whether you blame him or not was not very good. Stagflation was really bad when he was in charge. People remember high gas prices when they think of Carter.
Now that I write this in some ways it mimics a lot of what happened with Biden.
Disagree that the crisis wasn’t a major part. He chose to work on the problems over campaigning, and was rewarded for doing his job with a loss. It was also a terrible time to be President, so probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway, and perhaps he realized that.
it was more symbolic for how people felt about him - it mattered way more to Reagan as an issue of optics.
And the Iranian hostage crisis was intentionally prolonged for the purpose of becoming that symbol…
Many Americans felt he was ineffective
Yes, I already mentioned the party fractured before the election due to his moderate policies compared to the party.
Now that I write this in some ways it mimics a lot of what happened with Biden.
It literally is, but I had hoped you had realized that already after reading:
people keep acting shocked about current events just don’t know we’re watching reruns.
But in any case what matters now is realizing this isn’t unique, and we’re not heading down the right path.
Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.
Isn’t just an old time saying, it’s the fucking truth and right now people need to read their history. You can’t just look up a random event to check against current events, you need to have an existing knowledge of history and be able to realize where, when, how, and most importantly why things are connected…
Or at least listen to people who do.
Your comment reads like someone who is disagreeing with me but I feel like we largely agree…? Kind of hard to get a read here
