Challenge: Reagan seen in the USA as Thatcher is in the UK
- Thread starter whitecrow
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Have him elected in 1976, then either have him lose 1980 outright, or have him not appoint Paul Volcker, so the bad late seventies early 1980's economy drags on through his second term. Therefore, most of the reasons he is highly regarded go away, seeing as there is no 1980's recovery, and no Jimmy Carter to compare him to, that goes a long way towards killing his reputation.
Easy. Have the conservative movement fail to deify Reagan completely in the late 1990s, and he'll become a polarizing figure. No need to change his terms at all.
Reagan was utterly despised in the 1990s, its not far from the imagination that the deification of Ronald Reagan would fail to completely succeed.
Reagan in 1968 came off like a doom-and-gloom Republican George Wallace. It wasn't until later that he became associated with being sunnier.
I think that the only realistic way for that to happen is to create an analogue to the 1980s UK. What I mean is, have Reagonmics more markedly send the production-indstruries into a steep decline. This, however, is IMHO hard to accomplish as US industries, manufactoring as well as raw materials, were IIRC a bit more competitive than the British economy of the day.
Alternatively, though, he could ruin the farmers thoroughly by.
That would of course not make Reagan universally hated, neither is Thatcher.
So he is either despised in Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland....or in the Midwest.
Alternatively, though, he could ruin the farmers thoroughly by.
That would of course not make Reagan universally hated, neither is Thatcher.
So he is either despised in Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland....or in the Midwest.
Have him not get Alzheimer's, so that he is still active in the 90s and the GOP can't memorialize him while he's still alive.
I think having him not die in an election year would make a difference. It seemed like a lot of moderate liberals held off on strongly criticizing the more odious features of Reagan's regime out of fear of alienating the so-called Reagan Democrats. If he lived until 2005 when Bush II's popularity had collapsed because of the incompetent handling of the Iraq war and Katrina, I think the popular judgment against Reagan's government would be much harsher.
Kind of pitiful to have politics so saturate your life that somebody would stoop to this (which I'm sure will happen when Slick Willy or W kicks the bucket).
Views of Reagan are highly polarised in the United States, it is simply that one pole of the argument is very lightly represented in terms of number of politically active adherents and play for that pole in traditional media.
Your question has an implicit argument from middle ground, as if the United States is inherently a singular body of opinion; and would need to be polarised from that opinion.
The United States is a multi polar culture, with numerous internal divisions.
With the poor causative argument in the question, you're likely to get poor speculative answers.
Reagan was feted by the media. Reagan was not personified as the representation of neo-liberal economic and social changes in the United States (outside, perhaps, of Matt Groenig's _Life in Hell_ series, HS Thompson's "second Nixon" screeds, and other such outlets). Reagan managed to appeal across numerous political and ideological fault lines, and ensured that his team would continue to support his appeal after his incipient decrepitude set in.
Obviously, a 1980s in which a coherent anti-neo-liberal political programme existed at a national level, in the mainstream media, and which produced a mythos around the social change of the 1980s and major strikebreaking that focused on Reagan would result in a polarised opinion of Reagan. It is hard to imagine the United States party system reconfiguring in the 1950s to allow such a national programme to exist.
Any of the significant changes which would bolster a coherent anti-right programme in the 1970s in a disorganised and non-party system way would probably preclude the election of Reagan (but, perhaps not the appointment.) In these circumstances Reagan wouldn't invoke hatred. It'd probably be Jim Carter's use of national guards on strikers in the late 1970s that would be the focus of revulsion.
Finally, with scholars, Reagan gets less of a bad rap than Thatcher because many of the neo-liberal transformations began under Carter and extended under Reagan. The United States was nowhere near the liminal position that British Capitalism was in in the late 1970s, and there is no radical or labourite hankering after a winter of discontent that should have been made glorious summer by this sun of the TUC.
yours,
Sam R.