Liberals - Reagan and Bush

[A18]

I have to say Reagan, because he had 8 years to mess up the country, and Bush has only had four so far. Also, Reagan didn't seem to me to be as much aligned with the religous right as Bush is.

So you're saying Reagan is better or worse?

[Akno21]

I have to say Reagan, because he had 8 years to mess up the country, and Bush has only had four so far. Also, Reagan didn't seem to me to be as much aligned with the religous right as Bush is.

So you're saying Reagan is better or worse?

Right now, worse, but in four years, better.

[Farmlands]

I just think it's so funny that so many of the same criticisms that are currently being leveled against Bush were thrown at Reagan during the 80s.  They've just all been washed away by the passage of time.  I wonder if in twenty years, when we have another conservative president the liberals will be looking back and saying things like, "At least George W. Bush was smarter than this moron" and "George W. Bush didn't govern nearly as far right as this guy."

Couldn't have been more right on the money than this prediction. Bush has definitely had a bit of a reappraisal, now that Trump is the new comparison point, in the twenty years since.

[OSR stands with Israel]

I just think it's so funny that so many of the same criticisms that are currently being leveled against Bush were thrown at Reagan during the 80s.  They've just all been washed away by the passage of time.  I wonder if in twenty years, when we have another conservative president the liberals will be looking back and saying things like, "At least George W. Bush was smarter than this moron" and "George W. Bush didn't govern nearly as far right as this guy."

Couldn't have been more right on the money than this prediction. Bush has definitely had a bit of a reappraisal, now that Trump is the new comparison point, in the twenty years since.

Though Reagan was definitely less criticized by democrats and especially the media than Bush 2004-08 and especially Trump . Like much of the media definitely liked Reagan and many Democrats seemed to like Reagan more than Nixon or even HW Bush

[Goldwater]

I like both of them.

[President Johnson]

Difficult. Reagan was worse domestically, Bush was worse on foreign policy. Probably Bush all things considered. His presidency was a complete disaster.

[Ferguson97]

Lol why did you guys necro a 20-year-old thread?

[HisGrace]

LOL didn't realize this was 20 years old at first.

Anyway, recently we've had quite a few Bush>Reagan takes from Democrats. W has higher favorability among Dems in national polls and he's beaten Reagan in Atlas polls before. I'd love to know why. Anything bad you can say about Reagan is also true of Bush but that's not the case the other way around. It's like they think it's only ok to cut taxes as long as you get us into two wars and a financial crisis.

[OSR stands with Israel]

LOL didn't realize this was 20 years old at first.

Anyway, recently we've had quite a few Bush>Reagan takes from Democrats. W has higher favorability among Dems in national polls and he's beaten Reagan in Atlas polls before. I'd love to know why. Anything bad you can say about Reagan is also true of Bush but that's not the case the other way around. It's like they think it's only ok to cut taxes as long as you get us into two wars and a financial crisis.

It’s cause it’s become cliche among online liberals to blame Reaganomics for everything. At the end of the day the 2008 crises was more caused cause :

- Bush trying to expand home ownership above levels that were financially sustainable

- The federal reserve fueling the housing bubble to help the country get out of the early 2000s recession faster

- repeal of Glass-Stegall which happened nearly 10 years after Reagan left office

If you blame Reagan for the 2008 recession then you also have to blame FDR for the 1970s stagflation crises .

[President Johnson]

LOL didn't realize this was 20 years old at first.

Anyway, recently we've had quite a few Bush>Reagan takes from Democrats. W has higher favorability among Dems in national polls and he's beaten Reagan in Atlas polls before. I'd love to know why. Anything bad you can say about Reagan is also true of Bush but that's not the case the other way around. It's like they think it's only ok to cut taxes as long as you get us into two wars and a financial crisis.

It’s cause it’s become cliche among online liberals to blame Reaganomics for everything. At the end of the day the 2008 crises was more caused cause :

- Bush trying to expand home ownership above levels that were financially sustainable

- The federal reserve fueling the housing bubble to help the country get out of the early 2000s recession faster

- repeal of Glass-Stegall which happened nearly 10 years after Reagan left office

If you blame Reagan for the 2008 recession then you also have to blame FDR for the 1970s stagflation crises .

I wouldn't blame Reagan personally, though the neoliberal economic policies he estbalished helped to create the crisis in the first place. In all fairness though, the Republican congress in 1999 and Bill Clinton passing and signing the repeal of Glass-Steagall turned out to be disastrous decision.

[OSR stands with Israel]

LOL didn't realize this was 20 years old at first.

Anyway, recently we've had quite a few Bush>Reagan takes from Democrats. W has higher favorability among Dems in national polls and he's beaten Reagan in Atlas polls before. I'd love to know why. Anything bad you can say about Reagan is also true of Bush but that's not the case the other way around. It's like they think it's only ok to cut taxes as long as you get us into two wars and a financial crisis.

It’s cause it’s become cliche among online liberals to blame Reaganomics for everything. At the end of the day the 2008 crises was more caused cause :

- Bush trying to expand home ownership above levels that were financially sustainable

- The federal reserve fueling the housing bubble to help the country get out of the early 2000s recession faster

- repeal of Glass-Stegall which happened nearly 10 years after Reagan left office

If you blame Reagan for the 2008 recession then you also have to blame FDR for the 1970s stagflation crises .

I wouldn't blame Reagan personally, though the neoliberal economic policies he estbalished helped to create the crisis in the first place. In all fairness though, the Republican congress in 1999 and Bill Clinton passing and signing the repeal of Glass-Steagall turned out to be disastrous decision.

Maybe but by that definition you also have to blame the Keynesian Consensus FDR established lead to the 1970s stagflation crises . Any policy program taken too far will lead to negative consequences as well as not dealing with the downsides of any policy program as all policy programs have downsides . I would say that would be unfair as well .

The best analogy would be that Reaganomics was treatment/medicine  for the 1970s but like any treatment there are side effects you have to watch out far . What we did instead was we decided not to watch out for any of the side effects and overtime the side effects started to become major problems that needed to be treated too . The same thing happened with the old Keynesian consensus , where we didn’t watch out for the side effects and it then created whole new sorts of issues that needed to be treated .

Lastly I would say people always have a more gloomy mind of the present. There are many things that were better for the median person after 3 and a half decades of neoliberalism then there(or now nearly 4 and a half depending on whether you think the consensus broke in 2016 or not ) were before it and you can argue better overall.

[HisGrace]

LOL didn't realize this was 20 years old at first.

Anyway, recently we've had quite a few Bush>Reagan takes from Democrats. W has higher favorability among Dems in national polls and he's beaten Reagan in Atlas polls before. I'd love to know why. Anything bad you can say about Reagan is also true of Bush but that's not the case the other way around. It's like they think it's only ok to cut taxes as long as you get us into two wars and a financial crisis.

It’s cause it’s become cliche among online liberals to blame Reaganomics for everything. At the end of the day the 2008 crises was more caused cause :

- Bush trying to expand home ownership above levels that were financially sustainable

- The federal reserve fueling the housing bubble to help the country get out of the early 2000s recession faster

- repeal of Glass-Stegall which happened nearly 10 years after Reagan left office

If you blame Reagan for the 2008 recession then you also have to blame FDR for the 1970s stagflation crises .

I wouldn't blame Reagan personally, though the neoliberal economic policies he estbalished helped to create the crisis in the first place. In all fairness though, the Republican congress in 1999 and Bill Clinton passing and signing the repeal of Glass-Steagall turned out to be disastrous decision.

Maybe but by that definition you also have to blame the Keynesian Consensus FDR established lead to the 1970s stagflation crises . Any policy program taken too far will lead to negative consequences as well as not dealing with the downsides of any policy program as all policy programs have downsides . I would say that would be unfair as well .

The best analogy would be that Reaganomics was treatment/medicine  for the 1970s but like any treatment there are side effects you have to watch out far . What we did instead was we decided not to watch out for any of the side effects and overtime the side effects started to become major problems that needed to be treated too . The same thing happened with the old Keynesian consensus , where we didn’t watch out for the side effects and it then created whole new sorts of issues that needed to be treated .

Lastly I would say people always have a more gloomy mind of the present. There are many things that were better for the median person after 3 and a half decades of neoliberalism then there(or now nearly 4 and a half depending on whether you think the consensus broke in 2016 or not ) were before it and you can argue better overall.

The contemporary western world inarguably has the highest standard of living that has ever existed in human history. The 40's and 50's nostalgia you see from some corners of the left is just weird.

[OSR stands with Israel]

LOL didn't realize this was 20 years old at first.

Anyway, recently we've had quite a few Bush>Reagan takes from Democrats. W has higher favorability among Dems in national polls and he's beaten Reagan in Atlas polls before. I'd love to know why. Anything bad you can say about Reagan is also true of Bush but that's not the case the other way around. It's like they think it's only ok to cut taxes as long as you get us into two wars and a financial crisis.

It’s cause it’s become cliche among online liberals to blame Reaganomics for everything. At the end of the day the 2008 crises was more caused cause :

- Bush trying to expand home ownership above levels that were financially sustainable

- The federal reserve fueling the housing bubble to help the country get out of the early 2000s recession faster

- repeal of Glass-Stegall which happened nearly 10 years after Reagan left office

If you blame Reagan for the 2008 recession then you also have to blame FDR for the 1970s stagflation crises .

I wouldn't blame Reagan personally, though the neoliberal economic policies he estbalished helped to create the crisis in the first place. In all fairness though, the Republican congress in 1999 and Bill Clinton passing and signing the repeal of Glass-Steagall turned out to be disastrous decision.

Maybe but by that definition you also have to blame the Keynesian Consensus FDR established lead to the 1970s stagflation crises . Any policy program taken too far will lead to negative consequences as well as not dealing with the downsides of any policy program as all policy programs have downsides . I would say that would be unfair as well .

The best analogy would be that Reaganomics was treatment/medicine  for the 1970s but like any treatment there are side effects you have to watch out far . What we did instead was we decided not to watch out for any of the side effects and overtime the side effects started to become major problems that needed to be treated too . The same thing happened with the old Keynesian consensus , where we didn’t watch out for the side effects and it then created whole new sorts of issues that needed to be treated .

Lastly I would say people always have a more gloomy mind of the present. There are many things that were better for the median person after 3 and a half decades of neoliberalism then there(or now nearly 4 and a half depending on whether you think the consensus broke in 2016 or not ) were before it and you can argue better overall.

The contemporary western world inarguably has the highest standard of living that has ever existed in human history. The 40's and 50's nostalgia you see from some corners of the left is just weird.

A lot of it is there is an obsession by the left with “wealth inequality” which while yes was lower in the 50s and 60s , it’s an extremely misleading stat to use . The reason is a huge part for this has to do more with the stock market has grown way faster in the past 40 years than it did in the 40 years before that .

It does not mean though median wages were higher then , home ownership was higher then , or basics such as cost of food was more affordable then .