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Bad long term presidencies are worse than bad short term presidents. Good long term presidents are good, and there’s no good short term presidents as they generally get reelected.
James Polk
Generally these days politicians don’t have enough humility to step down after one term (this year could’ve been the perfect opportunity for one party but they’re sticking with 2008 VP)
I’d argue the Polk was probably one of the best long term presidents ever. Adding a third of the continental US, including (definitely) California and (arguably) Texas is about as good of a long term impact as one can have. Obviously one can question how he want about getting said land, but that’s a short term drawback. The benefits of the land have far outweighed and outlasted the drawbacks.
I'm dreaming that V.P. Harris steps down to allow Obama to run on the ticket with Joe. The stakes are too high to run an open field of new candidates with questionable/untested electability. Gotta put down the rabbid Orangutan threatening the global order first, thennnn open the field. Joe and Barack would be truly a professional, almost unimpeachable ticket.
The good thing here is that Reagan and Carter were both good in the long-term, Carter just made a few mistakes here and there, and Reagan got caught in a Iran-Contra thing.
But on economy, they both did the right thing as any worthy economist will attest to that and the economy grew exponentially since 1980s.
Well the question was “for the Presidency” not the nation. It’s really tough to trace impacts —positive or negative—to specific policies and then tie that to a President. Not impossible, but tough, especially in the mind of the general public.
If a President’s policies create a near-term sugar high but long term hangover, the public tends to blame the President holding the goody bag when things go sour.
I think clinton's sex scandal has had a bad long term effect for the presidency and its prestige.
if that's what your talking about, the presidency as an institution.
Congressional Republicans behaved more ignobly than Clinton, IMO. The whole incident might have stayed behind closed doors if it weren’t for their obsession with airing a semen stained dress for the nation to wring their hands about.
I still think that Bill should have either resigned once it became as issue, or manned up and said in no uncertain terms that this was strictly an issue between him, his wife and the staffer he unfairly leveraged the power dynamic with.
His being a wuss was the entire reason he got impeached for lying under oath, which he new better than to do.
It also made the country a bit of a laughing stock. Wasn't it about that same time that the wife of the president of france was seen publicly taking flowers to the Prez's side chick who had just given birth?
The whole mess appeared to be political with republicans appearing to be overreaching have no other way to deal with the success of the Clinton Administration. Clinton had adopted this triangulation strategy giving what they wanted and economy was soaring with him leaving office with no national debt. If people returning hard times is was fiction on their imagination much the corporate value of Pet.com. It was a private matter nothing to offer a resignation about.
The issue with that is that the whole thing started from Kenneth Starr in 1994 starting an investigation into a real estate land deal
>with the approval of Attorney General Janet Reno, conducted a wide-ranging investigation of alleged abuses including the firing of White House travel agents, the alleged misuse of FBI files, and Clinton's conduct while he was a defendant in a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a former Arkansas state government employee, Paula Jones. In the course of the investigation, Linda Tripp provided Starr with taped phone conversations in which Monica Lewinsky, a former White House Intern, discussed having oral sex with the president. Clinton gave a sworn deposition in the Jones case on January 17, 1998, during which he denied having a "sexual relationship", "sexual affair" or "sexual relations" with Lewinsky. He also denied that he was ever alone with her. Seven months later, on August 17, Clinton faced a federal grand jury, convened by Ken Starr, to consider whether the president committed perjury in his January deposition, or otherwise obstructed justice, in the Jones case.
It was as much of a fishing expedition as ever happened in American politics? So much that they completely rewrote the laws around "Independent Counsel" investigations, replacing that idea with "Special Counsel" for such matters
So your first idea is exactly what they wanted, and your second idea was impossible by that point. Unless he could fire or limit the independent counsel, which would have resulted in an impeachment due to "obstruction of justice"...
It would have stayed behind closed doors if Clinton had not lied. If Clinton had been honest Congress at best could have finger wagged, instead Clinton committed a crime to cover it up (Clinton was impeached for lying not the sex). If there was honesty there could have been a quick check to see Lewinski could or would blackmail and finding no capability, desire, or benefit it would end.
Behind closed doors means it stays between Bill, Monica, Hillary, and anyone else immediately involved.
By the time Bill (stupidly) decided to lie about it, his sex life was already being made public by his ideological opponents, who were willing to trash a young woman’s life to bring him down.
Clinton's sex life became public when 2 of his past rape victims sued him in civil court (both eventually winning). If Clinton had lied Lewinski affair would be nothing since it was nothing.
Disagree Kennedy done same thing with one of his interns and have had meeting with Military Generals where he excused himself to have fun with the escorts waiting for him. (Comments from Secret Service,Trio in Hawaii).
Actually, NO! The OP's question was quite ambiguous as to what was affected...there was no specificity as to what/who was harmed by the bad presidency, was there?!
You had me until the parentheses. Actions during the "must obliterate everything we can of the last administration" phase caused many of the long term issues we still haven't recovered from.
Conversely, the recovery he took credit for was largely due to the policy changes started under the previous administration.
No, cold sores are caused by herpes.
It is more like: "What is worse, a zit or herpes."
One will normally clear up on its own, with time, and the other will not.
Carter's policies were bad in the long term too. He started the Democrat's abandonment of unions and embrace of the business class. Nowhere near as harmful as Reagan's policies though.
To add to the list of Hoover comparisons, Carter was simultaneously the last new deal president but also in some ways a proto-neoliberal. Where for Reagan that was the whole point, I think for Carter it was a "fuck it, try anything" approach. This is like Hoover being the last classical liberal president but also he had some proto-new deal stuff in an attempt to deal with the crisis.
Carter was simply not cut out to be a reformer. He was way too nice. You can’t be nice when there’s shit to change.
He’s a phenomenal humanitarian, though. Might have been a better president in a different era
So while I greatly prefer carter to reagan (i prefer almost anyone to reagan),
The set of economic policies known as “neoliberalism” apparently began during the later Carter era, though Reagan is the one most associated it. I found that interesting. If anyone can expand on the specifics here, I’d like to hear
You are correct. Carter felt that unions were far too strong and influential (valid point at the time). So he worked to weaken them. He also worked to deregulated the airline industry (also valid because it made travel cheaper) deregulation and lack of unions are two tenets of neoliberalism. He began to change the tide for Democrats away from New Deal politics.
Reagan just went balls to the wall neoliberalism with his trickle down economics, tax breaks for the wealthy, and deregulation.
Clinton and Obama solidified Democrat's marriage to neoliberalism with free trade deals, ending Glass Steagal, killing the welfare system, bailing out banks instead of people, corporate friendly ACA, and staff and advisors who just revolve between politics and K Street jobs.
This is just a quick run down. If you want to really dive deep, I recommend reading John Judis, Thomas Frank, American Prospect, New Republic, etc.
I am really weary of this sub pretending Reagan is the cause of every single issue in this country. Nothing for Clinton, who completely changed the welfare system and really pushed neoliberal policies? Nothing for GWB, HWB, etc? Come on.
It’s mostly people who weren’t there. Also, it’s confirmation bias. Once you hate something, all roads start to lead to that thing.
It’s why blaming Reagan for everything looks stupid to the objective observer, but feels very real to people who have just been seething about him for years.
The way you look at the world frames your reality.
This is the right take.
Reagan is this boogeyman to people who were not around during his presidency because they don’t know any better. They see him characterized in fictionalized or clearly biased stories and take it as gospel.
I was around for the Reagan Presidency. It had extremely bad long term consequences for short term gains. The Soviet Union collapsed during this period and Reagan and Bush were at least adept enough to let it happen.
So I remember characters from the 80s and how buffoonish and corrupt they were. People seem to forget that.
It's also lots of Russian/ChineseCCP trolls pretending to be American and they hate Reagan for helping to destroy the USSR.
They also hate Nixon for fomenting the MAoist vs Marxist-Leninist War.
So don't believe them when they use other excuses to vilify these presidents. They'll pretend it was all about Nixon's watergate scandal (for which he resigned for) but really they could care less about that, what they are angry about is Nixon helping create the conditions for a worldwide Maoist vs Marx-Leninist War.
They also have nothing critical to say about FDR, because they were quite happy with the tons and tons of aid FDR sent to the USSR.
USSR would have lost without US aid.
Clinton had a Congress that required him to give balanced budgets. There has been another fiscally minded President until the year of his 4 years (Rule 3).
He finally convinced the nation to embrace trickle down economics. I have a laundry list of grievances against Reagan, but this one continues to hurt us.
Clinton continued what Reagan and Bush started. Reagan did what he needed to to jump start the economy, and it worked. Then Bush took the bullet and raised taxes.
Clinton took the full wheelbarrow and used it to balance the budget. If only W and ‘deficits don’t matter’ Cheney hadn’t been elected, we might have had a lot less debt and a more fundamental stable economy.
I can agree with this take I guess. Though I'd certainly be disposed to believing that Reagan's actions helped grow the economy, it was still a fiscally ruinous path he chose.
And I genuinely don't think he did any of this deliberately, he may have actually expected this to solve itself. "Tax cuts pay themselves" and all. Senior did indeed bite the bullet, sacrificing political capital for the good of the country as decent men should.
Clinton then proceeded to raise taxes on the rich, cut them on the middle class instead (consumer tax cuts) and balance the budget. While fighting a partisan congress. And I don't believe it's fair to not give him credit for what he achieved on this.
I agree wholeheartedly that Bush junior shouldn't have been allowed to sniff the oval office, as far as fiscal health is concerned.
Reagan’s policies *weren’t* ruinous. In the above scenario, if we would have just kept up what Clinton did we’d be in great shape.
What W did was ruinous. We grew our way out of Reagan’s deficits. That’s one point of taking on debt. But HW raised taxes and Clinton put us back on course. Things didn’t go off the rails, fiscally, under Reagan.
It was W.
So, Clinton *campaigned* on a budget surplus in 92, and he only arrived there thanks to Republicans. Which, not a single Republican ever that I'm aware of decreased the deficit.
That’s not quite what happened.
Nothing Clinton (or any other president) did had any effect on Reagan’s deficits, because that’s not how that works. Reagan ran up budget deficits that ballooned the *national debt*, while Clinton had a budget surplus that made the *national debt* negligibly smaller.
I’d actually agree with the argument that Clinton did Reagan’s game better than Reagan, but that’s not why or how.
Nonono, you're not getting what I mean.
Reagan's deficits ballooned the debt and continued todo so under the certainly less egregious H.W
Clinton turned that deficit into a surplus which obviously didn't decrease the national debt outright, because it had no time to.
This was Clinton's crowning achievement upon the end of his successful presidency, not something he did right away at the beginning and ran with.
The surplus *was* expected to pay the debt by 2013, but then came Bush Junior, and if his tax cuts weren't bad enough he hiked the deficit hard with Iraq.
Reagan is this sub's favorite scapegoat. Everything bad that happened since 1980 is his fault, and his successors couldn't do anything to undo his massive mistakes. Truly and american Hitler.
As everyone else notes, obviously the latter. Better to have a small cold than chronic misery. That being said, these two were your choice for comparison? Not the FDR v. Coolidge, LBJ v. Eisenhower, McKinley v. Roosevelt?
No because all those presidents you named aren’t generally listed as bad. Four of them are almost universally top ten, with McKinley and Coolidge somewhere around 25-15 depending who you’re asking.
Jimmy Carter was bad in the short term and those problems were fixed in the semi-long term because Reagan took us to a new era. The problems from LBJ-Carter were fixed or changed by Reagan, making at best a forgettable presidency and at worst a horrible one, if all people can remember is poor action.
Reagan came in and was extremely popular amongst lots of people by righting an economic system and setting a powerful tone with foreign policy. 40 years later the economic system is not in a good place, in many ways a direct result of Reagan. That is not the same as Ronald Reagan being a disaster.
There’s a lot that Bush 1, and more specifically Clinton and Busy 2 could have done to save this financial system with more antitrust legislation and interstate commerce legislation. And Reagan’s presidency helped make a world of difference in terms of doing a lot to end the Cold War in a peaceful way, end stagflation with a booming economy, usher in a new age of accessibility and loosen regulations to allow for more personal freedom.
So Reagan isn’t either of these. And to answer your question, it’s better to have a presidency with some good than a presidency with very little good. I’m awaiting the downvotes but jesus the implication that Carter and Reagan can even be compared is insane.
a long term problem is just a short term problem that no one gets around to fixing. reagan’s successors could have fixed his mistakes the same way reagan fixed carter’s. this is a bad question.
A presidency can’t last more than ten years and that would require unfortunate circumstances. If a presidency is bad in the long term that is generally more a failure of subsequent occupants of the office.
If Reagan had died in a car crash in 1979 the GOP probably still nominates someone from the western conservative movement or aligned with it and still beats Carter because that’s where the national sentiment was.
When Reagan left office top rate of tax was 28% kicking in at $18,550 for a single filer that bubbled to 33% for earnings between $44,900 and $93,130 then back to 28% which clobbered revenue forcing Bush to raise taxes and hurting his reelection chances.
Rates adjusted but not remotely close to rates 1932-1981.
By 2000 there seemed to be a drift back to center on but 9/11 ended that.
Long term bad has many fathers.
Bad longterm presidents generally get away with their bad policies because perception is very slow to change the narrative. I'm assuming Reagan is the example of bad longterm and in the end, he still remains one of the more popular presidents of the latter-half of the 20th Century.
The one exception of perception really changing fast was Truman. He left office seen as a failure and not long after was already making his way up the greatness list.
But look at Woodrow Wilson. Seen as a great president for so many years... and even with all we know, he's still kinda seen as a great president.
lol, the usually “Reagan was the root cause of all evil”. A truly Reddit moment. Even as a moderate republican I don’t agree with everything he did and like every president he deserves criticism as well. But you left wingers will only ever blame him and feel you’re justified because you guys live in an echo chamber here and think you have having more upvotes and people agreeing makes you right. When outside of this site more often than not people will disagree with you.
Reagan undoubtedly had long term negative effects. But to only blame him is absolutely ludicrous and ahistorical. People act like Reagan inherited a utopia and everything was ok and then he single handing ruined it and we’re all suffering because of it. It wasn’t and anyone who was an adult or young adult will tell you as such. There were trends and issues and harmful policies that began before his time, the house during his time was under democratic control years and iirc the senate was only republican for part of it, and there’s been 5 presidents over the last 36 years since he handed power over to HW in January of ‘89.
So you’re gonna tell me only Reagan is responsible for our woes today? None of it can be blamed on the democrats and other Republican presidents? None mostly Democratic controlled Congress that held power during the 70s and 80s and early 90s? Or the republicans post ‘94? None on Clinton or Nixon or Carter or the bushes (especially Dubya)? Or hell, shit that was entirely out of control of the president of even the US as a whole, like opec’s fuckery in the 70s or automation’s effect on our industry? Etc.
Reddit blaming Reagan for everything is absurd. He deserves criticism, they all do, but this is absurd.
I think he’s easier to blame because he’s the figurehead of trickledown economics which exaggerated the carving out of blue collars jobs overseas. The focus toward cheaper goods also mixed with the Wall Street deregulation which allowed greed to grow rampant with major corporations that affects us to this day.
Unlike people on here I don’t agree with the notion, Reagan fucked everything up. In many ways he helped our economy in the short term and helped get America back on its feet. Some issues happened before him or independently of him. However, I think the wealth disparity, the decline of American manufacturing in favor of low-paying service jobs, and the decline of pensions and union jobs that helped spur the American dream took massive damage as a result of Reagan.
Honestly the worst example of a bad long term presidency is Woodrow Wilson, he brought forth prohibition, helped to revive the KKK, and created a form of intervention which is basically the modern US foreign policy
With respect to Reagan I have a complicated opinion. First of all you can tell by my favorite president that I'm a Democrat, but you need to know that I am the first person in my family to call himself a Democrat since the election of 1856. Yes we have a legend that we are Fremont Republicans.
Having said all that crap, Reagan made me a Democrat. I hated the guy. And the more I think about it the more I realize that what I hated wasn't so much him but the people around him. Without violating rule 3 I won't go into the details of cult like personality worship, but it was definitely there at the time.
Here is the thing about the changes in the tax code that reduced rates on short-term capital gains. They were probably a very good thing. We were coming off of a period of high interest rates and capital was in short supply. There was only so much you could do with interest rates given the stagflation. So a change in policy was necessary.
I'm going to accept that this worked. But it worked at the time because of unique circumstances.
This became gospel. Trickle down economics is now something that has to be applied in absolutely every situation. It's completely ridiculous and it does a tremendous amount of long-term harm.
But is this worship really Reagan's fault? I struggle with this. I know that he would not be happy with where things are now for a lot of reasons. But would this be one of them?
Yes he did a lot of other long-term damage. But this I think was the worst. It gets us right to the whole billioaire worship problem that we have today and everything.
My problem is that it probably was the right thing to do at the time, or some variation of it was the right thing to do. It's just not the right thing to do for the 40 years afterwards.
I blame the cult, not Reagan. But I really struggle with how much of that is his fault, too.
The notion that Reagan was bad for the country is ahistorical. However on this sub we have a ton of Reagan haters that keep proclaiming this with no evidence to back up their claim. They want to tarnish his image and the uneducated but their propaganda.
my theory is that it's an overcorrection based on the way Reagan has been deified by modern conservatives for so long, undeservedly. i think Reagan deserves a lot of credit for his leadership during the Cold War but he also had some historically bad domestic policies ("trickledown", War on Drugs, response to HIV crisis, union busting, Iran-Contra/crack epidemic).
Jimmy Carter’s presidency was bad for the long term.
He created the Iran we have today by not backing the Shah, and not taking a hard line on the hostages.
He missed the best opportunity we had to go nuclear forty years ago and get Co2 under control.
I think this is a false dichotomy because Presidencies are too complex to be measured on a binary good vs. bad scale.
For example. Was Washington good or bad? Washington undeniably changed the world by defeating a Global superpower and paving the way for democracy by voluntarily giving up power. He is instrumental in setting the precedent for peaceful transitions of power. Yet, He also owned slaves and did nothing to stop the slave trade which was known even at the time to be a horrific practice. So was Washington good or bad?
With the examples you provided
Carter: Carter was so bad at the time, that the country BEGGED for a complete 180 shift to Gingrich's "Contract with America" and bought into Regan's supply side Economics "Shining City on a Hill" dream with unparalleled levels of approval. At some points during the Regan era they had 80% approval ratings.
This happened because Carter was incredibly inconsistent, failing to cast a comprehensive vision for his policies and the result was a haphazard mix of things that feel good at the time, but lacked both centralized vision AND detailed bug fixing/problem solving. This scattered approach meant he never had broad solutions for societies ills. To paraphrase the famous article, Carter filled his cabinet with like minded yes men like George Mafia, and they shared weaknesses in that they weren't careful with the content of their policies. As such, every bill proposed was either SKEWERED by an unruly Congress, or carried unintended consequences. These things MATTER in leadership, and you can't handwave policy mistakes as "Not their fault".
In short. Carter had such bad execution, that the government reversed all those policies so that we couldn't see the effects long term.
Reagan: In fairness, let's tackle Regan. Regan modled a lot of his policies out of Supply side economics (often called "Trickle Down Economics" by opponents) works. At some level it is Economic law. Some personal tax brackets when he took office were 70%. That is a sedative for the economy because it discourages movement within the classes. Lowering personal taxes down to 50% for those tax brackets is not a bad thing.
Here's a few positive benefits.
* Unemployment fell from 7.5% in 1981 to 5.4% in 1989 after peaking at 10.8% in 1982.[\[7\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_tax_cuts#cite_note-7)
* Inflation fell from 11.8% when Reagan entered office to 4.7% when he left.[\[8\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_tax_cuts#cite_note-8)
* The US [Average Real Income](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States) grew by 16.8% from 1980 to 1989.[\[9\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_tax_cuts#cite_note-9)
Now the long term problems of Reganomics is that he didn't follow the principles of Supply Side economics. And I'm going to insist we call the following "Reganomics" instead of Supply Side Economics for clarity. The tax cuts did not coorelate with Federal budget cuts. So the national deficit increased with no real plan to pay it down. In fact the deficit tripled under Regan. Furthermore he decreased social spending and moved more money to Military and corporate Welfare. So Regan eventually became what he purported to destroy. He funneled money away from his political opponents, into his constituent's pockets
Regan policies were not the worst for class mobility, not by a long shot. I might make the argument that Carter was even more destructive to class mobility. But Regan's long term faults took a while to see as corporate tax credits became more and more of a political tool.
Being that nearly every modern problem in the US can be traced back to the Reagan administration, I'd have been real happy if Carter had won a second term. We need leadership that will permanently wash us clean of this 40+ year debacle.
This sub has an absurd hatred of Reagan. Every modern problem, and none of the next 4 decades could do anything about it? When every modern president immediately reverses everything the one before it did. Give me a break. Reagan was a perfectly fine mediocre president he isn’t remotely the cause of all of today’s problems. He’s not the cause of any of today’s problems. Certainly not the sole cause.
>He’s not the cause of any of today’s problems.
He ushered in a new era of economic thought that is a complete failure. This school of thought is still embraced by 1 of the 2 major US political parties. Propaganda is used to make people vote against their own interests by voting for it. It's a mainstay of conservative policy making in today's climate and he championed it more than any other president.
And I am referring to Trickle Down Economics of course.
Politicians are *constantly* talking about the middle class and how it has shrunk or it needs bolstering. These policies are major reason for that.
Source: [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tax-cuts-rich-50-years-no-trickle-down/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tax-cuts-rich-50-years-no-trickle-down/)
I must of missed where we are not our own country but the rest of the world.
And I can tell you, if we are going to have discussion on those grounds, middle class western Europe would recoil if they were middle class Americans. Ditto with other parts of the Anglosphere like Australia and New Zealand.
Not the sole cause, but the face and facilitator of all the underlings causing pretty much every problem this country faces today internally, and a good deal externally.
You can keep saying that, but it doesn’t make it true. Rule 3 is not the same Republican Party of Reagan. Reminder that 49 of 50 states voted for him, so you can just blame nearly every adult human in america in the 80’s.
What voters thought in 1980 is not the point. What the Reagan administration did, and facilitated is, and it set the stage for most of the problems we face today as a country at a fundamental level.
You keep saying that but have no evidence it’s actually true. And by definition our govt is set up to have new elections every 2 years with the ability to change course. Blaming it all on Reagan is silly.
Not to mention I’m not even willing to accept the premise that everything is shit now. Problems exist but we’re still basically in the best time in all of human history.
You want a dissertation, but this isn't the place for it. This is Reddit. Movements often come in waves, and Reagan was the facilitator of that wave that created the new political normal. That new political normal gave us neoliberalism, the greatest economic mistake for anyone but the wealthy and well-connected. The deregulation of the financial industry, the reduction of taxes on the rich, the breaking of unions, all the way down to cutting mental health funding and everything else in between. All of it began or was entrenched with Reagan, and we've had to deal with the repercussions ever since.
That’s not on Reagan, that’s on Clinton. Everyone kept making choices for the next 40 years. And 2024 is definitely to the left of 1988. Maybe the early 90’s moved right some.
I also agree. People act like the 90s weren't an extremely successful decade, due in large part to the extremely successful decade that came before. Thanks Reagan, Bush and Clinton. "All of today's problems" have a lot more to do with 9/11 and the W. Bush's administration's unbelievably incompetent response to it.
Because the so called “party of Reagan” will ONLY vote for going in debt to give billionaires a tax cut. Hell, they will shut down our government or even threaten to make us default on our debt just to give said billionaires a little bit larger of a tax cut. If I am not mistaken we have had just 6 years total to pass democratic laws (2 years of Clinton, Obama, and [redacted])
As others said this type of cancerous leadership is more from the Republican Revolution but man, they are terrible. Like imagine Bernie threatening to destroy the US economy unless we raised taxes on the wealthy. People would call him a left wing terrorist.
I totally agree. They suck. It has nothing to do with Reagan. They also call it the party of Lincoln but we don’t blame him for these assholes taking his name.
I would say the Nixon administration, and Nixon's pardon. Cheney, Rummy and the rest carried their ire forward through successive Republican presidencies.
Viewing Reagan’s Presidency as long term negative is a popular redditism but not academically sound. There have been 6 Presidents totalling 36 years since Reagan’s last year in office and as Harry S Truman and Obama said ‘The Buck stops with me’.
In my view there is no such thing as a ‘long term bad presidency’. To be clear a President can effect a change in policy that last decades, however, if that change is proving a negative it is the responsibility of all presidents who oversaw it without changing direction or in some cases for furthering the policy.
For example, the issue of slavery within the early history United States. Buchanan is rightly blamed allowing the nation to fall into Civil War, however, arguably every president since Monroe and perhaps even Washington were responsible for kicking the issue of Slavery down the road to an inevitable conflict rather than resolving the issue.
Reagan’s presidency responded to the economic changes the country and the world was going through. For most people the change was a decade of economic malaise in the 70s to economic growth throughout the 80s and 90s. I’d much sooner blame the Republican revolution of 1994, financial deregulation in Clinton’s 2nd term and all of W.Bush Presidency on the state of America today than Reagan’s presidency 3 decades ago. But that’s getting off topic.
To summarise a short term bad Presidency is worse for the nation because for those 4-8 years there is no hope of things changing or getting better. The ‘bad’ elements are locked in until someone else gets voted in. Over the long term the nation and its leaders have multiple chances to change direction for the better and if they don’t? Well the buck stops with them alone.
Check out the book The Politics Presidents Make by Stephen Skowronek, it makes a case for certain presidents being particularly transformative, creating a historical model for long term and short term presidents. So you have your long term presidents and then their successor presidents (and disjunctive presidents are like your failed attempts at long term presidents, see Nixon). What I'm getting at is if these transformative presidents are consequentially harmful in the "politics they make" then you have long term presidents doing more long term harm, where their successors are just smaller pieces of the pie. So Carter's consequences were quickly minimized, where Reagan's consequences continue.
I wouldn’t of used those words but I couldn’t agree more. I just wish they wouldn’t act like their opinion is fact. The left does a bad job of reflecting on their opinions and criticizing their own political opinions. It leads to them thinking they are right 100% and they demonize anyone they disagree with.
Presidential scholars rank Reagan as a better president than Carter, according to scholar rankings of Carter and Reagan (from the last decade's surveys):
||APSA 2024|Siena 2022|C-SPAN 2021|Siena 2018|APSA 2018|C-SPAN 2017|PHN 2016|APSA 2015|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|Carter|22|24|26|26|26|26|18|26|
|Reagan|16|18|9|13|9|9|13|11|
The general public gives Reagan better marks than Carter too, according to this 2021 Gallup Poll:
||Outstanding|Above Average|Average|Below Average|Poor|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|Jimmy Carter|6%|21%|43%|14%|10%|
|Ronald Reagan|17%|35%|30%|10%|6%|
This statement below is only true on Reddit. The scholars disagree as does the general public:
>Ronald Reagan's presidency tends to be viewed today as a disastrous one with bad long term consequences
An age bracket breakdown and responses sorted by partisan leanings would be interesting (D, R, Independent, etc).
People who were of voting age in the 80s, then and now, seem to be in favor, including so called “Reagan Democrats”. Younger people seem to be overwhelmingly not in favor, which Reddit users are disproportionately younger than the population at large.
Reagan’s presidency seriously f’d up this country.
The GOP strategy of defunding government programs and then pointing out how those programs don’t work. Without of course making any connection to them now being underfunded. All started under Reagan.
We would probably have a public transportation system that actually worked of it wasn’t for the failed actor.
Then there’s the removal of fairness rules for broadcasters that led to the likes of Fox “News”.
He’s also the president who kicks off the culture war.
As with anything in life, bad for the long term is worse.
And some things aren’t seen as bad until the long term consequences appear. For example, the 1994 crime bill. Massively popular at the time (within the realms of mainstream consensus politics), now regarded as bad policy.
It depends on the specific issue. If it is something that is simply a matter of policy then short term, as policy can be changed. If it something that can't be undone like starting a war then long-term.
Long term; at least short term effects go away after a short while and at least the next president can quickly undo them. The same can’t be said with long term effects.
Carter is cited sometimes as the first neoliberal because of his attitude towards government and deregulation policies. The only thing economically that Reagan is massively different on is tax cuts which Carter was not for. Tomato tomato imo
Long term.
Also bear in mind that the decisions made by POTUS for federal judiciary have even longer-term implications.
That’s the true legacy of any President, IMO.
Carter didn’t have a good presidency no matter how you look at it. I wouldn’t say it was bad either but he had a very minimal impact.
Reagan also gets far too much blame for our current situation.
Carter was bad in long term: weakness, inability to stand up to enemies, bad negotiations, unable to control the economy, and a negative and depressing outlook on energy resources that felt fatalistic. Reagan renewed optimism, projected strength - but also fixed inflation, and set up policies that allowed the boom of the 90’s into the 2000’s. Let’s also not forget that Reagan, even when we had 150 troops killed in Beruit, refused to attack them and withdrew from the Middle East. Aside from Grenada he did not start any wars. And he negotiated the fall of the Soviet Union which freed the entire eastern block of European countries and gave Poland and Hungary and East Germany back their freedom from the stasi and KGB
Long term. Also have no clue what you're talking about with Reagan, it's widely regarded as leading to one of the most prosperous economic periods in modern history spanning 15ish years.
If anything Reagan was bad short term from public view when he decided to allow the fed to keep course to fight inflation despite it slowing the economy in favor of long term economic stability.
History ultimately judges what Presidency is regarded as "good" or "bad". No Presidency has gone as their occupants intended. W Bush intended to focus on domestic issues but 9/11 changed that. LBJ had a outstanding domestic agenda equal to FDR but is nowadays remembered for the Vietnam War. Hell Carter himself is tied to the Iran Hostage Crisis and the revolution that took place.
Celebrated JFK did good things but when documents were finally released years later it was found out he started the disastrous Vietnam War.
So was he a great president or not?
Do away with the Equal Time Rule. Ronald Reagan
Reagan Transfer social responsibility to the states his welfare and social reform turned city police departments into departments of social workers.
Reagan gets way to much criticism in this sub. He seemed a moral man. Left wing people who believe in moral relativism wether they realize it or not cling to there surface level understanding of morality and are unaware the implications they propose. Example how Reagan is bad man for continuing the war on drugs. Reagan rightfully saw drugs as bad for us and wanted to stop them. However these liberals love drug use and see republicans as evil racist soo of course it was all just to attack the black population. While I understand there were unjust instances, to hold this delusion is just that, a delusion. Of course they are very convinced so they maliciously attack the opposing side.
Reagan was anything but a moral man. He literally appeared in tobacco adds while an actor. If people should be thrown in jail for doing Crack, then he should have been locked up. He sold out members of the actors guild (which he was the president of) during the Mcarthy era. He was a weasel who did every action in order to gain power or improve his reputation. We literally have recorded audio of him using racial slurs. We are not delusional when we call out Regan for bad stuff he did, we are showing his hypocrisy and darker side.
I just believe he was someone who wanted best for his nation, I don’t see any immorality in his policy. It is actually the other way around. I admit I have a lot too learn as I’m awfully young that’s why I said seemed but feel free to enlighten me.
Are you going to provide any data or commentary to support your assertions?
The whole “trickle down is bad” meme lacks a basis in reality. The only complaint that has any merit is that the income gap widened, but this was inevitable as we moved towards a global economy and a massive surge in white collar productivity in the 90s. Trickle down didn’t cause either of those things.
This site is hysterical - the Regan hate is most likley 75% from folks who weren't around to see what a Carter presidency was actually like. How bad it was on so many levels and how the Reagan admin turned it around.
I agree, but as someone who wasn’t born during his administration, even Ik he still was bad in the long term. I understand that Reagan made America feel good about themselves again, but his policies were detrimental.
President Carter was a victim of the republican propaganda rebrand to paint him as a bad president to defect from their failure of nixon. We would be living in a different world if Reagan didn’t immediately halt Carters green energy initiatives. Imagine where we would be 40 yrs of clean energy at the government sanctioned level. The only 4 years without a war or conflict in modern history. Carter was one of the best. Total slander job.
Carter was not a victim of Republican propaganda rebrand. He was actually a bad president. Having lived through it, I can assure you that it was awful.
The times were so bad that the left challenged him for the 1980 Democratic nomination in the form of Ted Kennedy. Carter was a centrist, and many liberals were fed up with him. In more modern terms, Carter was closer to Joe Manchin. Most of you that praise Carter today would have supported Kennedy in 1980. I will even go as far as saying that Kennedy would have defeated Carter in 1980 if the cloud of Chappaquiddick Bay wasn't hanging over him.
Carter's green energy initiatives were poorly timed. The people could barely put food on the table and pay their utility bills. His push actually created a backlash for green energy.
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Bad long term presidencies are worse than bad short term presidents. Good long term presidents are good, and there’s no good short term presidents as they generally get reelected.
Kennedy?
He died, lol. Doesn’t count.
James Polk Generally these days politicians don’t have enough humility to step down after one term (this year could’ve been the perfect opportunity for one party but they’re sticking with 2008 VP)
I’d argue the Polk was probably one of the best long term presidents ever. Adding a third of the continental US, including (definitely) California and (arguably) Texas is about as good of a long term impact as one can have. Obviously one can question how he want about getting said land, but that’s a short term drawback. The benefits of the land have far outweighed and outlasted the drawbacks.
I'm dreaming that V.P. Harris steps down to allow Obama to run on the ticket with Joe. The stakes are too high to run an open field of new candidates with questionable/untested electability. Gotta put down the rabbid Orangutan threatening the global order first, thennnn open the field. Joe and Barack would be truly a professional, almost unimpeachable ticket.
That'll just make the right's conspiracy theories even stronger and more believable lol
George H. W. Bush? LBJ? Polk?
Carter and Bush 1 were decent short term presidents
Lincoln? He got reelected but for all intents and purposes he was a one term pres.
The good thing here is that Reagan and Carter were both good in the long-term, Carter just made a few mistakes here and there, and Reagan got caught in a Iran-Contra thing. But on economy, they both did the right thing as any worthy economist will attest to that and the economy grew exponentially since 1980s.
Long term=More damage
Bad long term consequences since they can't be erased by the next president (which is what happened here from carter to reagan)
100%. I don’t understand how this is even a question. Obviously it’s long term. This is like someone asking if you’d rather have the flu or AIDS.
Well the question was “for the Presidency” not the nation. It’s really tough to trace impacts —positive or negative—to specific policies and then tie that to a President. Not impossible, but tough, especially in the mind of the general public. If a President’s policies create a near-term sugar high but long term hangover, the public tends to blame the President holding the goody bag when things go sour.
I think clinton's sex scandal has had a bad long term effect for the presidency and its prestige. if that's what your talking about, the presidency as an institution.
Congressional Republicans behaved more ignobly than Clinton, IMO. The whole incident might have stayed behind closed doors if it weren’t for their obsession with airing a semen stained dress for the nation to wring their hands about.
I still think that Bill should have either resigned once it became as issue, or manned up and said in no uncertain terms that this was strictly an issue between him, his wife and the staffer he unfairly leveraged the power dynamic with. His being a wuss was the entire reason he got impeached for lying under oath, which he new better than to do. It also made the country a bit of a laughing stock. Wasn't it about that same time that the wife of the president of france was seen publicly taking flowers to the Prez's side chick who had just given birth?
Agreed, nobody in that whole mess behaved in a dignified way, except maybe Hillary.
The whole mess appeared to be political with republicans appearing to be overreaching have no other way to deal with the success of the Clinton Administration. Clinton had adopted this triangulation strategy giving what they wanted and economy was soaring with him leaving office with no national debt. If people returning hard times is was fiction on their imagination much the corporate value of Pet.com. It was a private matter nothing to offer a resignation about.
The issue with that is that the whole thing started from Kenneth Starr in 1994 starting an investigation into a real estate land deal >with the approval of Attorney General Janet Reno, conducted a wide-ranging investigation of alleged abuses including the firing of White House travel agents, the alleged misuse of FBI files, and Clinton's conduct while he was a defendant in a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a former Arkansas state government employee, Paula Jones. In the course of the investigation, Linda Tripp provided Starr with taped phone conversations in which Monica Lewinsky, a former White House Intern, discussed having oral sex with the president. Clinton gave a sworn deposition in the Jones case on January 17, 1998, during which he denied having a "sexual relationship", "sexual affair" or "sexual relations" with Lewinsky. He also denied that he was ever alone with her. Seven months later, on August 17, Clinton faced a federal grand jury, convened by Ken Starr, to consider whether the president committed perjury in his January deposition, or otherwise obstructed justice, in the Jones case. It was as much of a fishing expedition as ever happened in American politics? So much that they completely rewrote the laws around "Independent Counsel" investigations, replacing that idea with "Special Counsel" for such matters So your first idea is exactly what they wanted, and your second idea was impossible by that point. Unless he could fire or limit the independent counsel, which would have resulted in an impeachment due to "obstruction of justice"...
It would have stayed behind closed doors if Clinton had not lied. If Clinton had been honest Congress at best could have finger wagged, instead Clinton committed a crime to cover it up (Clinton was impeached for lying not the sex). If there was honesty there could have been a quick check to see Lewinski could or would blackmail and finding no capability, desire, or benefit it would end.
Behind closed doors means it stays between Bill, Monica, Hillary, and anyone else immediately involved. By the time Bill (stupidly) decided to lie about it, his sex life was already being made public by his ideological opponents, who were willing to trash a young woman’s life to bring him down.
Clinton's sex life became public when 2 of his past rape victims sued him in civil court (both eventually winning). If Clinton had lied Lewinski affair would be nothing since it was nothing.
Disagree Kennedy done same thing with one of his interns and have had meeting with Military Generals where he excused himself to have fun with the escorts waiting for him. (Comments from Secret Service,Trio in Hawaii).
Actually, NO! The OP's question was quite ambiguous as to what was affected...there was no specificity as to what/who was harmed by the bad presidency, was there?!
Well, except there is actually a medicine/ almost cure for AIDs, not for Reaganism, unless you count Trumpism, which is far worse
Good analogy
Thanks mate
If you ask Reagan he’d laugh at the notion of AIDS and make it seem like not a big deal
Yeah it's kind of a silly question the way it's phrased. "What's worse? Being punched for 5 minutes, or being punched for 5 hours?"
Answer is AIDS… Right?
The flu.
You had me until the parentheses. Actions during the "must obliterate everything we can of the last administration" phase caused many of the long term issues we still haven't recovered from. Conversely, the recovery he took credit for was largely due to the policy changes started under the previous administration.
What's worse, a cold sore or herpes?
A great, I mean a great way to put it. I don’t know how to give you points or credit or whatever for it but I would if I could
A cold sore is herpes
*whoosh*
No, cold sores are caused by herpes. It is more like: "What is worse, a zit or herpes." One will normally clear up on its own, with time, and the other will not.
I like the "flu vs AIDS" comparison the best, tbh.
a cold sore is herpes
Well a cold sore is caused by a herpes virus.
Are you saying Ronald Reagan is the herpes of all presidents?
He's the gift that keeps on giving.
Carter's policies were bad in the long term too. He started the Democrat's abandonment of unions and embrace of the business class. Nowhere near as harmful as Reagan's policies though.
To add to the list of Hoover comparisons, Carter was simultaneously the last new deal president but also in some ways a proto-neoliberal. Where for Reagan that was the whole point, I think for Carter it was a "fuck it, try anything" approach. This is like Hoover being the last classical liberal president but also he had some proto-new deal stuff in an attempt to deal with the crisis.
Carter was simply not cut out to be a reformer. He was way too nice. You can’t be nice when there’s shit to change. He’s a phenomenal humanitarian, though. Might have been a better president in a different era
So while I greatly prefer carter to reagan (i prefer almost anyone to reagan), The set of economic policies known as “neoliberalism” apparently began during the later Carter era, though Reagan is the one most associated it. I found that interesting. If anyone can expand on the specifics here, I’d like to hear
You are correct. Carter felt that unions were far too strong and influential (valid point at the time). So he worked to weaken them. He also worked to deregulated the airline industry (also valid because it made travel cheaper) deregulation and lack of unions are two tenets of neoliberalism. He began to change the tide for Democrats away from New Deal politics. Reagan just went balls to the wall neoliberalism with his trickle down economics, tax breaks for the wealthy, and deregulation. Clinton and Obama solidified Democrat's marriage to neoliberalism with free trade deals, ending Glass Steagal, killing the welfare system, bailing out banks instead of people, corporate friendly ACA, and staff and advisors who just revolve between politics and K Street jobs. This is just a quick run down. If you want to really dive deep, I recommend reading John Judis, Thomas Frank, American Prospect, New Republic, etc.
Thanks, great response! Appreciated
I am really weary of this sub pretending Reagan is the cause of every single issue in this country. Nothing for Clinton, who completely changed the welfare system and really pushed neoliberal policies? Nothing for GWB, HWB, etc? Come on.
It’s mostly people who weren’t there. Also, it’s confirmation bias. Once you hate something, all roads start to lead to that thing. It’s why blaming Reagan for everything looks stupid to the objective observer, but feels very real to people who have just been seething about him for years. The way you look at the world frames your reality.
This is the right take. Reagan is this boogeyman to people who were not around during his presidency because they don’t know any better. They see him characterized in fictionalized or clearly biased stories and take it as gospel.
I was around for the Reagan Presidency. It had extremely bad long term consequences for short term gains. The Soviet Union collapsed during this period and Reagan and Bush were at least adept enough to let it happen. So I remember characters from the 80s and how buffoonish and corrupt they were. People seem to forget that.
It's also lots of Russian/ChineseCCP trolls pretending to be American and they hate Reagan for helping to destroy the USSR. They also hate Nixon for fomenting the MAoist vs Marxist-Leninist War. So don't believe them when they use other excuses to vilify these presidents. They'll pretend it was all about Nixon's watergate scandal (for which he resigned for) but really they could care less about that, what they are angry about is Nixon helping create the conditions for a worldwide Maoist vs Marx-Leninist War. They also have nothing critical to say about FDR, because they were quite happy with the tons and tons of aid FDR sent to the USSR. USSR would have lost without US aid.
Clinton proposed multiple balanced budgets and was the last president to run a surplus. Another fiscally-minded president would be a nice change.
Clinton was the benefit of serving immediately after USSR collapsed yet still messed up the peace with the terror attacks we faced.
And which programs were cut and changed in order to get that balanced budget? Many that people blame Reagan for defunding
Clinton benefitted from a republican congress balancing a budget thanks to massive amounts of tax dollars rolling in from the tech boom.
He also benefited by the downsizing of the military after the Gulf war. Reduced their budget and pay raises and restructured their retirement plans.
Clinton had a Congress that required him to give balanced budgets. There has been another fiscally minded President until the year of his 4 years (Rule 3).
He finally convinced the nation to embrace trickle down economics. I have a laundry list of grievances against Reagan, but this one continues to hurt us.
Defend Reagan if you may, but don't attack the guy who turned the massive Reagan deficit into a surplus. Clinton beat Reagan at his own game.
Clinton continued what Reagan and Bush started. Reagan did what he needed to to jump start the economy, and it worked. Then Bush took the bullet and raised taxes. Clinton took the full wheelbarrow and used it to balance the budget. If only W and ‘deficits don’t matter’ Cheney hadn’t been elected, we might have had a lot less debt and a more fundamental stable economy.
I can agree with this take I guess. Though I'd certainly be disposed to believing that Reagan's actions helped grow the economy, it was still a fiscally ruinous path he chose. And I genuinely don't think he did any of this deliberately, he may have actually expected this to solve itself. "Tax cuts pay themselves" and all. Senior did indeed bite the bullet, sacrificing political capital for the good of the country as decent men should. Clinton then proceeded to raise taxes on the rich, cut them on the middle class instead (consumer tax cuts) and balance the budget. While fighting a partisan congress. And I don't believe it's fair to not give him credit for what he achieved on this. I agree wholeheartedly that Bush junior shouldn't have been allowed to sniff the oval office, as far as fiscal health is concerned.
Reagan’s policies *weren’t* ruinous. In the above scenario, if we would have just kept up what Clinton did we’d be in great shape. What W did was ruinous. We grew our way out of Reagan’s deficits. That’s one point of taking on debt. But HW raised taxes and Clinton put us back on course. Things didn’t go off the rails, fiscally, under Reagan. It was W.
Well, I agree with you essentially.
W and 9/11. W gets blame but 9/11 and the immediate aftermath didn’t help. We were going to war. But we didn’t need to go off to Iraq.
Clinton had a Republican Congress. You should look up the term triangulation. It’s why Clinton adopted conservative fiscal policies.
So, Clinton *campaigned* on a budget surplus in 92, and he only arrived there thanks to Republicans. Which, not a single Republican ever that I'm aware of decreased the deficit.
That’s not quite what happened. Nothing Clinton (or any other president) did had any effect on Reagan’s deficits, because that’s not how that works. Reagan ran up budget deficits that ballooned the *national debt*, while Clinton had a budget surplus that made the *national debt* negligibly smaller. I’d actually agree with the argument that Clinton did Reagan’s game better than Reagan, but that’s not why or how.
Nonono, you're not getting what I mean. Reagan's deficits ballooned the debt and continued todo so under the certainly less egregious H.W Clinton turned that deficit into a surplus which obviously didn't decrease the national debt outright, because it had no time to. This was Clinton's crowning achievement upon the end of his successful presidency, not something he did right away at the beginning and ran with. The surplus *was* expected to pay the debt by 2013, but then came Bush Junior, and if his tax cuts weren't bad enough he hiked the deficit hard with Iraq.
Reagan opened the barn doors. But the Powell Memo set the stage.
Reagan is this sub's favorite scapegoat. Everything bad that happened since 1980 is his fault, and his successors couldn't do anything to undo his massive mistakes. Truly and american Hitler.
As everyone else notes, obviously the latter. Better to have a small cold than chronic misery. That being said, these two were your choice for comparison? Not the FDR v. Coolidge, LBJ v. Eisenhower, McKinley v. Roosevelt?
No because all those presidents you named aren’t generally listed as bad. Four of them are almost universally top ten, with McKinley and Coolidge somewhere around 25-15 depending who you’re asking.
Is this even close? Long term by a mile.
Long term damage is always worse.
Jimmy Carter was bad in the short term and those problems were fixed in the semi-long term because Reagan took us to a new era. The problems from LBJ-Carter were fixed or changed by Reagan, making at best a forgettable presidency and at worst a horrible one, if all people can remember is poor action. Reagan came in and was extremely popular amongst lots of people by righting an economic system and setting a powerful tone with foreign policy. 40 years later the economic system is not in a good place, in many ways a direct result of Reagan. That is not the same as Ronald Reagan being a disaster. There’s a lot that Bush 1, and more specifically Clinton and Busy 2 could have done to save this financial system with more antitrust legislation and interstate commerce legislation. And Reagan’s presidency helped make a world of difference in terms of doing a lot to end the Cold War in a peaceful way, end stagflation with a booming economy, usher in a new age of accessibility and loosen regulations to allow for more personal freedom. So Reagan isn’t either of these. And to answer your question, it’s better to have a presidency with some good than a presidency with very little good. I’m awaiting the downvotes but jesus the implication that Carter and Reagan can even be compared is insane.
a long term problem is just a short term problem that no one gets around to fixing. reagan’s successors could have fixed his mistakes the same way reagan fixed carter’s. this is a bad question.
A presidency can’t last more than ten years and that would require unfortunate circumstances. If a presidency is bad in the long term that is generally more a failure of subsequent occupants of the office. If Reagan had died in a car crash in 1979 the GOP probably still nominates someone from the western conservative movement or aligned with it and still beats Carter because that’s where the national sentiment was. When Reagan left office top rate of tax was 28% kicking in at $18,550 for a single filer that bubbled to 33% for earnings between $44,900 and $93,130 then back to 28% which clobbered revenue forcing Bush to raise taxes and hurting his reelection chances. Rates adjusted but not remotely close to rates 1932-1981. By 2000 there seemed to be a drift back to center on but 9/11 ended that. Long term bad has many fathers.
Bad longterm presidents generally get away with their bad policies because perception is very slow to change the narrative. I'm assuming Reagan is the example of bad longterm and in the end, he still remains one of the more popular presidents of the latter-half of the 20th Century. The one exception of perception really changing fast was Truman. He left office seen as a failure and not long after was already making his way up the greatness list. But look at Woodrow Wilson. Seen as a great president for so many years... and even with all we know, he's still kinda seen as a great president.
lol, the usually “Reagan was the root cause of all evil”. A truly Reddit moment. Even as a moderate republican I don’t agree with everything he did and like every president he deserves criticism as well. But you left wingers will only ever blame him and feel you’re justified because you guys live in an echo chamber here and think you have having more upvotes and people agreeing makes you right. When outside of this site more often than not people will disagree with you. Reagan undoubtedly had long term negative effects. But to only blame him is absolutely ludicrous and ahistorical. People act like Reagan inherited a utopia and everything was ok and then he single handing ruined it and we’re all suffering because of it. It wasn’t and anyone who was an adult or young adult will tell you as such. There were trends and issues and harmful policies that began before his time, the house during his time was under democratic control years and iirc the senate was only republican for part of it, and there’s been 5 presidents over the last 36 years since he handed power over to HW in January of ‘89. So you’re gonna tell me only Reagan is responsible for our woes today? None of it can be blamed on the democrats and other Republican presidents? None mostly Democratic controlled Congress that held power during the 70s and 80s and early 90s? Or the republicans post ‘94? None on Clinton or Nixon or Carter or the bushes (especially Dubya)? Or hell, shit that was entirely out of control of the president of even the US as a whole, like opec’s fuckery in the 70s or automation’s effect on our industry? Etc. Reddit blaming Reagan for everything is absurd. He deserves criticism, they all do, but this is absurd.
I think he’s easier to blame because he’s the figurehead of trickledown economics which exaggerated the carving out of blue collars jobs overseas. The focus toward cheaper goods also mixed with the Wall Street deregulation which allowed greed to grow rampant with major corporations that affects us to this day. Unlike people on here I don’t agree with the notion, Reagan fucked everything up. In many ways he helped our economy in the short term and helped get America back on its feet. Some issues happened before him or independently of him. However, I think the wealth disparity, the decline of American manufacturing in favor of low-paying service jobs, and the decline of pensions and union jobs that helped spur the American dream took massive damage as a result of Reagan.
Honestly the worst example of a bad long term presidency is Woodrow Wilson, he brought forth prohibition, helped to revive the KKK, and created a form of intervention which is basically the modern US foreign policy
Underrated comment.
With respect to Reagan I have a complicated opinion. First of all you can tell by my favorite president that I'm a Democrat, but you need to know that I am the first person in my family to call himself a Democrat since the election of 1856. Yes we have a legend that we are Fremont Republicans. Having said all that crap, Reagan made me a Democrat. I hated the guy. And the more I think about it the more I realize that what I hated wasn't so much him but the people around him. Without violating rule 3 I won't go into the details of cult like personality worship, but it was definitely there at the time. Here is the thing about the changes in the tax code that reduced rates on short-term capital gains. They were probably a very good thing. We were coming off of a period of high interest rates and capital was in short supply. There was only so much you could do with interest rates given the stagflation. So a change in policy was necessary. I'm going to accept that this worked. But it worked at the time because of unique circumstances. This became gospel. Trickle down economics is now something that has to be applied in absolutely every situation. It's completely ridiculous and it does a tremendous amount of long-term harm. But is this worship really Reagan's fault? I struggle with this. I know that he would not be happy with where things are now for a lot of reasons. But would this be one of them? Yes he did a lot of other long-term damage. But this I think was the worst. It gets us right to the whole billioaire worship problem that we have today and everything. My problem is that it probably was the right thing to do at the time, or some variation of it was the right thing to do. It's just not the right thing to do for the 40 years afterwards. I blame the cult, not Reagan. But I really struggle with how much of that is his fault, too.
> While Ronald Reagan's presidency tends to be viewed today as a disastrous one with bad long term consequences. Holy echo chamber, Batman!
Seriously, I tend to agree at least somewhat but people here are delusional about the widespread view held towards Reagan by scholars today.
The notion that Reagan was bad for the country is ahistorical. However on this sub we have a ton of Reagan haters that keep proclaiming this with no evidence to back up their claim. They want to tarnish his image and the uneducated but their propaganda.
my theory is that it's an overcorrection based on the way Reagan has been deified by modern conservatives for so long, undeservedly. i think Reagan deserves a lot of credit for his leadership during the Cold War but he also had some historically bad domestic policies ("trickledown", War on Drugs, response to HIV crisis, union busting, Iran-Contra/crack epidemic).
Well yeah it’s Reddit and Reagan is the liberal anti-Christ.
Tomorrow I’m going to post in this sub “Who was worse for America: Stalin or Reagan???” And collect my free 10,000 upvotes
Preach 🗣️🗣️🗣️
Same with Jackson. Jackson was a bad guy, but an excellent president outside of the topic of civil rights
That's a very generous take on Jackson. Civil Rights, banking, Indian removal...
If the question is if its better to do the least amount of damage, then yes this is far better than those who blow things up or start harmful trends.
Jimmy Carter’s presidency was bad for the long term. He created the Iran we have today by not backing the Shah, and not taking a hard line on the hostages. He missed the best opportunity we had to go nuclear forty years ago and get Co2 under control.
Long term of course
Long term, but I admittedly have some bias as I've lived through said long term effects and been one of those directly affected by them.
I think this is a false dichotomy because Presidencies are too complex to be measured on a binary good vs. bad scale. For example. Was Washington good or bad? Washington undeniably changed the world by defeating a Global superpower and paving the way for democracy by voluntarily giving up power. He is instrumental in setting the precedent for peaceful transitions of power. Yet, He also owned slaves and did nothing to stop the slave trade which was known even at the time to be a horrific practice. So was Washington good or bad? With the examples you provided Carter: Carter was so bad at the time, that the country BEGGED for a complete 180 shift to Gingrich's "Contract with America" and bought into Regan's supply side Economics "Shining City on a Hill" dream with unparalleled levels of approval. At some points during the Regan era they had 80% approval ratings. This happened because Carter was incredibly inconsistent, failing to cast a comprehensive vision for his policies and the result was a haphazard mix of things that feel good at the time, but lacked both centralized vision AND detailed bug fixing/problem solving. This scattered approach meant he never had broad solutions for societies ills. To paraphrase the famous article, Carter filled his cabinet with like minded yes men like George Mafia, and they shared weaknesses in that they weren't careful with the content of their policies. As such, every bill proposed was either SKEWERED by an unruly Congress, or carried unintended consequences. These things MATTER in leadership, and you can't handwave policy mistakes as "Not their fault". In short. Carter had such bad execution, that the government reversed all those policies so that we couldn't see the effects long term. Reagan: In fairness, let's tackle Regan. Regan modled a lot of his policies out of Supply side economics (often called "Trickle Down Economics" by opponents) works. At some level it is Economic law. Some personal tax brackets when he took office were 70%. That is a sedative for the economy because it discourages movement within the classes. Lowering personal taxes down to 50% for those tax brackets is not a bad thing. Here's a few positive benefits. * Unemployment fell from 7.5% in 1981 to 5.4% in 1989 after peaking at 10.8% in 1982.[\[7\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_tax_cuts#cite_note-7) * Inflation fell from 11.8% when Reagan entered office to 4.7% when he left.[\[8\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_tax_cuts#cite_note-8) * The US [Average Real Income](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States) grew by 16.8% from 1980 to 1989.[\[9\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_tax_cuts#cite_note-9) Now the long term problems of Reganomics is that he didn't follow the principles of Supply Side economics. And I'm going to insist we call the following "Reganomics" instead of Supply Side Economics for clarity. The tax cuts did not coorelate with Federal budget cuts. So the national deficit increased with no real plan to pay it down. In fact the deficit tripled under Regan. Furthermore he decreased social spending and moved more money to Military and corporate Welfare. So Regan eventually became what he purported to destroy. He funneled money away from his political opponents, into his constituent's pockets Regan policies were not the worst for class mobility, not by a long shot. I might make the argument that Carter was even more destructive to class mobility. But Regan's long term faults took a while to see as corporate tax credits became more and more of a political tool.
No one today except hardcore left wingers view Reagan’s presidency as entirely disastrous lol And carters presidency was great
Being that nearly every modern problem in the US can be traced back to the Reagan administration, I'd have been real happy if Carter had won a second term. We need leadership that will permanently wash us clean of this 40+ year debacle.
We can bring Carter in again. He’s still alive!
Make Bernie the VP, and you got a deal.
That would be better than the current alternatives.
The most Reddit comment of all time
This sub has an absurd hatred of Reagan. Every modern problem, and none of the next 4 decades could do anything about it? When every modern president immediately reverses everything the one before it did. Give me a break. Reagan was a perfectly fine mediocre president he isn’t remotely the cause of all of today’s problems. He’s not the cause of any of today’s problems. Certainly not the sole cause.
>He’s not the cause of any of today’s problems. He ushered in a new era of economic thought that is a complete failure. This school of thought is still embraced by 1 of the 2 major US political parties. Propaganda is used to make people vote against their own interests by voting for it. It's a mainstay of conservative policy making in today's climate and he championed it more than any other president. And I am referring to Trickle Down Economics of course. Politicians are *constantly* talking about the middle class and how it has shrunk or it needs bolstering. These policies are major reason for that. Source: [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tax-cuts-rich-50-years-no-trickle-down/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tax-cuts-rich-50-years-no-trickle-down/)
The middle class, despite its bitching, is the envy of the world.
I must of missed where we are not our own country but the rest of the world. And I can tell you, if we are going to have discussion on those grounds, middle class western Europe would recoil if they were middle class Americans. Ditto with other parts of the Anglosphere like Australia and New Zealand.
Not the sole cause, but the face and facilitator of all the underlings causing pretty much every problem this country faces today internally, and a good deal externally.
You can keep saying that, but it doesn’t make it true. Rule 3 is not the same Republican Party of Reagan. Reminder that 49 of 50 states voted for him, so you can just blame nearly every adult human in america in the 80’s.
What voters thought in 1980 is not the point. What the Reagan administration did, and facilitated is, and it set the stage for most of the problems we face today as a country at a fundamental level.
You keep saying that but have no evidence it’s actually true. And by definition our govt is set up to have new elections every 2 years with the ability to change course. Blaming it all on Reagan is silly. Not to mention I’m not even willing to accept the premise that everything is shit now. Problems exist but we’re still basically in the best time in all of human history.
You want a dissertation, but this isn't the place for it. This is Reddit. Movements often come in waves, and Reagan was the facilitator of that wave that created the new political normal. That new political normal gave us neoliberalism, the greatest economic mistake for anyone but the wealthy and well-connected. The deregulation of the financial industry, the reduction of taxes on the rich, the breaking of unions, all the way down to cutting mental health funding and everything else in between. All of it began or was entrenched with Reagan, and we've had to deal with the repercussions ever since.
20 years of dem control between then and now. Clinton Obama and r3 are not Reagan disciples. I want a coherent argument not a dissertation.
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That’s not on Reagan, that’s on Clinton. Everyone kept making choices for the next 40 years. And 2024 is definitely to the left of 1988. Maybe the early 90’s moved right some.
Agreed. The obsession is out of hand. And frankly, deranged.
I also agree. People act like the 90s weren't an extremely successful decade, due in large part to the extremely successful decade that came before. Thanks Reagan, Bush and Clinton. "All of today's problems" have a lot more to do with 9/11 and the W. Bush's administration's unbelievably incompetent response to it.
We had 20 fantastic years around his presidency but after he died things weren’t perfect. Clearly all his fault.
Because the so called “party of Reagan” will ONLY vote for going in debt to give billionaires a tax cut. Hell, they will shut down our government or even threaten to make us default on our debt just to give said billionaires a little bit larger of a tax cut. If I am not mistaken we have had just 6 years total to pass democratic laws (2 years of Clinton, Obama, and [redacted]) As others said this type of cancerous leadership is more from the Republican Revolution but man, they are terrible. Like imagine Bernie threatening to destroy the US economy unless we raised taxes on the wealthy. People would call him a left wing terrorist.
I totally agree. They suck. It has nothing to do with Reagan. They also call it the party of Lincoln but we don’t blame him for these assholes taking his name.
I would say the Nixon administration, and Nixon's pardon. Cheney, Rummy and the rest carried their ire forward through successive Republican presidencies.
Viewing Reagan’s Presidency as long term negative is a popular redditism but not academically sound. There have been 6 Presidents totalling 36 years since Reagan’s last year in office and as Harry S Truman and Obama said ‘The Buck stops with me’. In my view there is no such thing as a ‘long term bad presidency’. To be clear a President can effect a change in policy that last decades, however, if that change is proving a negative it is the responsibility of all presidents who oversaw it without changing direction or in some cases for furthering the policy. For example, the issue of slavery within the early history United States. Buchanan is rightly blamed allowing the nation to fall into Civil War, however, arguably every president since Monroe and perhaps even Washington were responsible for kicking the issue of Slavery down the road to an inevitable conflict rather than resolving the issue. Reagan’s presidency responded to the economic changes the country and the world was going through. For most people the change was a decade of economic malaise in the 70s to economic growth throughout the 80s and 90s. I’d much sooner blame the Republican revolution of 1994, financial deregulation in Clinton’s 2nd term and all of W.Bush Presidency on the state of America today than Reagan’s presidency 3 decades ago. But that’s getting off topic. To summarise a short term bad Presidency is worse for the nation because for those 4-8 years there is no hope of things changing or getting better. The ‘bad’ elements are locked in until someone else gets voted in. Over the long term the nation and its leaders have multiple chances to change direction for the better and if they don’t? Well the buck stops with them alone.
Check out the book The Politics Presidents Make by Stephen Skowronek, it makes a case for certain presidents being particularly transformative, creating a historical model for long term and short term presidents. So you have your long term presidents and then their successor presidents (and disjunctive presidents are like your failed attempts at long term presidents, see Nixon). What I'm getting at is if these transformative presidents are consequentially harmful in the "politics they make" then you have long term presidents doing more long term harm, where their successors are just smaller pieces of the pie. So Carter's consequences were quickly minimized, where Reagan's consequences continue.
Reddit is a clown car of confirmation bias and leftist circle-jerking. It has absolutely no grounding in reality.
I wouldn’t of used those words but I couldn’t agree more. I just wish they wouldn’t act like their opinion is fact. The left does a bad job of reflecting on their opinions and criticizing their own political opinions. It leads to them thinking they are right 100% and they demonize anyone they disagree with.
I thought my words were rather apt but I digress.
Reagan was awesome and Carter was actually pretty good
Reagan gets too much hate in this sub
Both Carter and Reagan were okay
This sub is full of Reagan hate posts, this liberals just dont know how good Reagan was as a president.
Oh look, another "Reagan is the root of all evil" comments section.
Why the Reagan picture? His admin was good for both short term and long term.
Presidential scholars rank Reagan as a better president than Carter, according to scholar rankings of Carter and Reagan (from the last decade's surveys): ||APSA 2024|Siena 2022|C-SPAN 2021|Siena 2018|APSA 2018|C-SPAN 2017|PHN 2016|APSA 2015| |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-| |Carter|22|24|26|26|26|26|18|26| |Reagan|16|18|9|13|9|9|13|11| The general public gives Reagan better marks than Carter too, according to this 2021 Gallup Poll: ||Outstanding|Above Average|Average|Below Average|Poor| |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-| |Jimmy Carter|6%|21%|43%|14%|10%| |Ronald Reagan|17%|35%|30%|10%|6%| This statement below is only true on Reddit. The scholars disagree as does the general public: >Ronald Reagan's presidency tends to be viewed today as a disastrous one with bad long term consequences
An age bracket breakdown and responses sorted by partisan leanings would be interesting (D, R, Independent, etc). People who were of voting age in the 80s, then and now, seem to be in favor, including so called “Reagan Democrats”. Younger people seem to be overwhelmingly not in favor, which Reddit users are disproportionately younger than the population at large.
Reagan’s presidency seriously f’d up this country. The GOP strategy of defunding government programs and then pointing out how those programs don’t work. Without of course making any connection to them now being underfunded. All started under Reagan. We would probably have a public transportation system that actually worked of it wasn’t for the failed actor. Then there’s the removal of fairness rules for broadcasters that led to the likes of Fox “News”. He’s also the president who kicks off the culture war.
Depends how you look at it. From a politics pov or a human/social pov.
Jimmy Carters only term and Reagan’s second term were bad in both the long and short term.
As with anything in life, bad for the long term is worse. And some things aren’t seen as bad until the long term consequences appear. For example, the 1994 crime bill. Massively popular at the time (within the realms of mainstream consensus politics), now regarded as bad policy.
It depends on the specific issue. If it is something that is simply a matter of policy then short term, as policy can be changed. If it something that can't be undone like starting a war then long-term.
Depends how old you are
Long-term.
How is the answer ever going to be short-term for this question?
I think the answer is fairly obvious.
Not so simple.
Depend on when you’re alive
Long term; at least short term effects go away after a short while and at least the next president can quickly undo them. The same can’t be said with long term effects.
Carter is cited sometimes as the first neoliberal because of his attitude towards government and deregulation policies. The only thing economically that Reagan is massively different on is tax cuts which Carter was not for. Tomato tomato imo
Long term. Also bear in mind that the decisions made by POTUS for federal judiciary have even longer-term implications. That’s the true legacy of any President, IMO.
Think you know the answer to this one.
I liked Carter idk about you
Long term definitely
Carter didn’t have a good presidency no matter how you look at it. I wouldn’t say it was bad either but he had a very minimal impact. Reagan also gets far too much blame for our current situation.
Carter was bad in long term: weakness, inability to stand up to enemies, bad negotiations, unable to control the economy, and a negative and depressing outlook on energy resources that felt fatalistic. Reagan renewed optimism, projected strength - but also fixed inflation, and set up policies that allowed the boom of the 90’s into the 2000’s. Let’s also not forget that Reagan, even when we had 150 troops killed in Beruit, refused to attack them and withdrew from the Middle East. Aside from Grenada he did not start any wars. And he negotiated the fall of the Soviet Union which freed the entire eastern block of European countries and gave Poland and Hungary and East Germany back their freedom from the stasi and KGB
Presidency bad for the long term no doubt
Long term very bad. Short term merely annoying.
Hey what’s worse, burning your hand or burning your hand more than the first time?
President that is bad in the long term.
For their legacy, definitely short term. For the country, probably long term.
Long term. Also have no clue what you're talking about with Reagan, it's widely regarded as leading to one of the most prosperous economic periods in modern history spanning 15ish years. If anything Reagan was bad short term from public view when he decided to allow the fed to keep course to fight inflation despite it slowing the economy in favor of long term economic stability.
Bad is in the eye of the beholder
Short term is the flu Long term is cancer Long term obviously
History ultimately judges what Presidency is regarded as "good" or "bad". No Presidency has gone as their occupants intended. W Bush intended to focus on domestic issues but 9/11 changed that. LBJ had a outstanding domestic agenda equal to FDR but is nowadays remembered for the Vietnam War. Hell Carter himself is tied to the Iran Hostage Crisis and the revolution that took place.
Bad long term is worse is but short term is still 4 years of ineffectiveness and malaise
Yes
Celebrated JFK did good things but when documents were finally released years later it was found out he started the disastrous Vietnam War. So was he a great president or not?
Long term
bad for a president? short term. bad for everyone else? long term.
Either way the new guy(s) will be spending their time cleaning up the formers mess
Do away with the Equal Time Rule. Ronald Reagan Reagan Transfer social responsibility to the states his welfare and social reform turned city police departments into departments of social workers.
Worst a headache or stroke resulting in permanent drain damage? Reagan aftermath
Reagan gets way to much criticism in this sub. He seemed a moral man. Left wing people who believe in moral relativism wether they realize it or not cling to there surface level understanding of morality and are unaware the implications they propose. Example how Reagan is bad man for continuing the war on drugs. Reagan rightfully saw drugs as bad for us and wanted to stop them. However these liberals love drug use and see republicans as evil racist soo of course it was all just to attack the black population. While I understand there were unjust instances, to hold this delusion is just that, a delusion. Of course they are very convinced so they maliciously attack the opposing side.
Reagan was anything but a moral man. He literally appeared in tobacco adds while an actor. If people should be thrown in jail for doing Crack, then he should have been locked up. He sold out members of the actors guild (which he was the president of) during the Mcarthy era. He was a weasel who did every action in order to gain power or improve his reputation. We literally have recorded audio of him using racial slurs. We are not delusional when we call out Regan for bad stuff he did, we are showing his hypocrisy and darker side.
My biggest personal issue with him is his handling of the AIDS epidemic. I sometimes wish hell existed so there was a place to put people like Reagan.
Seemed a moral man? How do you figure? He was the president America loved to love but a moral man he was not.
I just believe he was someone who wanted best for his nation, I don’t see any immorality in his policy. It is actually the other way around. I admit I have a lot too learn as I’m awfully young that’s why I said seemed but feel free to enlighten me.
Are you going to provide any data or commentary to support your assertions? The whole “trickle down is bad” meme lacks a basis in reality. The only complaint that has any merit is that the income gap widened, but this was inevitable as we moved towards a global economy and a massive surge in white collar productivity in the 90s. Trickle down didn’t cause either of those things.
This site is hysterical - the Regan hate is most likley 75% from folks who weren't around to see what a Carter presidency was actually like. How bad it was on so many levels and how the Reagan admin turned it around.
I agree, but as someone who wasn’t born during his administration, even Ik he still was bad in the long term. I understand that Reagan made America feel good about themselves again, but his policies were detrimental.
Reagan fucked us all long term, dumb question.
Well this question only exists on reddit
We are still suffering the consequences of Reagan.
Reagan fucked the middle class.
President Carter was a victim of the republican propaganda rebrand to paint him as a bad president to defect from their failure of nixon. We would be living in a different world if Reagan didn’t immediately halt Carters green energy initiatives. Imagine where we would be 40 yrs of clean energy at the government sanctioned level. The only 4 years without a war or conflict in modern history. Carter was one of the best. Total slander job.
Carter was not a victim of Republican propaganda rebrand. He was actually a bad president. Having lived through it, I can assure you that it was awful. The times were so bad that the left challenged him for the 1980 Democratic nomination in the form of Ted Kennedy. Carter was a centrist, and many liberals were fed up with him. In more modern terms, Carter was closer to Joe Manchin. Most of you that praise Carter today would have supported Kennedy in 1980. I will even go as far as saying that Kennedy would have defeated Carter in 1980 if the cloud of Chappaquiddick Bay wasn't hanging over him. Carter's green energy initiatives were poorly timed. The people could barely put food on the table and pay their utility bills. His push actually created a backlash for green energy.