Reagan...

Reganomics. Trickle down economics. Only thing that trickles is piss and shit.
formerly known as the horse-and-sparrow theory: the idea that feeding a horse a huge amount of oats results in some of the feed passing through for lucky sparrows to eat.

TBH, the mental hospitals were a mess and rife with abuse.
But rather that invest money into improving them, he got rid of them by branding it “de-institutionalization”. Made it sound like he was freeing people.
- I recall seeing that exposé Geraldo Rivera did on Staten Island's Willowbrook State School. Wild.

I will never know what it is like to be in pre-Reagan America and for that alone that man should burn in hell waiting for heaven to trickle down.

A lot of younger people simply don't know that the age we all consider the golden age of middle class America (40s-70s) was so because we TAXED THE FUCK OUT OF THE WEALTHY. As we should.
If we do not return to doing so, our quality of life is going to continue to decline indefinitely.
TAX. THE. FUCKING. RICH.
DON'T VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT DOESN'T RUN ON TAXING THE RICH.
- Not even the Democrats could do this with a Democrat controlled Congress and presidency
  
  ~~could~~ want
  
  The democrats are cowards, the republicans are evil. If there ever is another proper election in the US, vote independent.
  
  many of them are dinos, shills for the gop anyways, wouldnt have gotten anything done anyways.
  
  They wouldn't want to do that because it would not serve their self-interests.
  Do you honestly expect the fox to prevent itself from guarding the henhouse?
- Conversely, I think most of the county would rabidly support anyone who ran on that platform... Even most Trump voters

The deinstitutionalization and movement to prison was something that began long before Reagan. Really goes back to the end of ww2 and Kennedy. though reagan definitely accelerated it by a great deal by decreasing budgets substantially and increasing incarceration rates significantly
Reagan was a monster though. What a great day it was when he died
- For more information, lookup the impact of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest on mental health services in the United States.
- Thanks for that info
- TBH, some of that deinstitutionalization could be written off to being gay no longer being a mental health issue, etc.
  
  That’s actually inverse to this. Homosexuality formally entered the dsm in 1952 which made institutionalization for it more common, not less, although institutionalization certainly existed beforehand (eg ww2 draft would decline for homosexuality and basically refer to conversion therapy)
  This is the “lavender scare”. Much of the anti lgbt rhetoric today roots back to this era - that homosexuality is something to be pathologized, it can be cured, it is deviancy, a threat to national safety (lavender scare and red scare being analogous, thought process being all the men turning queer would make us a nation of sissies ripe for being taken over by the commies, basically. Lesbian erasure from this narrative was totally a thing (although they still got the abusive treatment)
  As a result they got shock treatment, aversion therapy, and even lobotomies. This was through the early 60s and it wasn’t until 1973 that the diagnosis was formally removed. Obviously conversion therapy still happens today but the state sanctioned institutionalization form was mostly over by the mid to late 60s, though it took some time to die out in certain regions
  A blight on our country and on the history of our mental health system. Disgusting
- He wasn't elected until 1980. Look at your graphs again.
  
  Yes, the massive fall of deinstitutionalization began in the 60s as indicated on my graph? And as I said it began long before him? I don’t understand what you are disagreeing with
  Even the incarceration rise started before him in the early 70s. He just is the one that turned this to a million with the war on drugs

Not to glorify mental institutions, which are often vehicles of state oppression and state violence.
Having both been homeless and in a psych ward, I preferred being homeless (granted I could sleep in public transit).

Almost every problem america has to date, you could blame on Reagan.
And you would be right far, far, faaaar more often than you'd be wrong.
- Reagan, Nixon, or Dubya. You bet on Reagan for safety, Dubya if it sounds more recent, Nixon is a dark horse to bet on who pays big whenever you get it right.
- This actually works incredibly poorly or very well depending on your opinion if you just applied it to random problems in the US that are like micro issues.
  Toilet clogged? Reagan's fault
- Defnitely!

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." - CIA Director William J. Casey to President Ronald Reagan, in 1981

Did anyone else know that they recently made a film about this fucking filth?
They were obviously trying way too hard to control the narrative of this fucking piece of shit, but to also spark some kind of patriotism in all those old fucks who fell for reagan's bullshit lies, and now trump's bullshit lies.
I almost wanted to go and rip their little signs they had for this movie straight out of the ground. Ugh. Disgusting.
- Looking at the IMDb listing, is this shedding Reagan in a good light?
  Or is it a documentary on how he completely fucked up?
  
  This video characterizes it as a “hagiography” - ie, like a saints biography.
- Dennis Quaid is a piece of shit.
  
  Jack Quiad is a fun actor at least. I enjoy his work.

Trump is just the Result of Reagan's transformation of American politics and culture to greed first and only.
Trump is a vulture picking this nation's corpse clean. Ronald Reagan and Jack Welch killed us half a century ago.
- Absolutely

He was terrible, and perhaps worse: he was so popular. He got two terms, then his vice president got a term. So popular it seemed to be (to me) that he was the reason we ultimately got stuck with the "Third Way" democrats, which is when the working class was finally completely abandoned.
He really screwed us all
- His administration was when the republicans really started running with the idea of fucking with people's minds. "Morning in America" turned a shitload of former Democrats into republican voters who voted themselves and their children into a shithole they'd never get out of.
  See also; "The Southern Strategy"
  
  Yeah, maybe. I mean, the republicans at this time did start to resonate with the public, but I think it had more to do with the times and with Reagan himself.
  Reagan was much more likeable than the likes of Goldwater, Buckley, or any other figure at the time. And he was attractive to the evangelicals, which became a whole new arm (with issues) of the party.
  Also, of course, the economy of the 70s was just right for a party that could lean into hate, fear, & greed.
  Reagan, though. He could sell all of it in a way that few others would have been able to pull off. I remember wondering at the time how he could draw so many in. People just liked him, horrible as he was.
- Reagan broke the unions. The group that literally funded labor and the Democrats for decades upon decades. Third way Democrats arose out of necessity from the fall of the unions. They didn't abandon the unions anymore than the unions abandoned them. The unions became unable to fund them like they used to. And Democrats now be holding to corporate donors became unable to support humans like they used to.
  
  Yes and no, I'd say on that. Reagan really worked against unions, I agree. And democrats are always worried about how they are going to get paid. But there was a real turn toward "market solutions" for problems that had traditionally been addressed by government during this period, and I don't believe it was entirely due to corporate bribes or financing. When Bill and Hillary attempted to change healthcare with corporate partners, I think it was more from their genuine belief that that was a new, better way forward. They were wrong, and I am sure that they benefited in terms of contributions, but I think it came as much out of their beliefs about the unpopularity of former democrats and the perception of economic malaise in places like England as it did from union weakness. The democrats could have helped rebuild the unions. They did not (and here I think you are right, because as time went on they really began to be paid well to forget the unions)
- It's the power of propaganda.

while having early onset alzheimers at the time, which was hidden from the public, and the administration was mostly controlled by nancy and the cabinet.
- hmmmm...why does this story sound so familiar?

“National debt” obscures the practical consequence. National debt is just money that has been added into the economy but not taxed back out.
It’s not necessarily bad to ramp up spending, if that new money has somewhere healthy to go. (Mega projects like Medicare For All or the Green New Deal would be prime candidates.)
So where did it go?
Well, take a look at Reagan’s reign from 81-89…
There’s the problem.
- ...and this chart stops at 2012
- precisely. the distribution of wealth is a more important indicator of economic health than simply looking at the national debt or total tax revenues. imo we need to increase taxes on the ultra rich, not because we need to reduce the deficit but because taxes prevent the obscene accumulation of wealth (and the resulting regulatory capture epitomized by modern American oligarchy).
  
  I think we need an entirely different economic model, where there are hard limits on income, wealth, and assets. I don't mind people being wealthy, but that definition should be something like: "I am a CEO, I get paid twice as much as a waitress. I own a very nice house, a small yacht, and spend time riding horses at the country club. My husband works as a mechanic, and only makes $10,000 less a year than me."
  It would require a huge rethink on economy, the nature of wealth, implementing a strong UBI, and replacing the dollar with a fresh currency. Still, I think a complete replacement of how things were done would be key for America to become a nation worthy of the people who live in it.

And he sold those missiles because Congress had made it illegal to fund rape/murder squads in Nicaragua.
The money was off the books and then sent to the death squads killing innocent farmers.
Unlike Nixon, Congress was not willing to impeach, so Regan denied everything and only a few staffers were prosecuted.
Bush Sr pardoned them.
Republicans: not even once.
- They also were smuggling Crack into the states to fund the contras (who are terrorists)
  
  Yes they were.
- And Oliver North's gold remains buried under a home in Langley

Good old trickle down economics at work!

I was here but barely too young to vote at the time (not that it mattered since he had so many people enthralled like trump has done). No, I will never forget how he (along with some others like Newt Gingrich) ruined everything, so just as I was getting started in adult life, things were already starting to go to hell and it hasn't stopped since.
Reagan really was the beginning of the end for this country, and though a couple times it looked like we might, we were never able to turn things around. And now here we are, experiencing the culmination of his work of turning America into a kleptocratic oligarchy.

Don't forget his campaign for governor led to the massive student loan issues we have today. College was just starting to be accessible to everyone that wasn't a white man, and they just couldn't have that!

On one hand, it does make sense to lower taxes if taxes are notably harming the economy or harming economic recovery, and under Reagan we DID have a long economic boom. Dropping taxes on the rich by 40% was likely unnecessary, as even ~20% would have been enough for a stable recovery.
The flip side to that is that it installed in Republicans the idea that taxes go down == economy go up, which is nowhere near the truth (as shown by the Kansas Experiment ) and is one of (IMO) the three major shifts in the GOP that has turned them into the absolute shitters they are today. The others FWIW are Gingrich's Contract with America, or more particularly the idea he presented to the GOP that they can never let the DNC have a win even if it would benefit the GOP, and the Southern Strategy.
- Trickle down economics, contract with America, and the southern strategy. The new unholy trinity.
- He really didn't though, it was fake and funded through over a trillion dollars in national debt ...
  I'm pretty sure he's the president that also started using money ear marked for social security for the general fund. SS is fully funded through Miss 2030, the Republicans want to get rid of it to hide the fact they stole the money for other shit ..

The 13th amendment created the legal groundwork for transforming a free people into a nation of de facto chattel slaves. Reagan accelerated this process massively.
Mental patients 🖐️ (⁠눈⁠‸⁠눈⁠)
"Prisoners with jobs" 👈 (⁠♡⁠ω⁠♡⁠ ⁠)
- The 13th amendment, which bans slavery, made people less free? We had more slavery before the 13th amendment. What we have now is fewer slaves that most don't think of as slaves but are still slaves we just call it prison work programs.
  
  The 13th amendment banned chattel slavery, but turbocharged penal slavery.
  Deregulation in general and of the for profit prison industry in particular has made it so that there's more slaves in the US now than there ever was before the 13th was passed.
  Granted, penal slavery is of course nowhere near as bad as chattel slavery was, but it's still slavery, which is morally repugnant barbary and outlawed in every civilized legal system i the world.
  
  Go read it again; the word "except" is doing the heavy lifting here.

In (very) broad strokes, the US basic current modern collapse timeline is like: Nixon --> Regan --> Fairness Doctrine --> Glass-Steagall --> Patriot Act --> bank bailout --> tea party to maga --> current fubar lyfe
goddamn fucking reagan
- Need to squeeze Citizens United in there
- I was going to post something similar but yeah. Almost every Behind the Bastards episode that touches these topics, there is a straight line from Nixon to Trump.
  The TL;DR: Republicans hated how people generally agreed with the facts surrounding Nixon and decided to do something about it. Instead of reporting conservative-slanted opinions, they instead wanted to get rid of facts all together.
- You don't have citizens united in there, which I would argue is one of the largest modern causes of our current situation. Had citizens united not been vomited into the world, we might have been in a slightly better place without a decade and a half of practically unrestricted corporate propaganda shoved down our throats. I'd bet that trump wouldn't have won in 2016 if it wasn't for the unlimited funding he got (along with billions in free advertising from the "news" media).

The homelessness crisis is not about mental health, it is about housing affordability. This also plays into societal biases against the mentally ill.
- Yes, however there are many people who are homeless because they are unable to "properly" function in society due to untreated mental illnesses, part of Reagan's budget cuts reduced public health funding, shuttering public mental health facilities. Granted, some had horrendous conditions which has a lasting reputation for "Insane asylums".
- The current crisis is about affordability. That hasn't traditionally been true.
- Having mental illness makes homes affordable tho for those that struggle to maintain employment because of said mental issues.
  It’s both.

And don't forget ending the fairness doctrine, one of the contributions to the polarization of US politics.
- That's a big one

Another great president on the right, this time a fucking actor... A DAMN ACTOR!

Let's not forget the treason of letting Oliver North! Besides everything else, North's Contras were drug smugglers who brought in so much cocaine that coke went from being a luxury to a street drug in just a few months.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_epidemic_in_the_United_States
Youtube video https://youtu.be/Mb1GfP5Rwys

To quote the poet Killer Mike: " I'm glad Reagans dead"

Leeja Miller on Youtube has a great video about how shitty Reagan was. She also has REAGAN RUINED EVERYTHING t-shirts! https://youtu.be/l7dHvqA-WB4
- Thanks

and we love (/s) what he did to sunny CA slashing property taxes by slashing the public education budget helping lead to a continuing decline in our education system.

thank him for no-brakes neoliberalism. i wish this piece of shit had only ruined his own shitty country but instead we were forced into his insane bullshit too.

Republican ~~presidents~~ politicians are a pox on this country.

I'm willing to bet that trump beats those numbers

"Ronnie Raygun
Perhaps the most charismatic leader of recent times, Ronnie is completely out of touch with reality. He started his career as an organ grinder. Ronnie's partner was a super-intelligent chimpanzee, named Nancy, that he rescued from a genetic research lab. The chimp ran every aspect of Ronnie's life, the superior intellect clearly asserting itself. Nancy wanted revenge against genetic researchers and forced Ronnie to run for national office. Soon after Ronnie assumed power, Nancy died, leaving Ronnie without guidance. Under Ronnie's tenuous grasp, his country no longer heads anywhere."
"Warmonger
This is a straight-forward personality. Warmongers will be your friends so long as you help them nuke their enemies. Use wimpy propaganda or attack them or one of their friends, and they will happily nuke you until only swirling, radioactive dust clouds inhabit your cities.
The two Warmongers are Ronnie Raygun and Prime Minister Satcher, and they are both relatively easy to control."
(https://www.lemonamiga.com/games/docs.php?id=1157)
- This comic of Subnormality seems to fit this humor style.
  https://www.viruscomix.com/page513.html
  
  Indeed very fitting! Thank you

Reaganomics! SMH.

How dare you talk like this about the republicans Jesus? And they are still selling less taxes one the 1% cause they create jobs 😅

He was president of the Screen Actor's Guild; a solid union man. /s
The point is, functioning unions are necessary to keep the economy working in the public interest. But not all unions are interested in doing that.

Congress approved the budgets that created all of that debt. Congress was controlled by the democrats the entirety of his time in office. Congress approves of all tax legislation. It's almost as if the democrats aren't any less inclined to support the wealthy.
Congress dropped the top marginal tax rate from 70% to 28% and gained more tax revenue when it was set to 70%. This is because the brackets at that high of a level heavily incentivized rich people to engage in tax evasion or tax avoidance schemes. Removing this high tax rate made the government more money because fewer people cheated on their taxes. This has only worked once and there's no reason to believe further reductions to the top rate would create similar revenue increases.
The missiles sold to Iran were non-functional. The bigger problem was either using the profits from the sale to fund the Contras as we were destabilizing a foreign power for the crime of wanting less capitalism.
What Reagan's real crime was setting Americans against their own government. He was able to push through the destruction of a huge portion of the safety net we had for people under the guise of cleaning up corruption.
This macro is a mess.
- So the solution to people committing massive tax fraud is to lower taxes? Not to throw them in jail? 🙄
  
  Tax fraud, tax evasion and tax avoidance are not the same thing.
  Cutting the higher marginal tax rates caused more people to move money from less stable economies with looser banking regulations to US banks which resulted in increased tax revenue taken in.
- Reagan's policies expanded wealth inequality, exploded the deficit, and created a narrative that still fuels anti-government rhetoric today.
  
  The policies put forth by the GOP and put into place by the democrat controlled Congress expanded the national debt debt (deficits are annual shortcomings the national debt not deficit is the larger concern).
- Congress dropped the top marginal tax rate from 70% to 28% and gained more tax revenue when it was set to 70%.
  anyone have a source for this claim of increased revenue? if so, was it just a temporary effect with longer term structural implications? besides, wouldn't the solution to evasion have been increased enforcement? taxes aren't just about revenue, they're a redistributive force in the economy and arguably their main purpose isn't to fund the government but to prevent the obscene accumulation of wealth and reduce inequality.
  your argument falls flat upon historical analysis. if high tax rates were bad, and lowering them 'fixed it' then explain all the massive social benefits from 1940-1980:
  Taxing the ultra rich is how America funded higher education, built the highway system, funded social welfare, uplifted 2 generations, built a global manufacturing and technology economy, and created a prosperous middle class. this all happened before Reagan and coincide with top marginal rates between 50-95 percent.
  inequality has skyrocketed since Reagan and the policies which dismantled new dealism. I hate the Democrats who helped facilitate the rise in inequality and the gutting of social welfare programs (Clinton especially) but to claim that reducing the top marginal rates was an unequivocal good thing is a pretty extreme narrowly focused claim. those who say so based on a loosely held 'I've done the math' argument are merely using a rhetorical gotchya - it's not a sufficient socioeconomic historically supportable argument. if it was, show me all the benefits that increased tax revenue provided from 1990-present. I'll wait.
  low tax rates are precisely how we got to people like Trump, Musk, Buffet, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Thiel and the incredible rise in number of hundred millionaires and billionaires who are now destroying our social safety nets even more so they can flatter their egos and act out middle aged divorced guy power fantasies.
  inequality is why people can't afford things and is presently the single biggest problem of our society. taxes do make a difference in combatting that. Regean had a role in creating this system, whether you like it or not.
  the power to tax is the power to destroy. we build prosperity by keeping oligarchs in check.
  
  anyone have a source for this claim?
  This was the 1983 tax cut. The longer term implication was people realized Laffer’s suggestion that there is a top rate that is so high it promotes evasion, avoidance and fraud was demonstrated to be likely true. A negative outcome was the GOP claiming further cuts would do the same when there’s no reason to believe it would.
  taxes aren’t just about revenue, they’re a redistributive force in the economy and arguably their main purpose isn’t to fund the government but to prevent the obscene accumulation of wealth and reduce inequality.
  Presuming this is a serious statement, why do you think this is the case instead of them funding the government which is what taxes have always been about? We didn’t care much about wealth inequality until the last 200-300 years. The ruling class has always cared about taxes.
  if high tax rates were bad, and lowering them ‘fixed it’
  It didn’t “fix” anything. The higher rates led to lower tax revenues. The cuts provided more.
  then explain all the massive social benefits from 1940-1980:
  1946-1980 as 1940-45 are war years and aren’t as great.
  The US made up roughly 40-55% if the total GDP of earth in that time. As WWII destroyed the industrial capacity if most nations the USA and to a lesser extent the Warsaw Pact nations were the only ones manufacturing heavy equipment. By 1980 most of the world has either developed for the first time their own industry or revoltp what they had. This massive gap between the US population and everyone else is why things were so good.
  inequality has skyrocketed since Reagan and the policies which dismantled new dealism. I hate the Democrats who helped facilitate the rise in inequality and the gutting of social welfare programs (Clinton especially) but to claim that reducing the top marginal rates was an unequivocal good thing is a pretty extreme narrowly focused claim.
  There’s no “good/bad” in economics because it’s social science not a religion or moral code. I said it brought in more tax revenue which is accurate.
  Inequality has skyrocketed because of anti-union sentiments and the fact that between 1991 and 2003 1/3 of the total labor pool of earth could suddenly be hired by Westetn companies (the fall of the USSR, liberalizations within China and India moving away from socialist economic policies drove this).
  those who say so based on a loosely held ‘I’ve done the math’ argument are merely using a rhetorical gotchya - it’s not a sufficient socioeconomic historically supportable argument. if it was, show me all the benefits that increased tax revenue provided from 1990-present. I’ll wait.
  No one is saying this. Your grasp on this history is flawed. You even have gone so far as to suggest taxes aren’t primarily about funding the government which is frankly “novel”. I wouldn’t be taking any kind of authoritative tone on this subject if I were you.
  I have to work but I’ll tackle the second half later.
  
  Yes!

And even better... he was a Christian.
- Was he Christian tho? Or did he just tell people he was?
  Seems like it’s in the political playbook to claim you’re a Christian to gain all the support of people who lack critical thought.
  
  Well, the beauty of Christianity is that you get to choose what it means, so yes. Definitely was a Christian.

It took many years before people found effective antivirals to help people infected with AIDS. No nation had effective treatment.
- Having to work to develop treatment is one thing. Actively ignoring the existence of HIV/AIDS and just letting people die is an entirely different thing. Reagan was a piece of shit.
  
  It's not like the medical industrial complex sits around waiting for the whitehouse to tell them which diseases to work on. They know how to make a dollar, they just didn't have the knowledge at the time.

What a fucking hero

https://propagandhi.bandcamp.com/track/free-john-hinckley

Libs showing their fascist imperialism even when trying to distance from themselves from their right-wing allies. Crying about iran while supporting genocide. How much did reagan send to the zio regime?
- A lot? Israel was the middleman for the missile sales, they got a nice paycheck from Ronnie.
- History has a liberal bias if you care to read instead of listen to TV all day.
  
  If they're saying "lib" and not "liberal", then it's sure not from American TV.
  And you're paraphrasing a television character.

Increasing the government "debt" isn't bad in itself though.