Just before he was elected, his campaign conspired to prevent the release of US hostages, a move they made to make Carter look bad. This is one of the reasons he won. The man worked directly against the benefit of US citizens for personal gain.
It’s a shame that Carter gets the blame for failing to reach an agreement to release the hostages, instead of Regan getting pinned for the much worse behavior of deliberately delaying their release.
Thanks for your comment but in this community we always like to see sources.
Could you provide some citations to back up your claim?
Someone else here already linked a wiki article that summarizes it. As far as I know, the most recent source is a retelling of events from Ben Barnes: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/politics/jimmy-carter-october-surprise-iran-hostages.html.
That sounds shockingly similar to some current happenings…
Where did you learn that?
This is one report about it. It’s fair to ask for sources of course but also literally all I had to do was do one web search.
This is widely known now.
The burden of proof is on the claimant. That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Please provide it
Sir, this is an internet.
Sources should be easy to find, then.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_October_Surprise_theory
Check the references.
All of these things objectively happened. A conservative might argue that they weren’t all Reagan’s fault/responsibility, but that’s bullshit.
A modern conservative would take credit for every bit of this.
Even the deficits prevent future spending
Modern conservatives are stating to call this worthless, horrible man a fucking RINO. Regan is too far left for the modern republican party. We are heading down a terrifying road.
Anyone who believes Reagan was a RINO is a FICA (fascist in complete actuality).
Thanks for your comment but in this community we always like to see sources.
Could you provide some citations to specific claims made in the OP?
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It took congress and a nation full of assholes to allow it. Every adult that was alive and able to vote at the time is responsible to some degree. Same as now.
People that voted against the assholes that did those things are not responsible.
I disagree.
We all have a responsibility. It isn’t as weighty an onus as someone that actively chose that leadership, but that’s the price of democracy, we all share in the burden as well as the benefits.
If nothing else, passively accepting it without revolution is a form of responsibility. We should be acting in that fashion now and aren’t, despite the invasion of body autonomy, the blatant racism and bigotry present in the system, and the massive numbers of people that will die because we didn’t rise up.
Notice the we in that. My old, crippled ass is just as responsible for not taking direct action. I was too young during Reagan, but I saw this shit coming during shrub/bush2 after 9/11. Didn’t do anything but vote and complain then, and don’t now because nobody believes how bad it’s going to get.
So, yeah everyone in responsible.
Well, grab your gun and lead, hero. Put up, or shut up.
You joining up?
Even the most radical leftist people I’ve known aren’t willing to join in. The last time I tried to get people moving with direct action, it was useless. Nobody willing to stand the fuck up and go take the kids that were/are in those fucking “immigration” concentration camps.
I fucking tried.
One crazy old fuck like me can’t do shit except shoot and die. It takes numbers, coordinated, to pull off a rescue attempt like that. People would be all mad, and I’d suggest actually doing something, and then it was all “but I can’t leave my job”, and “we have to work within the system”.
So, I’m putting up and shutting up. You want me to lead? Fine. Let’s do this shit. We start with those concentration camps. We get people on board, arm ourselves and each other. Whoever is closest gets assigned to surveillance while we build numbers, then we pick the most viable targets and get people out.
You in?
Edit: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_immigrant_detention_sites_in_the_United_States
Pick one.
Yea, no. Half the reason democracy is great is getting to say, “I didn’t vote for the fuckhole.”
I did not see repealing the fairness doctrine mentioned.
This is what is basically allowing media like fox “news” to spout straight up lies and made up news, while selectively not mentioning, twisting or brushing over actual news.
It’s also what allowed Sinclair to start their buying spree and create a hidden broadcast network of similar right-wing propaganda and lies. John Oliver had a very good episode on them: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc
For me this is the biggest sin of Ronald Reagan. Without this change to content quality control, there wouldn’t be so many Americans who live in an alternate reality, which is also what is allowing the republican party to not even try to govern & is allowing them to be as despicable as they are. Those rightwing “news” channels will after all just brush over their gaffes & instead conjure some made up scandal again over something democrats or one of the designated out groups has allegedly done.
I believe the fairness doctrine only applied to print media so unfortunately we’d still have the same clusterfuck as far as television goes.The above argument was wrong, but posted so frequently when this issue comes up I mistook it for the Truth™©® :P
Not to defend this ghoul or anything lol I wish there was a hell so he could be rotting in it.
No, it was to any media company that had a broadcast license, so television and radio.
You’re right! I don’t know why I read that argument so many times whenever this is brought up…
Fox News is cable. And was never subject to the fairness doctrine. It may have had a small impact on AM radio. But nothing near the impact of all the consolidation that happened under Reagan and Clinton.
A small impact on AM radio? You know why AM radio is exclusively reactionary conservative nonsense right? It was 100% the fairness doctrine.
I think the reason AM radio is right wing is it’s only good for talking, and the people who listen to long conversations as their form of media consumption tend to be conservatives.
Mostly consolidation of ownership. Don’t get me wrong, the fairness doctrine and played a small part. But single ownership of a vast swath of stations did far more damage than lack of fairness doctrine.
Not to mention how fair was the fairness doctrine? Did it truly serve a purpose giving voice to other opinions etc? Or was it largely limited to the same few mainstream ones? Socialist, social democrats, anarchists, communists?
Fox news was launched when the fairness doctrine was already dead for many years and Rush Limbaugh was huge. Without the repeal of the fairness doctrine, right wing talk radio shows wouldn’t have been so ubiquitous. Without similar alternate fact content from many sources, fox news alternate facts would have to be closer to reality out of necessity or they would have no credibility with their target audience.
It’s one of those things where one thing lead to another. Without the repeal of the fairness doctrine, fox news as we know it today, would simply not exist. Here’s a good article on it: https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2021/how-rush-limbaughs-rise-after-the-gutting-of-the-fairness-doctrine-led-to-todays-highly-partisan-media/
I don’t get your comment about how the impact on am radio was “small”. Consensus seems to be that the repeal in 1987 was the start of the shift to the alternate facts radio shows on am radio: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_talk_radio
Most consolidation came later and it’s definitely a contributing factor, but this shift was already well under way before most of the consolidation happened.
Fox News was conceived in the 1970s. Yes, it started after the fairness doctrine was ended. The fairness doctrine never applied to it in any way however. Even then in the late '90s early 2000s, much of the content was designed with the concept of the fairness doctrine in mind. Any overtly political show, such as Hanity and Colmes. Already had a fake diverse/alternate voice built in. The fairness doctrine was always toothless and easily bypassable
Rush Limbaugh as problematic as he was. Was largely pushed by large conservative owned radio networks. There is some correlation between the end of the fairness doctrine and Limbaugh’s national syndication. But no clear causation. No part of the fairness doctrine would have impacted syndication. And his show exist fine before and after.
Plenty of people nostalgically lament the loss of the fairness doctrine. But none can actually explain how it would help. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan of the concept. But the problem is, who is the arbiter of what is “fair”. Or when it is fair. It makes a difference.
Fox news was launched in 1996. In did not adhere to the fairness doctrine in any way. Yes it did follow classic panel show formatting with multiple guests with differing opinions, but that’s just the classic format for those shows, that’s not the fairness doctrine. You can even find shows like that in Russia. Fairness doctrine would be for example that every time that a fox news slandered someone, that person would be able to demand airing a rebuttal on fox news.
Rush Limbaugh was first nationally syndicated in 1988. The fairness doctrine was done away with in 1987. It’s really no coincidence and it’s plenty documented and discussed. Check the 2 links I send you earlier for starters.
But I bet he made a lot of money while doing that.
Technically Reagan started closing mental institutions while he was governor of California. He promised to open up alternatives and never did. It was a popular action that started when “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” showed abuse in the mental health system and the new system was suppose to have fixed those issues.
This is the problem, is that mental health abuses still happen today in whats left of mental health system in america.
We don’t need to tear it down, we need a federal oversight authority with balls and power to revoke licenses, issue massive fines, etc etc, with the funding and manpower to randomly inspect these facilities and interview patients at the drop of a hat, at any time of year, possibly multiple times a year.
and we need massive incentives to get hordes of new people, doctors, nurses, therapists, etc, into education to become qualified in their respective fields to do these jobs, and the fair pay for them.
My point was only that Reagan didn’t destroy the mental health systems while he was president. If you try bringing that up to a supporter, they will try and gotcha you on it. The other stuff was just to give some context as to why he was able to get away with it. Republicans never let a tragedy go to waste.
California was the first state to start dismantling their mental health systems and other states followed their lead, so most of the blame is still on him.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1980
Repealed by Reagan.
I don’t think we should call them mental health abuses. There is abuse in the mental health system.
mental health abuses
I prefer the term “perverse psychiatry”.
I think any institution where an individual has power over others is going to have some twisted, bad apples in there. Everyone I know knows someone who had a teacher in school go out their way to harm a child… Always for no other reason than personal gratification and bitterness. I absolutely believe there were and still are Nurse Ratcheds out there.
which is why you need well funded, well manned, aggressive oversigh with the power to issue immediate fines, revoke licenses, etc.
An imperfect solution where a perfect solution does not exist. Highly susceptible to corruption and waste, but I sure as heck would vote for it!
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The only comment that even attempts to debunk anything while offering sources is buried by downvotes. This community is badly in need of moderation.
You’re not wrong, but as it’s literally been six months since anyone posted anything here I’ve decided to let the discussion continue as long as the topic stays on Regan’s presidency.
What comment is that? Not seeing it.
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That would be a good counterpoint. Even better if you could find some a source or two to support it 😎
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Not sure how that relates to your previous comment, but interesting nonetheless.
Too many conversations at one time! Lol
I scrolled through every comment looking because I thought you had seen one. Did I miss it?
Because they’re not entirely accurate. And the ratio of downvotes to upvotes should’ve sparked skepticism. The replies point out why it’s not completely accurate.
Over-moderation is exactly why we’re here. I’m not so quick to ask for people to do my fact-checking for me. You probably shouldn’t be, either. I don’t want a mod making that decision.
Usually any comment of value is downvoted on lemmy
Doesn’t seem to be the case here
Said usually
Nice b8 m8.
A number of people replied about Reagan’s work ending state mental institutions, and made a lot of good points. One interesting aspect of that was https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinstitutionalisation. In the 60s and 70s, mental health professionals were advocating for moving from a institution-based model of care (a la “One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest”) to a community-based model (groups like https://www.reachinc.org/ basically follow this model). The basic thrust: ensuring that individuals are a part of a community, and care is tailored to the individual. It’s very well-meaning at its core. By the lat 70s, deinstitutionalization had (to some extent) become doctrine with experts working with disabled individuals. And for good reason! A number of early studies showed promising results! So come the 80s and Reagan. Reagan has an easy excuse for closing down institutions: experts in th field even recommend it! There’s one really important caveat, though: experts recommended diverting the funding the institutions had received into community-based support (again, see the link above for Reach as an example of how they imagined this funding being dispersed). Reagan…just cut the funding. So really, he did a “No Child Left Behind” 20 years earlier! Which, as I type it out…is even shittier. He gave false hope that he was actually going to do something great for mentally disabled people, and instead threw them on the street. Man. Reagan really sucked.
Side note: there are groups like Reach all over the US and the world, and they all could use help. Volunteers, funding, etc. A quick bit of research and you may meet some incredible people in your local community.
“Reagan”, not “Regan”
Thanks. Updated.
Why is this an image of text? Makes it a lot harder to reply to, and you specifically asked for a reply.
Tripling the Debt
Usually, when someone accuses a POTUS of significantly impacting the national debt, they are lying, as Congress controls the country’s wealth. This is no exception. For example, Reagan’s repeal of the Windfall Profit Tax on Oil is usually used as part of the claim, but what he signed passed both the House and the Senate with veto-proof majorities; claiming he had anything significant to do with their passing is deeply disingenuous.
Dropped the income tax rate
Not going to bother with a link this time; it should be fundamental, basic common knowledge that a POTUS has no power over income tax rates. That’s as Congressional as it gets. See statement above for a linked example of how Congress controls taxes.
Sold 500 missiles to Iran
This is an easy one; it was significantly more than 500.
Let 90k Americans die of AIDS
I have no idea what this is even about. Do you mean the Watkins Commission?
Claim about Reagan’s impact on mental institutions and its impact on homelessness
The first half sounds truthy, and certainly vague enough to be impossible to “debunk”, with the major caveat that, as with taxes, it’s a near-certainty that Congress did the lion’s share of this. The real meat on these bones is your claim that eroding the institutions led to a homelessness crisis (and tour subclaim that the crisis is still happening). I don’t have time to debunk that, gotta get to work, but I wanted to acknowledge my failure to do so. It might be super true or super false, and either way I’m genuinely curious.
You do realize Congress passes bills for the president to sign, the president negotiates with congress to get bills pass FOR the president to sign into law, so yes congress passes parts for the president to sign SO that congress and the president can get what they want.
10 monkeys in a room trying to order pizza is hard to do when you don’t have a zoo keeper to tell them what there getting.
I think the way you attempt to keep Congress and the Executive separate skirts the actual way politics work even if the governmental mechanisms supports your point. In other words, there’s a reason why it’s called Reganonics and the Regan tax cuts. In a world without parties, I would agree with you.
Second, you don’t address budget deficient and the role in the national debit. Budgets are created by the executive and then approved by the legislature. You can see that between 1981 and 1989, the budgetary deficit was greatest during Republican rule.
And relative to economic output (GDP), it was the worst between 81 and 86.
All of this is to say that the president matters in effecting the debt.
PS. Your link isn’t to the Windfall Profit Tax on Oil but to Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act. I don’t think they are the same thing, but correct me if I’m mistaken.
Congress did the lion’s share of this
It’s almost like that’s the way it typically works. The President sets the agenda, and has a reasonable amount of control on what gets presented to Congress.
The president is literally the de facto leader of his party. Anything and everything the party does, he is responsible for on paper.
Presidential veto.
Any sources that he used it? If not. He’s on the hook.
Thank you for your objective take on OP’s claim, and for providing sources as well 👏
There was once a union employee. When Reagan fired the air traffic controllers for striking “illegally” the big companies did hardcore union busting. This employee, young and with a family, was suddenly thrusted into a world with wages racing to the bottom. People being fired for any or no reason. Strike? Say hi to your scabs.
I know this is vague, but it’s real. Edited for privacy, but real nonetheless. Fuck Ronald Reagan.
Edit:
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/788002965 Some context for my anecdote. Sorry :(
Ronald Reagan is such a scab himself, he once led strikes as the head of the SAG, then look what he did to Unions.
US workers are too tribal, each industry thinks they’re different than others.
See what happened with the nordic unions, uniting against Tesla across different industries? This is what the American unions should have done to the US government after Reagan fired the air traffic controllers. Automotive, public servants, train drivers, every union should have walked out until the controllers were reinstated. Instead they looked on as if it didn’t apply to them.
Thanks for your comment but in this community we always like to see sources.
Could you provide some citations to specific claims made in the OP?
Hey sorry about that, I’m new here and I appreciate the chance to fix.
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/788002965
This is from Planet Money of NPR which really sums up the entire event way better than I could. If necessary I’ll try to dig up an even better source. My original comment is admittedly anecdotal.
Much appreciated, thank you.
I think I just had a stroke trying to read that
I’m sorry it reads the way it does. Part of my reason for joining Lemmy was to go back to the old way of the internet where you are only a screen name with no real ties to identity. The uncensored version of my story would be too easy to dox unfortunately.
I’ll work on my writing :(
He also further spread anti-government sentiment which has made society far worse as people question everything about government and how it can help people.
Are you aware that the worst atrocities committed by any group of humans have been committed by governments?
It’s good to question government. Governments’ relationship to their subjects is one of domination. That can go bad very quickly because it’s nothing like a relationship between equals.
Why is questioning the government a bad thing? Shouldnt we have questioned the government more when we were looking for WMDs?
Difference between holding government accountable and outright saying government is always the problem. The latter only creates apathy among voters.
You summarized it well.
You have two different things there, holding the government accountable, is a thing that happens AFTER they have harmed you, why dont we have mistrust for them while they are making a claim?
Small recent example. General blanket distrust in government leads to unwillingness to trust governmental health experts, leading to making the covid pandemic worse than was necessary.
As was intended by those like Reagan.
Or conversely, the general trust in the government led people to go along with measures like lockdowns that harmed the economy, caused severe inflation, and didnt let the kids go to school.
You are literally repeating bullshit government talking points four years later, you need a little less trust in “experts”.
You are literally repeating bullshit conservative misinformation.
I am a former engineer, so I am a data driven person not a propaganda driven person. I watched the data they published and I saw exactly what happened before and after lockdowns, and it was literally zero change. But they kept doing it for year(s?) afterward because you guys trusted them. And if you dont believe me, they had a whole big data anaylsis by JP morgan chase at the time. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11687699/lockdowns-difference-coronavirus-destroyed-livelihoods-jp-morgan/
Did you know that the Boost app lets you add tags to people’s names?
I think its amusing that I trigger you guys so much just by disagreeing.
Not really, because the way to ensure government doesn’t do bad things is to vote. There’s no reason to believe that anti-government sentiment makes people politically apathetic.
There’s no reason to believe that anti-government sentiment makes people politically apathetic.
Do you think anti-government sentiment makes people less apathetic? I don’t mean fringes on Facebook, I mean regular people who work and pay their bills and have an hour to get whatever news they can before they sleep and do it all over again.
the way to ensure government doesn’t do bad things is to vote
Not in the US, it isn’t.
Well, Ivestopedia says the national debt increased about 160% not 300%. Still the 3rd worst in presidential history. Brookings.edu says the top tax rate went from 70% to 50%.
Too lazy to look up any more.
Deregulation of rails also had massive effects down the line. There was a lot of consolidation that just made everything significantly more expensive and caused us to be more dependent on oil thanks to the massive rise in the trucking industry
Thanks for your comment but in this community we always like to see sources.
Could you provide some citations to support your claim?
The deregulation was kind of inevitable. It was a bad time for railroads before it and it was a slightly less bad time for railroads after it.
I strongly suspect that in the long run the solution will be to nationalize the rails and signaling then license private companies to run on them
Except now train travel is a joke and building out high-speed rail is nearly impossible
The big thing that killed passenger rail in America was the US Postal Service ending it’s contracts with railroads for mail services. Before that they paid a significant sum to railroads to run an RPO (railroad post office) on the trains to sort and deliver mail along the line. Simply running an RPO would be net enough income to keep woefully underutilized passenger services profitable. RPO service ended in 1978 but was in decline before then due to shifting the sorting and transport to sorting facilities and trucks respectively
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It’s no wonder the top 1% own such a large percent of the wealth when they are being taxed so little. Why give your employees a raise when you can take in a massive bonus with very little tax liability instead?
You’ve got cause and effect backwards. They are the 1% because they own such a large percent of the wealth.
Low taxes just help to maintain and widen the gap.
The gap is the problem. There will always be a 1%. That’s basic statistics. The problem is how far away that 1% is from the median.
Taxing accrued wealth, and closing loopholes for using wealth to leverage loans and avoiding income tax, increasing taxes for the highest income earners, reducing tax for everyone for lower brackets, taxing housing sales heavily when not your primary residence, same for running costs so as to not make rentals too lucrative.
Do all of these, and you’ll have a lot more budget to also fix a lot of the other inequality issues… Not that anything of this really matters in the long run, since will capitalism will happily gouge natural resources until it’s not profitable to do so. So, do all of the above, and also offset the destruction of natural resources with regulations and further taxation.
Ps: The word tax has been mentioned 6 times, which will likely upset some people. However, this would arguably be good for most Americans. And just… Less good for the obscenely rich. Everyone should want that trade. Even the very rich should want that… except for the sociopathic ones, they don’t have the ability to understand why that would be a net good change.
With you up until the property tax thing.
Short of fully subsidized housing, there will always be a demand for rental properties. And even then…socialized housing would just make renting the premium option for people who can’t wait their turn. You’d end up with either premium apartments, or a lot of “Extended Stay” hotels.
Giant companies buying up properties and letting them sit vacant in order to game the unit costs of rentals are a problem.
Small independent landlords are not. Their services will always be needed as long as there’s a commercial housing market. And housing is historically a very safe place to invest savings for a lot of middle class Americans. Taxing rental properties is fine, but is should be a progressive tax on number of units, with some sort of a penalty for a large percentage of vacant unit-months. Otherwise such a tax ends up seriously fucking a lot of hardworking middle class Americans.
but… trickle down economics…
Whatever is trickling down is yellow and smells bad…
But at least it’s warm
