Blaming Republicans for Obama’s manifold failures is like blaming the doctor for the diagnosis.

Yes, of course you are right that prosperity always comes from private initiative, not politics or politicians, but Reagan created the necessary preconditions by cutting taxes and regulation, and by decisively reversing, once and for all, the default consensus in favor of political meddling in the economy. And by sheer dint of personality, Reagan thoroughly and undeniably reinvigorated America’s spirit, confidence and resolve.

(I remember video of Obama meeting the Queen and other supposed potentates in which he bows and scrapes like a peasant. In those moments you see just how pathetically unlike Reagan he is.)

Given that most of the malaise has come from the failure of Republicans to cooperate and their determination to block Obama’s policies it’s not something to be pointing to. The GFC, caused by greedy and unscrupulous USian bankers, effected every country in the world. The US actually recovered better than most, but was held back by the fact that the countries it has the strongest economic connections with struggled more than they did. Further, Bush wasted the economic boom most of the world enjoyed during his administration by spending trillions on an illegal war in Iraq, which also meant insufficient attention was paid to Afghanistan, extending that war.

If it wasn’t for Bush, USians wouldn’t be so war weary and there’d be greater support to go against DAESH. Of course, without the extensive warmongering of Bush, there’d likely be less terrorism and part of al Qaeda might not have morphed into DAESH. The leader of DAESH was, after all, partly formed by his experiences in a US prison in Iraq.

Reagan can take little credit for the optimism and financial good times of his presidency. That was driven by all those atheists in Silicon Valley. He was being increasingly hidden from the public in his second term because of his sad illness, while his wife, in naturally seeking to protect him, relied on weirdo astrologers and other such woo. I remember film at the time of him meeting the Queen, and it was obvious his mind was gone.

I heard his eldest son on Fox a few months ago. He was going on that the atheist son shouldn’t speak publicly because it’s disrespectful to their father’s memory. He sounded nasty, petulant, and bitter.

Most people would happily trade the Reagan era’s sunny optimism, confidence and vigorous growth for the pathetic drivel, incompetence and malaise of the last eight years.

Great post!

FWIW, I meant that I (thought I) remembered that the comment itself received a fair amount of publicity at the time it was delivered, not that it necessarily had any bearing on the dismantling of the wall itself, some years later.

As to Reagan–of course the Republicans are the only ones to lionize him. (My favorite memories of the Reagan era were of his two youngest children speaking out against his policies. 🙂 )

Actually, I think that Raygun’s most important legacy is that through sheer personal charisma, he made it not only acceptable, but admirable to be an ignorant, narrow-minded bigot. And the rethuglicans have been milking that mindset for the last 30 years, culminating in the nomination of Herr Drumfenfuhrer.

Exactly, traditionally female jobs are paid less. That was my point with ‘the kind of work’: cashiers, childcarers, nurses, etc. Generally underpaid. But I doubt that a female gravedigger, trashcollector, cashier or police officer is paid less than a male one.

The legislated wage rates for many types of work used to be different for men and women. I think it was 1972 that this changed in NZ. Other dates in other countries. When I found out about it as a kid I was shocked that it was that way and couldn’t understand it. At the age of about 7 I had a huge argument with my father about it. (He was opposed to equal pay and insisted that equal pay would see women losing jobs as employers would prefer males if they had to pay women the same.) I was just trying to understand why women were paid differently and even at that age I easily refuted every argument he came up with. I wasn’t trying to be deliberately argumentative, just to understand, but he was furious with me. He ended up spitting the word “feminist” at me and storming off to get drunk. I didn’t know what a feminist was, but I knew it was bad, and for years I denied I was one.

Now there’s an effort to rate jobs by the skills required. Jobs that are traditionally done by women are paid less than jobs that are traditionally done by men even when those jobs require the same skill level. Our courts, unions, government, academics etc are trying to sort that out at the moment. There’s a recent court case that concluded care workers are underpaid because the job is traditionally done by women and they’re likely to get a big rise because of it.

Once the wall came down, it received a lot of coverage, but when he first said it they didn’t mention it. See this post I wrote two years ago: https://www.heatherhastie.com/obama-vs-reagan/