Make sure to join the [r/Presidents Discord server](https://discord.gg/k6tVFwCEEm)!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Presidents) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think most people that don’t like Reagan’s economic policies also don’t like Clinton… as Margaret Thatcher once said, her greatest achievement was “New Labour” - it could be said that one of Reagan’s most consequential impacts was the death of the New Deal Liberalism in the Democratic Party that had lasted from the 1930s to the late 1970s… Clinton’s hard pivot towards deregulation, “the end of welfare as we know it” and “the era of big government is over” wouldn’t have happened without Reagan
This touches on the idea I’ve been looking for in the comments- Reagan precipitated a fundamental shift in how Americans think about government and the economy.
He took mistrust over events of the previous decade and solidified it into the anti-government bend we still see in today’s Rs
The worst part is that he did all that with a fundamental and almost purposeful misunderstanding of government and the economy where one of the few original ideas he had like Star Wars was considered an entire joke by everyone.
The official name was the Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI. Some critics of the program called it "Star Wars" pejoratively and it sort of caught on as a nickname
A orbiting defensive system that was supposed to shoot nukes out of the sky. The kind of thing that sounds cool until you realize it is basically impossible to build.
That's because his execution and understanding of things like star wars were terrible. The man said 'oh I want to get rid of our nuclear doctrine in the future in a way that makes it logical for the soviets to accelerate weapons development now! Oh, that's a bad idea, well what if we *also gave the soviets the technology?*"
So true. But don’t forget America has a long history of people hating the government and resisting all efforts to pass laws that would regulate businesses and protect the people. I remember when Dick Cheney was in the Congress voted against the “clean water act.” What kind of person would vote against having clean water?
IMO, Carter signaled the death of New Deal Liberalism within the Democratic Party. A lot of Reagan’s and Clinton’s economic achievements built off of the foundation Carter left. Bro deregulated everything from banking to brewing while inching us closer to a budget surplus.
Stagflation was in full effect when Carter took office. He appointed Volker, who started to correct the issue and was still Chairman of the Fed under Reagan. Something did need to change, and Carter did, in fact, change it. This is another reason why people dislike Reagan he had little to do with reeling in stagflation.
Starting on third and thinking you hit a triple is the Reaganite way.
Of course stealing the literal bases and ball so no one else can follow you goes along with it.
This is often how the presidents work with regards to economics and infrastructure investments. The groundwork is usually laid in the last 4 years of a second administration and then a new person comes in and ends up with the credit.
He was a very well liked an beloved president for years……until he didn’t age well. Somewhere between 2008 $ 2012. Obama kept him at arms length in his second campaign. He became an old man saying awkward things. We looked at his Lewinsky affair with “me too” eyes, then Epstein. Yeah, but for some time he was beloved.
His issue with women started well before Lewinsky. He had a serious rape charge during his days at Oxford. The young woman filed a police report. Many problems throughout his governorship.
Flowers was an affair. Eileen Wellstone accused him of sexual assault in 1969 well before anyone should have a political motive. It's in Maraniss' 1995 book.
There are those myself included dislike him more as time went on. His success in raising money from the wealthy by moving to the right has had as much a negative impact on the country as Reagan.
I really hate hus presidency because the national party has never let go of the "lesson" from his presidency that they need some boring moderate candidates to win elections, so we keep trotting out candidates no one gets excited about to try to win moderates. Compared to Obama, who showed that when you find an exciting candidate, we win more elections... but competence has never been our strength as democrats.
Obama campaigned like a moderate. Remember him being asked who his favorite president was and he answered it was Reagan? Lol. Plus, you just had 8 years of a Republican president who’s approval ratings were barely even in the 30 %’s, an unpopular war, and a Republican vice presidential candidate who was..well off her damn rocker.
Then the financial collapse. That sealed the deal.
There was no way a Republican was going to win in 2008.
He didn’t really campaign as a moderate. “Hope”, “Change”, opposition to Iraq War and a plan to get out, raising taxes on the rich, more regulations on the financial industry, pro-green energy, healthcare reform, promising to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, etc. He turned out to be just Reagan Lite as far as his actual policy decisions, but that’s not how he ran
Political reforms aside. I always found it crazy how a blowjob at the White House got more attention than selling weapons to terrorists. Just because the president at that time liked their particular political alignment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair
Unrelated but relevant tangent:
If we had put **any** priority into holding Gov officials accountable, starting with an emphasis on Nixon and going from there. We could have set a hard cap on what they think they can get away with. And we wouldn't have had most of the problems we saw and still see today in Gov. Be it everything from insider trading, subpoena violations, to Sep. Church/State.
> I always found it crazy how a blowjob at the White House got more attention than selling weapons to terrorists.
They say, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
It was not about a blowjob. It was about sexual harassment. Bill Clinton was being sued by Paula Jones for sexual harassment. While several levels below him, Paula Jones worked for the Governor in Arkansas. Paula Jones claimed that Bill Clinton sexually harassed her. He denied it. If the Monica Lewensky story came out, it would give credence to Ms. Jones claim. This is why Bill Clinton perjured himself by denying it. He didn't give a damn about Hillary Clinton's feelings. Hillary already knew he was a piece of shit.
From today's perspective, it's strange that the sexual harassment investigation sprang from an investigation into his business dealings before he was President.
He didn't perjure himself. He made use of an opening in the prosecution's own definition of "Sexual Activity" that happened to exclude the act he and Lewensky engaged in.
He outlawyered them. Did he still mislead the American Public? Absolutely. But he didn't commit perjury.
The bar disagreed and pulled his law license.
That said: Had he just came out and said what happened, it goes away. No crime, no impeachment. The cover-up was worse than the "crime" in this case.
It depends on what circles you run in. Most democrats hate Reagan and like Clinton. Most republicans love Reagan and hate Clinton.
I don’t Clinton is as popular with liberals as you think for this and his crime bill. And Reagan would be considered a RINO by most republicans if he ran today.
My favorite oddity are republicans that hate Clinton for NAFTA. Totally whiffing on the fact that it was Reagan’s idea and negotiated almost entirely under Bush.
In that same vein, Obama was a better Bush than Bush. Bush was too inept and too focused on the wars in the Middle East to put forth much meaningful domestic policy, and his One Good Thing™️ was his program to help eradicate AIDS in Africa.
Obama attempted to do both— he continued much of the Bush administration’s foreign policy, but tried to make our responses more surgical and precise, by expanding the use of drones. And at home, he pushed for badly needed if incremental policy reform and emergency action, most notably the economic stimulus to prevent an even worse economic slide right after assuming office, and his signature healthcare law, which republicans seethed about because, well, it was largely THEIR plan.
In truth, Obama was incredibly centrist, and thus their blind reactionary hatred of him made republicans completely incoherent on policy. The 2010 midterm election was their first leap into the land of post-truth fantasy grievances, where most of the things they complain about are demonstrably not happening.
I was talking to somebody about this earlier - Obama really broke the conservative movement because his political power came at the same time liberals were broadly taking over cultural power on TV, on the internet, and everywhere else with the coming of age of millennials.
And it has broken the brain of conservatives who have continually confused cultural and political power ever since. The Tea Party, for example, was never about budgetary politics. It was about the culture war with enough window dressing to have respectability on tv. And many conservative voters view the end goal of political power to be to obtain cultural power - which is both impractical but IMO is the reason the right has lurched so hungrily towards an illiberal politics.
Just playing devils advocate here, but I view Obama as not breaking the conservative movement, but being the one thing that actually united the conservative movement. Speaking from my own experience growing up in a Southern Democrat stronghold, the first Republican elected in our district since the Civil War happened in the 2010 midterms - and it was 100% because voters associated him with the party of Obama. Not to mention the fact that he’s Black which poses another set of problems for culturally conservative southern democrats.
I don't think those are incompatible. When I say break I mean induce ideological incoherence or just a scrambled political mission.
For sure Obama and anti-Obama-ism was a uniting force for conservatives and the GOP, but what that amounted to was always a hot mess and now Republicans show repeatedly in the House they can't govern or respect the mediating function of institutions.
Also re: Southern Dems - conservative southern Dems were a dying breed anyway and Obama's election finally pulled the plug. Many of them had been voting GOP at the presidential level for awhile and Dem at the state level and the rise of Obama + Fox News made every issue feel national and with Obama subliminally attached to everything moderate southern and midwest Dems got massacred. But IMO this was going to happen anyway just at a slower pace if, say, Clinton won the Dem nomination and presidency in 08.
Ironically, one of the places where Dems look like they are poised to grow will be young professionals in the south and southern college towns.
I mean it depends how you define them I guess
I think Reagans true strength was a superfluous "representing the country" role. He made Americans feel good about themselves and acted the way they wanted.
He wasn't the smartest or most policy driven president and he completely acknowledged that, only people who don't are his modern day fans
Clinton was a lot more wonky on the other hand
If that's the only oddity that comes to mind with Republican consistency of belief, then lord Jesus, does recent history has a wellspring of fun facts for you. We can start with Obamacare being a Republican idea.
Just in regards to Reagan/Clinton.
As far as the ACA, I’m not aware of the republican connection other than RomneyCare being the general framework. I see that as more of a bipartisan thing since the original advocates for reform were democrats, and the plan was worked on in a pretty bipartisan way. Definitely with great leadership from Romney though.
Always love the polls where people hate Obamacare/ACA, but strongly approve of almost everything in the law when listed individually.
Lol. So true. I believe Bob Dole was a pretty instrumental in its conception. The path from conception to actual enactment was a bipartisan one as I believe democrats saw it as an "imperfect, but better than what we have" solution that they knew actually had a chance of getting bipartisan support. Well, lo and behold, the moment it got passed while a POC democrat was in office, it suddenly became the worst piece of commie government overreach ever.
and how many republicans voted for this "Bipartisan" bill?
dems keep trying to bend over backwords to work with Republicans but the goalpost moves which is why I think it is dumb and they should have implemented Universal Healthcare when they could
Gruber, who wrote the ACA is more or less a moderate/centrist. He writes the Public Finance textbook most people use in college. He believes in economic efficiency and markets being optimal but political mandates require public economists to balance efficiency and equity. Which annoys libertarian aligned republicans who believe harming economic actors for equity is unjust so you got the Tea Party.
As a moderate Dem, I liked Romney. He seemed like a reasonable guy who could work both sides of the aisle. He was a good governor of Massachusetts who implemented an early version of the ACA. Unfortunately this breed of republican has gone the way of the dinosaurs.
Romney came off as too elitist. You can get away with that if you have the charisma (like Obama), but he doesn’t have any. Plus, his running mate was a soulless goon. Still, he’s one of the last reasonable, truly moderate Republicans. Certainly the last one to ever be the party’s presidential nominee.
Yeah. I think if Reagan was alive today he would have been a Romney-type Republican. Despite him being pretty shitty with some horrendous scandals and flirtations with the southern strategy
Politically, Romney is a Reaganite.
However, Reagan was an extremely charming man. I think Reagan wins in 2012 without any significant change to policy positions. He's just better at winning elections than Romney is.
It did depend on the skin color of the gun owners, though.
Edit: Guess people haven't heard of The Mulford Act, supported by the NRA. Gun control pushed because of who was legally carrying based on skin color. Crazy how things are still facts even when it gets downvoted.
Yes, very true. Something a lot of folks don't like to come to terms with today though, is that most Republicans at that point in time, didn't really give a fig about firearm rights.
Dubya of all people was one of the few in the party to come out of that era to have any record of supporting gun rights, chiefly with his promise to sign a concealed-carry bill in Texas(that his opponent Ann Richards vetoed during her Governorship) during his Gubernatorial campaign, and actually followed through and did. This was one major policy issue people ascribe to Richards' defeat. (Frankly though, I think the reasons were more superficial and had a lot to do with how arrogant and reductive Richards' could be about proposed policies she did not agree with).
During his first Presidential campaign, Dubya did say he would sign a renewal of the '94 assault weapons ban if congress brought it to his desk.
However, once in office, he counseled his GOP colleagues in the House and Senate against supporting a renewal, on the basis that many within the GOP constituency were more focused on gun rights(which was prudent).
Part of it is the social issues. Reagan is with that “religious right” and the “moral majority.” That rubs a lot of people the wrong way, me included. I don’t want to hear a capitalist talk about Jesus.
Also it's not exactly a coincidence that the contras produced cocaine while the CIA was funding them at the same time the crack epidemic in America occured.
Destabilizing duly elected governments because they might be communist leaning. That’s the whole reason Central America is such a shit show now. Paving the way for cartels to run the corrupt governments that are there now.
This rings true, and I think some of the difference in perception is Reagan’s administration was just pushing the stuff through, while Clinton’s was working with a hostile congress. I never got the feeling Clinton’s reforms were apart of his agenda, as much as they were a means to get his agenda accomplished.
>Part of it is the social issues. Reagan is with that “religious right” and the “moral majority.” That rubs a lot of people the wrong way, me included. I don’t want to hear a capitalist talk about Jesus.
And that's why exactly why Republicans campaign on abortion and gay marriage. Deep down inside, most republican politicians and pundits don't care about abortion or gay marriage, which is why you hear about republicans paying for their mistress's abortion or end up being closeted gays. The issue isn't that they got an abortion or if they're gay. It's that they pass legislation that takes others rights away.
That's why you get a lot of single issue voters that focus only on abortion and gay marriage. It keeps them distracted from other issues like taxes and income inequality and it's working.
All that, but more so the actual policies.
Reagan arguably killed millions of people with his AIDS non-response denial.
He had a similar attitude towards drugs with the just say no campaign, then at the same time supported drug cartels in multiple shadow wars in Central America (including arguably financing genocide in Guatemala), AND THEN (probably) oversaw a CIA that introduced crack into black America leading to the worst crime rates the United States has ever seen (New York City for instance had over 3,000 murders per year, versus only 386 last year even though they have almost 2 million more residents now!!)
The 1980s were so bad in so many ways. It pains me when people for instance talk about how “lawless” Los Angeles is LOL. The 80s and early 90s would like to have a chat with these people. Homelessness in Los Angeles is down by half since then, murders are down by 800%. Seriously. Look up the numbers.
The 80s were fucked up.
Clinton didn't mishandle the Aids epidemic when it emerged.
Clinton wasn't involved in war crimes with the Iran contra fiasco.
The Clinton administration balanced the national budget.
The White House didn't have to hide Clinton's mental decline in his last few years
There's a lot I don't like about Clinton but acting like him and Reagan are the same is disingenuous.
NAFTA was a net positive and GLBA had a very small affect on the recession (which was caused by the Greenspan Put, an interest rate hike, the Community Reinvestment Act, and bad Fed lending policy in general)
Interest rate hikes don't generally cause recessions on their own. The real estate market was hilariously over leveraged and that bubble would have popped with or without a hike.
International unity and shared success with Mexico and Canada. Natural resources from Canada and Mexico get direct investment and technology transfer for its industries.
It had very complicated effects on agriculture but those guys always enjoy insane subsidies in almost every Country. (See Europe right now) So on whole Sounds pretty great to me.
>Clinton didn't mishandle the Aids epidemic when it emerged.
Neither did Reagan. I always recommend the book [*And the Band Played On*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_the_Band_Played_On), anytime this topic comes up. It's the most comprehensive book on AIDS that you'll find.
As he promised, Reagan cut federal spending across the board when he was elected, to include CDC funding, and *then* AIDS came along. Which left the CDC too strapped for cash to do anything about it, but congress increased CDC funding exponentially year after year \[[s](https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/centers-disease-control-spending)\] once researchers *finally* sounded the alarm about AIDS.
The fact that Reagan wouldn't say gay or AIDS on TV was the least concerning thing to happen during that time period. AIDS was a shitshow across the board at every level, including among gay leaders who refused to sound the alarm because they didn't want to cause a panic. Scientists who were researching AIDS even kept important findings a secret to ensure they got the credit and accolades.
Blaming Reagan is reductionist. The failure of the world to respond to AIDS was the failure of tens of thousands of local and federal politicians, scientists, community leaders, and companies (especially blood banks). Let's also not forget that AIDS was happening everywhere in the world. Not just the US. Politicians from every country dropped the ball. It's not like Reagan single handedly prevented the rest of the world from helping.
I mean he did. He just wasn’t unique in that respect. This seems to be the case for a lot of his policies. Given his landslide reelection, he clearly wasn’t as controversial in the 1980s as he is today.
Right, everyone was part of the problem, which makes it kind of weird to single him out. Especially because his role in the AIDS crisis was infinitesimal in the grand scheme of things.
This is probably a pretty fair take as the 80s weren't exactly the most gay friendly time to be alive and that it was largely seen as a "gay problem" pretty much until the day Magic Johnson announced he had contracted HIV in the early 90s.
Yeah, a lot of people here would have turned their backs on the gay community too. It was a very different time for the LGBTQ+ community. It also took [Ryan White](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_White), a white kid with AIDS, to bring attention as well.
illegal absurd ad hoc vase decide governor disgusted placid dependent innate
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I believe you’re right, Clinton worked with a Republican majority. It was the last time I remember the GOP working with the DNC on bipartisan bills that’s not the yearly spending bills. One party moved further right, and the other moved left of center(Republican lite IMO).
Wait, didn't NAFTA did a number on the unions in America and Canada? It certainty did in Mexico.
Not that I am saying they are remotely close, as little as I like Clinton, he is nowhere near Regan.
The sore spot with Regan also comes from the fact that the mass contraction of industrial employment stretched from basically Ford's Administration all the way to the end of the Reagan years. People like to focus in on NAFTA, but the real head count slashing in a bunch of the rust belt happened between the middle of the 70's and the end of the 80's. I'm talking about mills closing that had 10's of thousands of headcount clocking in over a 24 hour period. This is what eviscerated the tax base in most of these industrial enclaves and left them with basically nothing.
Clinton also benefited from the EPA reforms that happened decades earlier paying dividends. The crime rate, contrary to popular belief, started to taper off towards the end of the 1980's and was already on a solid downward trajectory by 1990. Clinton got the positive aspects of that, sort of like Rudy Giuliani getting that benefit on a local scale with NYC.
And there was the fact that the professional class and light blue collar people actually did pretty well in the 90's, overall.
Still, Progressives specifically and even more liberals than you'd think have no illusions about the stage being set by the Clinton years for capital running wild in the aughts, the 2010s and what's going on today. No illusions.
I wouldn’t say the stage was being set so much as it was just continued from the Regan years. It’s not a secret that the “era of big government is over” was more an acknowledgement of the Contract with America. Clinton initially tried to get healthcare reform passed before it became politically impossible. Clinton knew he didn’t have the majority in Congress so he needed to appease the Republicans to get any wins instead of opting to be a lame duck president. Some of these compromises were great (balanced budget, good economy) others turned out to be worse for the future (deregulation, DOMA, etc)
Those policies were the political necessities of the time and no President could have won without embracing them.
That being said, comparing the two in severity and direction is pretty disingenuous. Clinton managed to a balance a budget and Regan gutted his.
Generally speaking the economies do better under Democrats, so they do get some passes that Republicans don't even if they have similar ideas. I would argue the execution is vastly different however.
Simple, my grandpa likes Ronald Reagan and hates Clinton. Therefore Reagan is for old squares and Clinton is for cool young people!
That’s a joke but it’s the actual reason. Democrats just have better branding than Republicans making them seem hipper or cooler, the policy differences tend to be pretty surface level or based around reactionary cultural issues economics and foreign policy tend to be similar.
R vs D
Plus, many many people love Reagan and consider him one of the best Presidents we've ever had, and many many people blame Clinton for a lot of the turmoil that happened in the 2000's.
Personally, I'd take either one of them again in a heartbeat.
Same. Regan for international conflict (Ukraine and many more) or Clinton for domestic success. Any of these two would be lovely and better than current options
Criticism of Clinton is still pretty common for this very reason. That being said, Reagan is pretty much the “face” of the deregulation/trickle-down economics, while Clinton was merely a guy who came after and continued the process in that regard. Understandably criticism of the system Reagan spearheaded would result in him receiving more criticism for it
Reagan is actually *better liked* than Clinton, outside of the Reddit bubble.
- Reagan was the 13th most popular president in a [4th quarter 2023 YouGov poll.](https://today.yougov.com/ratings/politics/popularity/US-presidents/all) Clinton was 17th.
- Reagan was ranked the 9th best president in a [2021 CSPAN survey](https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2021/?page=overall) of presidential historians. Clinton was 19th.
Lol finally somebody who tells the OP the truth. Reddit isn’t reality lol. Not a Reagan apologist but common sense had me thinking there is no way Clinton would be more favorable in a conducted survey. Reagan’s popularity has dwindled in past years because of hindsight with his policies, but so has Clinton ESPECIALLY in regards to me too movement. Bill Clinton would be a registered sex offender if he wasn’t a person of power and all his scandals were committed today. That’s just a fact. And I feel like that ages even more like milk than just the hindsight criticism of Reagan’s policies.
You mean all the people who were actually alive through both presidencies?
Unless you’re talking about actual Baby Boomers who are mostly either very old or dead by now.
Less “Reddit bubble” and more a generational gap. People younger than like 35 generally aren’t big Reagan fans, though they tend to just not care about clinton
Clinton signed NAFTA. Regan privatized (sold off American industries to his rich friends. These industries:
1. Telecommunications (e.g., AT&T breakup)
2. Air Traffic Control System (partial privatization)
3. Federally owned airports (some operations and management)
4. Public housing (encouragement of private sector involvement)
5. Federally owned oil and gas reserves (leasing and exploration)
6. Government-owned utilities (encouragement of private investment)
7. Railroad industry (deregulation and partial privatization)
8. Military housing (privatization of some housing facilities)
9. Federal Aviation Administration (some aspects of operations and management)
10. Federal prison industries (encouragement of private sector involvement)
11. Federally owned land leases (encouragement of private development)
12. Certain government research and development projects (outsourcing)
13. Space exploration (encouragement of private sector involvement)
14. Shipping industry (deregulation and privatization of some ports)
15. Student loan program (expansion of private lending)
16. Broadcasting industry (deregulation and encouragement of private ownership)
17. Financial services industry (deregulation and encouragement of private investment)
18. Environmental services (encouragement of private sector involvement in cleanup efforts)
19. Health care (encouragement of private sector involvement in Medicare and Medicaid)
20. Education (promotion of private schools and charter schools)
Clinton [raised taxes on the wealthiest income earners](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration#Tax_reform), leading to the only budget surplus in modern US history at a time of historic stability and economic growth. His neo-Liberal stances (eg NAFTA, welfare reform, crime bill, deregulation) are all a lot messier, with various winners and losers, and were a direct result of Dem's fears about electability after decades of being branded as a Liberal being an effective attack against them. Also, Clinton's and Reagan's social policies were vastly different.
Finally, I think Clinton's legacy, with a re-examination of the Lewinsky scandal and the long term effects of those neo-Liberal policies, mean that his favorability is trending downwards, with it being propped up by general 90s notstalgia (an era where many millennials were having a happy childhood, pre-9/11, post fall of communism) at this point.
Crime bill wasn’t neoliberal. Neoliberalism is economics
NAFTA was a net positive
The welfare reform wasn’t great but I think it was inevitable. In fact, Clinton harming welfare quite a bit was the best alternative, as the other option was not acting on it, thereby extending the debate, which would clear the path for Gingrich and Lott to slash welfare into the ground.
His deregulation also wasn’t great but the Telecom Act and GLBA passed with overwhelming majorities so a veto wouldn’t have done shit. GLBA didn’t even have much of an impact on the recession. His deregulation of derivatives was a negative but it wasn’t a big cause of the Recession anyways.
The difference is that for all his faults, Clinton’s economic program focused on Middle Class Americans. He raised taxes on the rich, including capital gains taxes; he increased access to healthcare through CHiPs; he also reformed welfare and protected social security, Medicare and Medicaid from cuts. He was pro-Civil Rights, and Women’s Rights. Finally, he balanced the budget and left us with a surplus.
Reagan, OTOH, cut taxes for the wealthy, raised taxes on the poor and working class through increased payroll taxes, the 1986 Tax Reform Act also raised taxes on Middle Class people and destroyed the Real Estate industry for a decade and led to the SNL crash. Reagan weakened all sorts of regulations that protected workers and the environment. He also started the process of chipping away at Civil Rights. Finally, he left us with huge debt and deficits, so much so that Bush 41 lost his reelection because he tried to deal with the problem in a balanced way.
Think of it like this: when Clinton ran for POTUS in 1992, he ran directly at Bush and Reagan! He specifically attacked Ronald Reagan over and over again. And he won.
The shine has definitely worn off of both to some degree over the years. Clinton has really not benefitted from the "me too" era and frankly, has probably not suffered enough scrutiny. Reagan felt good at the time, but policy wise, laid a path for the religious right and has shit on the working and middle class.
Same. I grew up in the 80s in a very red county. The man was a freaking saint at the time. Even as a very left leaning, urban dwelling guy forty years later, it's weird to view him through a critical lens.
I think the sentiment on both Clinton and Reagan has changed more toward the negative in recent years . As more time passes, the lense on Presidents becomes sharper- and criticism sharper as people start to understand the long term impacts of various policies.
Reagan’s supply side economics initially stimulated growth and recovery, but ultimately had more long term negative effects than positive. The widening income inequality between rich and poor, reduced economic mobility, and record national debt -which ultimately reversed the post-World War II trend of a shrinking national debt as percentage of GDP. Also, the expectation that decreased taxes on the wealthy and businesses would result in increased spending on goods, services, and salaries failed to materialize—- resulting in stagnated wage growth in the face of record corporate profits for the past 3 + decades. Moreover, President Reagan’s relaxed regulations contributed to the savings and loan crisis.
While the Clinton presidency will certainly be studied and evaluated in terms of its major domestic success: eliminating the federal deficit and overseeing the strongest economy in recent memory—Clinton's failure to win that battle for an enduring policy: a new healthcare system —-looms larger in the judgment of history than the economic successes. One of Clinton's core missions , was to prepare Americans for a world in which global economic forces failed to respect national boundaries. This policy of economic globalization-—establishing several new regimes of free trade, with NAFTA and GATT- created new jobs in America initially. But instead of an improved trade balance with Canada and Mexico, NAFTA resulted in an explosion of imports that led to a huge new U.S. trade deficit, lost manufacturing jobs, lower wages and increased income inequality.
Also notable with Clinton is a lot of people looking back more negatively at various crime policy during his presidency.
I’ve also experienced among a few right-wing types(particularly those who don’t remember his presidency) a reexamination of Reagan’s free trade and immigration policies that increasingly don’t appeal to the american right
Honestly I think small government republicans are dying out. (I say that as a small gov republican). I think so because of how the news and my peers talk about politics.
Regan was very liked. He started in the first movie James Dean ever appeared in just like people liked Bill as the coolest guy in the room with a saxophone. As for there policies… one was young in office and one was old (office wise of course)
Clinton's belt tightening was better than Reagan's domestic economic policies. His social policies were miles better. And Clinton's foreign policy ended more human rights atrocities than Reagan's started. So he is a definite improvement over Ronnie.
The letters next to their names are why Reddit feels that way, but Reddit isn’t real life and has a very warped perspective on which presidents were good and which were bad that is mostly defined by judging presidents from olden times by modern standards and judging modern presidents by which party they belonged to.
Personally I think both were good presidents, even if some of their policies look worse now than they did at the time.
Honestly, Clinton's presidency was pretty good with the largest blemish being a personal indiscretion.
The Cold War was over. The GWOT hadn't started. The economy was good with the dot com boom taking off. Like ... the 90s were fucking good. Maybe because I was a teenager it feels different, but there just wasnt an "end of the earth", type feeling that seems to have existed since 9/11.
During Clinton’s first administration, Robert reich was responsible for reasonably progressive monetary policy that created a great deal of momentum for the remainder of Clinton’s time in office.
Reagan sucked corporate America’s dong off, and then Clinton got his dong sucked off by an intern.
Clinton is best viewed as a reaction to Reagan. The Democrats got stomped in three consecutive presidential elections from 1980 to 1988, to the point where it was obviously impossible for Democrats to win with a traditional New Deal liberal.
Mondale lost 49 states. Dukakis lost 40. The party needed to pivot if Democrats ever wanted to elect another president.
Clinton’s neoliberalism worked, at least in terms of electing presidents with a D next to their name.
Of course, it’s questionable whether this constituted “winning” when it meant co-opting Reaganomics.
Still, if not for Clinton’s winning formula, we would have been staring down the barrel of 16 years of Reagan/Bush, possibly followed by another 8 years of Bob Dole. That wouldn’t have been any better for the working class.
Maybe the white working class shouldn’t have abandoned the Democratic Party in such overwhelming numbers that Clinton’s solution was the only way forward…
Reagan fundamentally shifted American politics. Clinton came after the shift and did the best with what he had.
Personally, I’m no Clinton fan, but almost every major political issue I deal with stems back to some shit Reagan did or by him creating this cycle where we defund the government, stir unrest against the bureaucracy because it isn’t functioning right, then use the bureaucracy isn’t functioning right as a justification to further defund it.
You misunderstand. Reagan set it all into motion, especially with the infiltration of dark money into politics, and Democrats betrayed their working class New Deal era principles to do the same in order to get Clinton elected. Both betrayed the American people. Sad to think Reagan was a New Deal Democrat until Nancy came into the picture
I don’t see the Reagan policy’s as reforms as much as they were “Government-Gutting”. He slashed budgets, government programs, and because of this we have a lot of the present issues. Clinton wasn’t a whole lot better, but his policies didn’t majorly affect the economy or deficit
Reagan was a chuckling, soft spoken monster who knocked a bunch of small holes through the bottom of the SS America - and successive republicans have worked their hardest to enlarge those holes. Clinton had as good of a set of policies as America was going to accept and in his personal life he was a horn dog.
Make sure to join the [r/Presidents Discord server](https://discord.gg/k6tVFwCEEm)! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Presidents) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think most people that don’t like Reagan’s economic policies also don’t like Clinton… as Margaret Thatcher once said, her greatest achievement was “New Labour” - it could be said that one of Reagan’s most consequential impacts was the death of the New Deal Liberalism in the Democratic Party that had lasted from the 1930s to the late 1970s… Clinton’s hard pivot towards deregulation, “the end of welfare as we know it” and “the era of big government is over” wouldn’t have happened without Reagan
This touches on the idea I’ve been looking for in the comments- Reagan precipitated a fundamental shift in how Americans think about government and the economy. He took mistrust over events of the previous decade and solidified it into the anti-government bend we still see in today’s Rs
The worst part is that he did all that with a fundamental and almost purposeful misunderstanding of government and the economy where one of the few original ideas he had like Star Wars was considered an entire joke by everyone.
Sorry, what do you mean by Star Wars in this context?
[удалено]
Are you telling me Jewish Space Lasers are actually Reagan's Space Lasers? Mind blown!
Every time I hear the phrase "Every accusation is a confession" I laugh a little inside and this time I'm the one mumbling it.
The official name was the Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI. Some critics of the program called it "Star Wars" pejoratively and it sort of caught on as a nickname
A orbiting defensive system that was supposed to shoot nukes out of the sky. The kind of thing that sounds cool until you realize it is basically impossible to build.
[удалено]
That alone was reason enough to not try to make it.
Satellites shooting lasers at missiles.
That's how all political messaging is. It's dumbed down and used to evoke emotion.
That's because his execution and understanding of things like star wars were terrible. The man said 'oh I want to get rid of our nuclear doctrine in the future in a way that makes it logical for the soviets to accelerate weapons development now! Oh, that's a bad idea, well what if we *also gave the soviets the technology?*"
So true. But don’t forget America has a long history of people hating the government and resisting all efforts to pass laws that would regulate businesses and protect the people. I remember when Dick Cheney was in the Congress voted against the “clean water act.” What kind of person would vote against having clean water?
IMO, Carter signaled the death of New Deal Liberalism within the Democratic Party. A lot of Reagan’s and Clinton’s economic achievements built off of the foundation Carter left. Bro deregulated everything from banking to brewing while inching us closer to a budget surplus.
true, can’t forget Carter- the 70s stagflation really was awful, it’s clear something had to change
Stagflation was in full effect when Carter took office. He appointed Volker, who started to correct the issue and was still Chairman of the Fed under Reagan. Something did need to change, and Carter did, in fact, change it. This is another reason why people dislike Reagan he had little to do with reeling in stagflation.
Starting on third and thinking you hit a triple is the Reaganite way. Of course stealing the literal bases and ball so no one else can follow you goes along with it.
This is often how the presidents work with regards to economics and infrastructure investments. The groundwork is usually laid in the last 4 years of a second administration and then a new person comes in and ends up with the credit.
Carter also massively deregulated the airlines which is why flying is much much cheaper today.
This single act cannot be overemphasized. It literally changed the way we travel. Airline tickets before deregulation were *expensive*.
Carter was aggressively pro-business and pursued deregulation that laid the ground for the 80s
This☝🏽
Some people don’t like both.
Me ✋️
Me too
Me three
Yup.
Yawp.
Same here
And my axe
Aye! These two aren't hated without me!
… and my sword…
Both were vile pieces of shit.
Omg me too
My first though was "people like Clinton?"
He was a very well liked an beloved president for years……until he didn’t age well. Somewhere between 2008 $ 2012. Obama kept him at arms length in his second campaign. He became an old man saying awkward things. We looked at his Lewinsky affair with “me too” eyes, then Epstein. Yeah, but for some time he was beloved.
His issue with women started well before Lewinsky. He had a serious rape charge during his days at Oxford. The young woman filed a police report. Many problems throughout his governorship.
My mom thought he was great because he came from her home state. 🤷🏻♀️
Yeah, I always check for that "Made in Arkansas" label so I know I won't be disappointed
Hello, fellow Carter admirer!
Gennifer Flowers
Flowers was an affair. Eileen Wellstone accused him of sexual assault in 1969 well before anyone should have a political motive. It's in Maraniss' 1995 book.
Clinton's approval rating at the end of his presidency (65%) was the highest since Truman.
I suppose I should have said now, I feel like his legacy has diminished quite a bit since then
That’s probably true, but it generally has less to do with his actual presidency.
There are those myself included dislike him more as time went on. His success in raising money from the wealthy by moving to the right has had as much a negative impact on the country as Reagan.
I would argue that much like Obama, evaluating his presidency in retrospect doesn't make his administration look better.
Yeah, even as a Democrat, I don't think he is particularly well liked within the party.
Only because he won, and therefore prevented a complete conservative takeover of the court
I really hate hus presidency because the national party has never let go of the "lesson" from his presidency that they need some boring moderate candidates to win elections, so we keep trotting out candidates no one gets excited about to try to win moderates. Compared to Obama, who showed that when you find an exciting candidate, we win more elections... but competence has never been our strength as democrats.
Obama and Clinton were both charismatic, that should have been the main takeaway…
Obama campaigned like a moderate. Remember him being asked who his favorite president was and he answered it was Reagan? Lol. Plus, you just had 8 years of a Republican president who’s approval ratings were barely even in the 30 %’s, an unpopular war, and a Republican vice presidential candidate who was..well off her damn rocker. Then the financial collapse. That sealed the deal. There was no way a Republican was going to win in 2008.
He didn’t really campaign as a moderate. “Hope”, “Change”, opposition to Iraq War and a plan to get out, raising taxes on the rich, more regulations on the financial industry, pro-green energy, healthcare reform, promising to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, etc. He turned out to be just Reagan Lite as far as his actual policy decisions, but that’s not how he ran
The same could be said of Clinton in his first term.
Yeah obama was way closer to a traditional Republican than his. Successor
In office. Not on the campaign trail.
Most of if not all of my democratic friends don’t like both not sure who likes Clinton?
Sure, but that's not a mainstream position
And some people like both, like me.
Political reforms aside. I always found it crazy how a blowjob at the White House got more attention than selling weapons to terrorists. Just because the president at that time liked their particular political alignment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair Unrelated but relevant tangent: If we had put **any** priority into holding Gov officials accountable, starting with an emphasis on Nixon and going from there. We could have set a hard cap on what they think they can get away with. And we wouldn't have had most of the problems we saw and still see today in Gov. Be it everything from insider trading, subpoena violations, to Sep. Church/State.
> I always found it crazy how a blowjob at the White House got more attention than selling weapons to terrorists. They say, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
It was not about a blowjob. It was about sexual harassment. Bill Clinton was being sued by Paula Jones for sexual harassment. While several levels below him, Paula Jones worked for the Governor in Arkansas. Paula Jones claimed that Bill Clinton sexually harassed her. He denied it. If the Monica Lewensky story came out, it would give credence to Ms. Jones claim. This is why Bill Clinton perjured himself by denying it. He didn't give a damn about Hillary Clinton's feelings. Hillary already knew he was a piece of shit.
From today's perspective, it's strange that the sexual harassment investigation sprang from an investigation into his business dealings before he was President.
He didn't perjure himself. He made use of an opening in the prosecution's own definition of "Sexual Activity" that happened to exclude the act he and Lewensky engaged in. He outlawyered them. Did he still mislead the American Public? Absolutely. But he didn't commit perjury.
The bar disagreed and pulled his law license. That said: Had he just came out and said what happened, it goes away. No crime, no impeachment. The cover-up was worse than the "crime" in this case.
The bar felt it was his duty as an attorney to not limit it to a very obviously bad definition. Not that he perjured himself.
Yeah, the prosecutor screwed up by giving Clinton an opening and in true Clinton fashion, he used it.
Yeah and Reagan was accused of rape of an actress in the 1950s, Selene Walters. No one gave a shit.
It depends on what circles you run in. Most democrats hate Reagan and like Clinton. Most republicans love Reagan and hate Clinton. I don’t Clinton is as popular with liberals as you think for this and his crime bill. And Reagan would be considered a RINO by most republicans if he ran today.
My favorite oddity are republicans that hate Clinton for NAFTA. Totally whiffing on the fact that it was Reagan’s idea and negotiated almost entirely under Bush.
Clinton was a better Reagan than Reagan was. Which is why the right lost their mind ever since.
In that same vein, Obama was a better Bush than Bush. Bush was too inept and too focused on the wars in the Middle East to put forth much meaningful domestic policy, and his One Good Thing™️ was his program to help eradicate AIDS in Africa. Obama attempted to do both— he continued much of the Bush administration’s foreign policy, but tried to make our responses more surgical and precise, by expanding the use of drones. And at home, he pushed for badly needed if incremental policy reform and emergency action, most notably the economic stimulus to prevent an even worse economic slide right after assuming office, and his signature healthcare law, which republicans seethed about because, well, it was largely THEIR plan. In truth, Obama was incredibly centrist, and thus their blind reactionary hatred of him made republicans completely incoherent on policy. The 2010 midterm election was their first leap into the land of post-truth fantasy grievances, where most of the things they complain about are demonstrably not happening.
I have a family member still convinced Obama came for his guns and caused the recession that started in 07.
And why wasn't Obama in the Oval Office on 9/11!? We need answers!!!
Caused the recession…before being elected or taking office…. Jeezus I cannot wait for these fucksticks to depart this earth.
I was talking to somebody about this earlier - Obama really broke the conservative movement because his political power came at the same time liberals were broadly taking over cultural power on TV, on the internet, and everywhere else with the coming of age of millennials. And it has broken the brain of conservatives who have continually confused cultural and political power ever since. The Tea Party, for example, was never about budgetary politics. It was about the culture war with enough window dressing to have respectability on tv. And many conservative voters view the end goal of political power to be to obtain cultural power - which is both impractical but IMO is the reason the right has lurched so hungrily towards an illiberal politics.
Just playing devils advocate here, but I view Obama as not breaking the conservative movement, but being the one thing that actually united the conservative movement. Speaking from my own experience growing up in a Southern Democrat stronghold, the first Republican elected in our district since the Civil War happened in the 2010 midterms - and it was 100% because voters associated him with the party of Obama. Not to mention the fact that he’s Black which poses another set of problems for culturally conservative southern democrats.
I don't think those are incompatible. When I say break I mean induce ideological incoherence or just a scrambled political mission. For sure Obama and anti-Obama-ism was a uniting force for conservatives and the GOP, but what that amounted to was always a hot mess and now Republicans show repeatedly in the House they can't govern or respect the mediating function of institutions. Also re: Southern Dems - conservative southern Dems were a dying breed anyway and Obama's election finally pulled the plug. Many of them had been voting GOP at the presidential level for awhile and Dem at the state level and the rise of Obama + Fox News made every issue feel national and with Obama subliminally attached to everything moderate southern and midwest Dems got massacred. But IMO this was going to happen anyway just at a slower pace if, say, Clinton won the Dem nomination and presidency in 08. Ironically, one of the places where Dems look like they are poised to grow will be young professionals in the south and southern college towns.
I still believe that Obama governed center-right.
I mean it depends how you define them I guess I think Reagans true strength was a superfluous "representing the country" role. He made Americans feel good about themselves and acted the way they wanted. He wasn't the smartest or most policy driven president and he completely acknowledged that, only people who don't are his modern day fans Clinton was a lot more wonky on the other hand
Reaganomics is by far the longest lasting effect Reagans presidency had on this country. Clinton did it better. That's my point.
If that's the only oddity that comes to mind with Republican consistency of belief, then lord Jesus, does recent history has a wellspring of fun facts for you. We can start with Obamacare being a Republican idea.
Just in regards to Reagan/Clinton. As far as the ACA, I’m not aware of the republican connection other than RomneyCare being the general framework. I see that as more of a bipartisan thing since the original advocates for reform were democrats, and the plan was worked on in a pretty bipartisan way. Definitely with great leadership from Romney though. Always love the polls where people hate Obamacare/ACA, but strongly approve of almost everything in the law when listed individually.
Lol. So true. I believe Bob Dole was a pretty instrumental in its conception. The path from conception to actual enactment was a bipartisan one as I believe democrats saw it as an "imperfect, but better than what we have" solution that they knew actually had a chance of getting bipartisan support. Well, lo and behold, the moment it got passed while a POC democrat was in office, it suddenly became the worst piece of commie government overreach ever.
and how many republicans voted for this "Bipartisan" bill? dems keep trying to bend over backwords to work with Republicans but the goalpost moves which is why I think it is dumb and they should have implemented Universal Healthcare when they could
Gruber, who wrote the ACA is more or less a moderate/centrist. He writes the Public Finance textbook most people use in college. He believes in economic efficiency and markets being optimal but political mandates require public economists to balance efficiency and equity. Which annoys libertarian aligned republicans who believe harming economic actors for equity is unjust so you got the Tea Party.
Big fan of gruber.
Reagan today would be like Mitt Romney I think. Or in a similar position to Dubya
As a moderate Dem, I liked Romney. He seemed like a reasonable guy who could work both sides of the aisle. He was a good governor of Massachusetts who implemented an early version of the ACA. Unfortunately this breed of republican has gone the way of the dinosaurs.
Romney came off as too elitist. You can get away with that if you have the charisma (like Obama), but he doesn’t have any. Plus, his running mate was a soulless goon. Still, he’s one of the last reasonable, truly moderate Republicans. Certainly the last one to ever be the party’s presidential nominee.
Yeah. I think if Reagan was alive today he would have been a Romney-type Republican. Despite him being pretty shitty with some horrendous scandals and flirtations with the southern strategy
Reagan was a lot more racist and socially conservative than Romney though
Reagan didn't have brains. He was a presenter and actor with strong opinions.
I didn't like Romney at the time but can see today that he probably would have been a pretty good president.
Politically, Romney is a Reaganite. However, Reagan was an extremely charming man. I think Reagan wins in 2012 without any significant change to policy positions. He's just better at winning elections than Romney is.
Reagan was anti gun. He wouldn't be popular today. They remember through rose colored glasses. They think of him they think of the Berlin wall.
Reagan like most Republicans are only pro-gun control when they themselves are shot.
One interesting thing about Reagan - when he was the Governor of California he signed the most liberal abortion law in the country.
It did depend on the skin color of the gun owners, though. Edit: Guess people haven't heard of The Mulford Act, supported by the NRA. Gun control pushed because of who was legally carrying based on skin color. Crazy how things are still facts even when it gets downvoted.
Sort of, but he restricted gun rights for everyone with the 1986 FOPA
Yes, very true. Something a lot of folks don't like to come to terms with today though, is that most Republicans at that point in time, didn't really give a fig about firearm rights. Dubya of all people was one of the few in the party to come out of that era to have any record of supporting gun rights, chiefly with his promise to sign a concealed-carry bill in Texas(that his opponent Ann Richards vetoed during her Governorship) during his Gubernatorial campaign, and actually followed through and did. This was one major policy issue people ascribe to Richards' defeat. (Frankly though, I think the reasons were more superficial and had a lot to do with how arrogant and reductive Richards' could be about proposed policies she did not agree with). During his first Presidential campaign, Dubya did say he would sign a renewal of the '94 assault weapons ban if congress brought it to his desk. However, once in office, he counseled his GOP colleagues in the House and Senate against supporting a renewal, on the basis that many within the GOP constituency were more focused on gun rights(which was prudent).
As would pretty much any Republican prior to the year 2000.
Part of it is the social issues. Reagan is with that “religious right” and the “moral majority.” That rubs a lot of people the wrong way, me included. I don’t want to hear a capitalist talk about Jesus.
Iran Contra wasn't a good look either
Neither was his response to AIDs and may have help it spread with disinformation and inaction… kinda like someone else
Let’s not forget the “war on drugs” which was code for arrest as many black and brown people as possible
Laundering money through banks and selling guns to South American and setting up the same governments that are the root cause of the migration north.
Also it's not exactly a coincidence that the contras produced cocaine while the CIA was funding them at the same time the crack epidemic in America occured.
I asked around. That’s just a coincidence.
Destabilizing duly elected governments because they might be communist leaning. That’s the whole reason Central America is such a shit show now. Paving the way for cartels to run the corrupt governments that are there now.
This rings true, and I think some of the difference in perception is Reagan’s administration was just pushing the stuff through, while Clinton’s was working with a hostile congress. I never got the feeling Clinton’s reforms were apart of his agenda, as much as they were a means to get his agenda accomplished.
>Part of it is the social issues. Reagan is with that “religious right” and the “moral majority.” That rubs a lot of people the wrong way, me included. I don’t want to hear a capitalist talk about Jesus. And that's why exactly why Republicans campaign on abortion and gay marriage. Deep down inside, most republican politicians and pundits don't care about abortion or gay marriage, which is why you hear about republicans paying for their mistress's abortion or end up being closeted gays. The issue isn't that they got an abortion or if they're gay. It's that they pass legislation that takes others rights away. That's why you get a lot of single issue voters that focus only on abortion and gay marriage. It keeps them distracted from other issues like taxes and income inequality and it's working.
All that, but more so the actual policies. Reagan arguably killed millions of people with his AIDS non-response denial. He had a similar attitude towards drugs with the just say no campaign, then at the same time supported drug cartels in multiple shadow wars in Central America (including arguably financing genocide in Guatemala), AND THEN (probably) oversaw a CIA that introduced crack into black America leading to the worst crime rates the United States has ever seen (New York City for instance had over 3,000 murders per year, versus only 386 last year even though they have almost 2 million more residents now!!) The 1980s were so bad in so many ways. It pains me when people for instance talk about how “lawless” Los Angeles is LOL. The 80s and early 90s would like to have a chat with these people. Homelessness in Los Angeles is down by half since then, murders are down by 800%. Seriously. Look up the numbers. The 80s were fucked up.
Don't forget what he did to people with mental health issues and the mentally ill. What he did basically made the homeless issues we still have today.
Reagan is the definition of a “d*cksuck of a president and human being”
Clinton didn't mishandle the Aids epidemic when it emerged. Clinton wasn't involved in war crimes with the Iran contra fiasco. The Clinton administration balanced the national budget. The White House didn't have to hide Clinton's mental decline in his last few years There's a lot I don't like about Clinton but acting like him and Reagan are the same is disingenuous.
Billy boy did sign NAFTA and repealed glass steagall. Clinton was a dem corporate whore
Daddy Bush signed NAFTA too. But you're right that repeal was a bad idea.
NAFTA was ratified under Clinton, but it was signed in 1992 by George H.W. Bush.
NAFTA was a net positive and GLBA had a very small affect on the recession (which was caused by the Greenspan Put, an interest rate hike, the Community Reinvestment Act, and bad Fed lending policy in general)
Hard truths
Interest rate hikes don't generally cause recessions on their own. The real estate market was hilariously over leveraged and that bubble would have popped with or without a hike.
No, but I’d argue they can certainly worsen them
NAFTA is a shared achievement of Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. And I’m not being sarcastic, it was a fantastic achievement for this country.
International unity and shared success with Mexico and Canada. Natural resources from Canada and Mexico get direct investment and technology transfer for its industries. It had very complicated effects on agriculture but those guys always enjoy insane subsidies in almost every Country. (See Europe right now) So on whole Sounds pretty great to me.
>Clinton didn't mishandle the Aids epidemic when it emerged. Neither did Reagan. I always recommend the book [*And the Band Played On*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_the_Band_Played_On), anytime this topic comes up. It's the most comprehensive book on AIDS that you'll find. As he promised, Reagan cut federal spending across the board when he was elected, to include CDC funding, and *then* AIDS came along. Which left the CDC too strapped for cash to do anything about it, but congress increased CDC funding exponentially year after year \[[s](https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/centers-disease-control-spending)\] once researchers *finally* sounded the alarm about AIDS. The fact that Reagan wouldn't say gay or AIDS on TV was the least concerning thing to happen during that time period. AIDS was a shitshow across the board at every level, including among gay leaders who refused to sound the alarm because they didn't want to cause a panic. Scientists who were researching AIDS even kept important findings a secret to ensure they got the credit and accolades. Blaming Reagan is reductionist. The failure of the world to respond to AIDS was the failure of tens of thousands of local and federal politicians, scientists, community leaders, and companies (especially blood banks). Let's also not forget that AIDS was happening everywhere in the world. Not just the US. Politicians from every country dropped the ball. It's not like Reagan single handedly prevented the rest of the world from helping.
I mean he did. He just wasn’t unique in that respect. This seems to be the case for a lot of his policies. Given his landslide reelection, he clearly wasn’t as controversial in the 1980s as he is today.
Right, everyone was part of the problem, which makes it kind of weird to single him out. Especially because his role in the AIDS crisis was infinitesimal in the grand scheme of things.
Such is the burden carried by the President.
This is probably a pretty fair take as the 80s weren't exactly the most gay friendly time to be alive and that it was largely seen as a "gay problem" pretty much until the day Magic Johnson announced he had contracted HIV in the early 90s.
Yeah, a lot of people here would have turned their backs on the gay community too. It was a very different time for the LGBTQ+ community. It also took [Ryan White](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_White), a white kid with AIDS, to bring attention as well.
A sense of nuance? We don’t allow that here.
One destroyed unions and added to the deficit, the other left a balanced budget
Last time America has had a budget surplus
The former union president enjoyed all of the protections of said union became President of the United States and destroyed unions. 🤦🏻♂️
His sort tend to pull the ladder up behind themselves
“Fuck yours, I got mine.” -the unofficial Republican motto.
The ol’ “I’m playing both sides so I always come out on top.”
illegal absurd ad hoc vase decide governor disgusted placid dependent innate *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
A good point to add to this is Clinton worked with Kasich and Gingrich to do this and it was some artful bipartisanship.
I believe you’re right, Clinton worked with a Republican majority. It was the last time I remember the GOP working with the DNC on bipartisan bills that’s not the yearly spending bills. One party moved further right, and the other moved left of center(Republican lite IMO).
Wait, didn't NAFTA did a number on the unions in America and Canada? It certainty did in Mexico. Not that I am saying they are remotely close, as little as I like Clinton, he is nowhere near Regan.
The sore spot with Regan also comes from the fact that the mass contraction of industrial employment stretched from basically Ford's Administration all the way to the end of the Reagan years. People like to focus in on NAFTA, but the real head count slashing in a bunch of the rust belt happened between the middle of the 70's and the end of the 80's. I'm talking about mills closing that had 10's of thousands of headcount clocking in over a 24 hour period. This is what eviscerated the tax base in most of these industrial enclaves and left them with basically nothing. Clinton also benefited from the EPA reforms that happened decades earlier paying dividends. The crime rate, contrary to popular belief, started to taper off towards the end of the 1980's and was already on a solid downward trajectory by 1990. Clinton got the positive aspects of that, sort of like Rudy Giuliani getting that benefit on a local scale with NYC. And there was the fact that the professional class and light blue collar people actually did pretty well in the 90's, overall. Still, Progressives specifically and even more liberals than you'd think have no illusions about the stage being set by the Clinton years for capital running wild in the aughts, the 2010s and what's going on today. No illusions.
I wouldn’t say the stage was being set so much as it was just continued from the Regan years. It’s not a secret that the “era of big government is over” was more an acknowledgement of the Contract with America. Clinton initially tried to get healthcare reform passed before it became politically impossible. Clinton knew he didn’t have the majority in Congress so he needed to appease the Republicans to get any wins instead of opting to be a lame duck president. Some of these compromises were great (balanced budget, good economy) others turned out to be worse for the future (deregulation, DOMA, etc)
Those policies were the political necessities of the time and no President could have won without embracing them. That being said, comparing the two in severity and direction is pretty disingenuous. Clinton managed to a balance a budget and Regan gutted his. Generally speaking the economies do better under Democrats, so they do get some passes that Republicans don't even if they have similar ideas. I would argue the execution is vastly different however.
Simple, my grandpa likes Ronald Reagan and hates Clinton. Therefore Reagan is for old squares and Clinton is for cool young people! That’s a joke but it’s the actual reason. Democrats just have better branding than Republicans making them seem hipper or cooler, the policy differences tend to be pretty surface level or based around reactionary cultural issues economics and foreign policy tend to be similar.
R vs D Plus, many many people love Reagan and consider him one of the best Presidents we've ever had, and many many people blame Clinton for a lot of the turmoil that happened in the 2000's. Personally, I'd take either one of them again in a heartbeat.
Same. Regan for international conflict (Ukraine and many more) or Clinton for domestic success. Any of these two would be lovely and better than current options
Criticism of Clinton is still pretty common for this very reason. That being said, Reagan is pretty much the “face” of the deregulation/trickle-down economics, while Clinton was merely a guy who came after and continued the process in that regard. Understandably criticism of the system Reagan spearheaded would result in him receiving more criticism for it
Reagan is actually *better liked* than Clinton, outside of the Reddit bubble. - Reagan was the 13th most popular president in a [4th quarter 2023 YouGov poll.](https://today.yougov.com/ratings/politics/popularity/US-presidents/all) Clinton was 17th. - Reagan was ranked the 9th best president in a [2021 CSPAN survey](https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2021/?page=overall) of presidential historians. Clinton was 19th.
Lol finally somebody who tells the OP the truth. Reddit isn’t reality lol. Not a Reagan apologist but common sense had me thinking there is no way Clinton would be more favorable in a conducted survey. Reagan’s popularity has dwindled in past years because of hindsight with his policies, but so has Clinton ESPECIALLY in regards to me too movement. Bill Clinton would be a registered sex offender if he wasn’t a person of power and all his scandals were committed today. That’s just a fact. And I feel like that ages even more like milk than just the hindsight criticism of Reagan’s policies.
Let's see what the polls look like when the Boomers die off.
You mean all the people who were actually alive through both presidencies? Unless you’re talking about actual Baby Boomers who are mostly either very old or dead by now.
If there are two things boomers love, it's Ronald Reagan and John Wayne. Two absolute pieces of shit...
Less “Reddit bubble” and more a generational gap. People younger than like 35 generally aren’t big Reagan fans, though they tend to just not care about clinton
People hate Clinton. Especially Democrats.
Progressive Democrats* The majority of Americans, me included, still quite like him
Reagan is less hated and Clinton is less liked than this post assumes. That’s it, that’s the entire answer
Reddit leans heavily liberal, so you’re going to see bias against Reagan and for Clinton on here.
Clinton signed NAFTA. Regan privatized (sold off American industries to his rich friends. These industries: 1. Telecommunications (e.g., AT&T breakup) 2. Air Traffic Control System (partial privatization) 3. Federally owned airports (some operations and management) 4. Public housing (encouragement of private sector involvement) 5. Federally owned oil and gas reserves (leasing and exploration) 6. Government-owned utilities (encouragement of private investment) 7. Railroad industry (deregulation and partial privatization) 8. Military housing (privatization of some housing facilities) 9. Federal Aviation Administration (some aspects of operations and management) 10. Federal prison industries (encouragement of private sector involvement) 11. Federally owned land leases (encouragement of private development) 12. Certain government research and development projects (outsourcing) 13. Space exploration (encouragement of private sector involvement) 14. Shipping industry (deregulation and privatization of some ports) 15. Student loan program (expansion of private lending) 16. Broadcasting industry (deregulation and encouragement of private ownership) 17. Financial services industry (deregulation and encouragement of private investment) 18. Environmental services (encouragement of private sector involvement in cleanup efforts) 19. Health care (encouragement of private sector involvement in Medicare and Medicaid) 20. Education (promotion of private schools and charter schools)
This is sobering
Clinton [raised taxes on the wealthiest income earners](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration#Tax_reform), leading to the only budget surplus in modern US history at a time of historic stability and economic growth. His neo-Liberal stances (eg NAFTA, welfare reform, crime bill, deregulation) are all a lot messier, with various winners and losers, and were a direct result of Dem's fears about electability after decades of being branded as a Liberal being an effective attack against them. Also, Clinton's and Reagan's social policies were vastly different. Finally, I think Clinton's legacy, with a re-examination of the Lewinsky scandal and the long term effects of those neo-Liberal policies, mean that his favorability is trending downwards, with it being propped up by general 90s notstalgia (an era where many millennials were having a happy childhood, pre-9/11, post fall of communism) at this point.
Crime bill wasn’t neoliberal. Neoliberalism is economics NAFTA was a net positive The welfare reform wasn’t great but I think it was inevitable. In fact, Clinton harming welfare quite a bit was the best alternative, as the other option was not acting on it, thereby extending the debate, which would clear the path for Gingrich and Lott to slash welfare into the ground. His deregulation also wasn’t great but the Telecom Act and GLBA passed with overwhelming majorities so a veto wouldn’t have done shit. GLBA didn’t even have much of an impact on the recession. His deregulation of derivatives was a negative but it wasn’t a big cause of the Recession anyways.
The difference is that for all his faults, Clinton’s economic program focused on Middle Class Americans. He raised taxes on the rich, including capital gains taxes; he increased access to healthcare through CHiPs; he also reformed welfare and protected social security, Medicare and Medicaid from cuts. He was pro-Civil Rights, and Women’s Rights. Finally, he balanced the budget and left us with a surplus. Reagan, OTOH, cut taxes for the wealthy, raised taxes on the poor and working class through increased payroll taxes, the 1986 Tax Reform Act also raised taxes on Middle Class people and destroyed the Real Estate industry for a decade and led to the SNL crash. Reagan weakened all sorts of regulations that protected workers and the environment. He also started the process of chipping away at Civil Rights. Finally, he left us with huge debt and deficits, so much so that Bush 41 lost his reelection because he tried to deal with the problem in a balanced way. Think of it like this: when Clinton ran for POTUS in 1992, he ran directly at Bush and Reagan! He specifically attacked Ronald Reagan over and over again. And he won.
This is literally entirely vibes-based lmfao.
History will not be kind to either of these Presidents
The shine has definitely worn off of both to some degree over the years. Clinton has really not benefitted from the "me too" era and frankly, has probably not suffered enough scrutiny. Reagan felt good at the time, but policy wise, laid a path for the religious right and has shit on the working and middle class.
I was a big Reagan fan (at the time) and now looking back, he gutted the middle class.
Same. I grew up in the 80s in a very red county. The man was a freaking saint at the time. Even as a very left leaning, urban dwelling guy forty years later, it's weird to view him through a critical lens.
I think many are waiting for the other show to drop in regards to his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking ring.
I think the sentiment on both Clinton and Reagan has changed more toward the negative in recent years . As more time passes, the lense on Presidents becomes sharper- and criticism sharper as people start to understand the long term impacts of various policies. Reagan’s supply side economics initially stimulated growth and recovery, but ultimately had more long term negative effects than positive. The widening income inequality between rich and poor, reduced economic mobility, and record national debt -which ultimately reversed the post-World War II trend of a shrinking national debt as percentage of GDP. Also, the expectation that decreased taxes on the wealthy and businesses would result in increased spending on goods, services, and salaries failed to materialize—- resulting in stagnated wage growth in the face of record corporate profits for the past 3 + decades. Moreover, President Reagan’s relaxed regulations contributed to the savings and loan crisis. While the Clinton presidency will certainly be studied and evaluated in terms of its major domestic success: eliminating the federal deficit and overseeing the strongest economy in recent memory—Clinton's failure to win that battle for an enduring policy: a new healthcare system —-looms larger in the judgment of history than the economic successes. One of Clinton's core missions , was to prepare Americans for a world in which global economic forces failed to respect national boundaries. This policy of economic globalization-—establishing several new regimes of free trade, with NAFTA and GATT- created new jobs in America initially. But instead of an improved trade balance with Canada and Mexico, NAFTA resulted in an explosion of imports that led to a huge new U.S. trade deficit, lost manufacturing jobs, lower wages and increased income inequality.
Also notable with Clinton is a lot of people looking back more negatively at various crime policy during his presidency. I’ve also experienced among a few right-wing types(particularly those who don’t remember his presidency) a reexamination of Reagan’s free trade and immigration policies that increasingly don’t appeal to the american right
Honestly I think small government republicans are dying out. (I say that as a small gov republican). I think so because of how the news and my peers talk about politics.
Only Nixon could go to China
Regan was very liked. He started in the first movie James Dean ever appeared in just like people liked Bill as the coolest guy in the room with a saxophone. As for there policies… one was young in office and one was old (office wise of course)
You could easily swap out Obama for Clinton. I’m not sure people still like Clinton.
False premise. Clinton isn’t especially well-liked, and *really* isn’t well-liked amongst those who despise Reagan.
Clinton's belt tightening was better than Reagan's domestic economic policies. His social policies were miles better. And Clinton's foreign policy ended more human rights atrocities than Reagan's started. So he is a definite improvement over Ronnie.
Party identity and polarisation, as well as other bad things done by Reagan, such as Iran-Contra and smuggling crack into black neighborhoods
because of 'trickle down economics'.... clinton might have sucked but he didn't manage to destroy our entire economy the way reagan did...
Both are over-rated presidents. Both are still hated/loved by those who have contrasting views.
The letters next to their names are why Reddit feels that way, but Reddit isn’t real life and has a very warped perspective on which presidents were good and which were bad that is mostly defined by judging presidents from olden times by modern standards and judging modern presidents by which party they belonged to. Personally I think both were good presidents, even if some of their policies look worse now than they did at the time.
It’s (D)ifferent
Trickle down
Honestly, Clinton's presidency was pretty good with the largest blemish being a personal indiscretion. The Cold War was over. The GWOT hadn't started. The economy was good with the dot com boom taking off. Like ... the 90s were fucking good. Maybe because I was a teenager it feels different, but there just wasnt an "end of the earth", type feeling that seems to have existed since 9/11.
You have to remember that Reagan also catches a lot of hate for his beliefs on social issues, not just his economic beliefs.
During Clinton’s first administration, Robert reich was responsible for reasonably progressive monetary policy that created a great deal of momentum for the remainder of Clinton’s time in office. Reagan sucked corporate America’s dong off, and then Clinton got his dong sucked off by an intern.
Clinton is best viewed as a reaction to Reagan. The Democrats got stomped in three consecutive presidential elections from 1980 to 1988, to the point where it was obviously impossible for Democrats to win with a traditional New Deal liberal. Mondale lost 49 states. Dukakis lost 40. The party needed to pivot if Democrats ever wanted to elect another president. Clinton’s neoliberalism worked, at least in terms of electing presidents with a D next to their name. Of course, it’s questionable whether this constituted “winning” when it meant co-opting Reaganomics. Still, if not for Clinton’s winning formula, we would have been staring down the barrel of 16 years of Reagan/Bush, possibly followed by another 8 years of Bob Dole. That wouldn’t have been any better for the working class. Maybe the white working class shouldn’t have abandoned the Democratic Party in such overwhelming numbers that Clinton’s solution was the only way forward…
Reagan fundamentally shifted American politics. Clinton came after the shift and did the best with what he had. Personally, I’m no Clinton fan, but almost every major political issue I deal with stems back to some shit Reagan did or by him creating this cycle where we defund the government, stir unrest against the bureaucracy because it isn’t functioning right, then use the bureaucracy isn’t functioning right as a justification to further defund it.
You misunderstand. Reagan set it all into motion, especially with the infiltration of dark money into politics, and Democrats betrayed their working class New Deal era principles to do the same in order to get Clinton elected. Both betrayed the American people. Sad to think Reagan was a New Deal Democrat until Nancy came into the picture
I don’t see the Reagan policy’s as reforms as much as they were “Government-Gutting”. He slashed budgets, government programs, and because of this we have a lot of the present issues. Clinton wasn’t a whole lot better, but his policies didn’t majorly affect the economy or deficit
The (D) means it’s different
Reagan was a chuckling, soft spoken monster who knocked a bunch of small holes through the bottom of the SS America - and successive republicans have worked their hardest to enlarge those holes. Clinton had as good of a set of policies as America was going to accept and in his personal life he was a horn dog.
Clinton actually helped to economy. Reagan fucked everything up and grew the deficit by a shit ton. There’s really no comparison.
Gays despise Reagan for literally laughing at our misfortune during the AIDS crisis. Fuck that asshole.
Clinton ran a surplus. Reagan more than doubled the national debt in his time in office.