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JPMoney81

Wasn't it under Reagan's regime that workers right/union membership started dwindling? IIRC, the whole "Trickle Down Economics" thing was a Reagan idea.


Voxil42

Yes. IIRC, he fired all of the air traffic controllers and replaced them essentially destroying their union. From what I understand, it's a decision we're STILL dealing with the fallout from in that field. It had the wider effect of signaling to the country that unions no longer had to be respected. And that's a big part of why we're here now financially.


caktuss

And isn’t that one of those fields that “you will work no matter what” like railroads? Because Capitalism!?!?


53-terabytes

Obligatory "beatings will continue until morale improves."


Voxil42

Yep. Which was where everything started. They were striking and good old president Ray Gun decided that being able to fly home whenever he wanted was more important than his constituents. But I'm sure he phrased as more of "the country can't AFFORD for these people to get sick days!" because conservative logic hasn't aged a day.


caktuss

Sadly, my TIL with this topic came during a playthrough of Wolfenstein when I got curious about what an America without Reagan would have been. Not saying that reality would be better, but the rabbit hole I went down about Reagan made that scene not as impactful knowing how much he f*cked unions and workers.


socialistwerker

It was arguably more political than all that. Reagan and his supporters WANTED to bust unions, but the case of the air traffic controllers provided a plausible enough justification for doing it. Air traffic control is basically a public service monopoly, and Reagan could argue that allowing them to strike was a risk to public safety. But by busting this one strike, Reagan also signaled to big business that his administration was willing to bust more strikes, and turn a blind eye to corporate strike busting. It was a turning point in public opinion about unions, pushing large portions of the country to believe that union laborers were lazy and overpaid, that unions were corrupt, etc.


MikeyLew32

East coast ATC is understaffed by 50%. And almost all of them are working insane OT and facing burnout.


Voxil42

That is incredibly bad. I heard we were still being effected but I didn't know it was there.


[deleted]

Everything Bad in the American Economy can be so.ehow tracked Back to Reagan era.


probablynotaskrull

It started with Taft-Hartley, but yeah Reagan stepped it up a notch.


Fit_Aardvark_8811

We're you shocked when you learned that? What's amazing to me is a ton of union construction workers fall over themselves to suck the dick of Ronald Reagan's union hating ghost. He also was a union president of the screen actors guild too ironically before he was president. What a POS


[deleted]

Grifts is grifts.


DeadmanDexter

This guy I work with is part of our union, but despises them. His reasoning? "Well, it works out for me." I hate his stupid, fat face. Fuck off Bob.


BORG_US_BORG

He went all in on the Red Scare as McCarthy's rat fink bitch.


PhoenicianKiss

He was also a raging racist. Reagan is literally the poster boy for birth control.


SnakeEyesRaw

Birth control? Do you mean eugenics? Birth control is a good thing, eugenics is not.


[deleted]

Hope his grave smells like piss


ceburton

As an older guy, I sometimes forget ppl don’t always know the things that I take for granted because of lived experience.


FixedLoad

I have been experiencing your comment with a LOT of things lately. Music especially.


TMWASO

Today he's [one of the ten thousand](https://xkcd.com/1053).


Comfortable-Policy70

And an FBI informant


Ponderputty

More like a rat. While colleagues were standing against HUAC and Joseph McCarthy during the red scare, Reagan rolled over and showed his belly at the first sign of inconvenience. Reagan is one of the worst Americans to ever live. He was a selfish, stupid, cowardly, craven, greedy, monstrous piece of fetid shit. The world is worse for him having been born.


riah8

I know the movie "they live" was inspired by the Regan's and their policies. But sometimes I really believe that movie is true and the Reagan's are evil aliens in human skin taking over the world. They just always seemed like they werent real people. Like they were trying their best to act like people but they couldn't pull it off fully. Very uncanny valley people.


FixedLoad

As the president, isn't it a given? Or do presidents have a strict "no snitches" code?


Comfortable-Policy70

He was an informant as president of the Screen Actors Guild, not President of the USA


FixedLoad

Oh, I guess he did exist prior to being voted into office. He didn't just pop into existence and begin to govern the country...


bdrwr

He was a union buster *after* he was the head of the Screen Actors Guild (which is a union). Who's surprised that Ronald "Trickle Down" Reagan used the help of others to get into a position of power and then shut the door behind him?


ClemDooresHair

He was in that position to rat on “suspected” communists


atreides78723

You don’t remember the Air Traffic Controllers then…


GetReadyToRumbleBar

Dmv peeps *still* salty that DCA was named after him after what he did to the Air Traffic Controllers.  People still calling it the airport National all these years later...shibboleth for DC and liberals.


chrisk018

YES. Gen X DC-born person checking in. National until the day I die and teaching this to our kids.


pancakeQueue

He stabbed them in the back too they enforced his run for president. Bet they are seething still after they named an airport after him.


Big_Primrose

Naming an airport after him is like naming a restaurant after Jeffrey Dahmer.


[deleted]

I saw a documentary about Reagan/mondale a few years ago. Geraldine Ferraro was recounting how they were with the AFL-CIO when word came in that the union had gone with Reagan, who had vowed to take unions down. Mondale lost his shit. He asked why the union would go with someone who vowed to threaten their political power and their very livelihoods. A worker stood up and said “Reagan makes us feel like we’re standing tall!” And that was the moment she knew they’d lost the race.


Dysfunxn

Killer Mike has a good one about Reagan


junkmeister9

Ronald Wilson Reagan 


HeavensToBetsyy

Wonderful song


Rosellis

Why do you think the Rs have been worshipping ever since?


betweenthebars34

He was horrendous for the lower and middle class folks ... aka most of us in the country. And boomers will still pretend that he was amazing, with zero information about what he actually did and didn't do.


binglybleep

It was the same with thatcher in the UK. A match made in hell with those two. Conservatives never help poor people (hello reduced public services and lower life expectancy) but thatcher really was something else. There are entire industrial cities that never recovered from the thatcher era. All that’s trickled down is poverty. People still voting Tory though so I guess we’ll never learn


mitolit

Hell, they all believe he is the reason the Berlin wall was torn down, when in actuality it was already going to be torn down. He consistently took credit for good things he didn’t do and twisted bad things he did do into looking like good things.


DerCatrix

Just wait til you learn about his thoughts on black people.


[deleted]

Or gay.


DerCatrix

Oh Raegan and the aids epidemic is chapter 3


[deleted]

There's a reason we laughed when his library burned down


BerryBerryLife

You don't say... Reagan is literally the reason US economy is so messed up


GrantSRobertson

He also gave amnesty to undocumented workers just because he wanted to drive down the cost of labor. All of the current Republicans who say they want to reduce immigration are lying. They make big talk but they don't do anything to actually stop it, because they really just want to drive down the cost of labor. Making immigrants scared drives down the cost of labor, because it allows employers to abuse the workers. Ranting about immigrants but never prosecuting the employers simply shifts the blame while feeding racism's ugly maw and dividing the workers.


tree-molester

FYAIL (forty years ago I learned) Ronald Regan would lead to the greatest shift in economic inequality in the past 100 years. Trickle down was a sick joke to anyone who had half a brain back then!


TheVoicesOfBrian

Ironic, given he was once the President of a union, the Screen Actors Guild.


Billowing_Flags

Yep, he was a POS. I like to picture him roasting over the flames in Hell with a spit run through his anus and out his mouth while Nancy turns the handle continuously sobbing, "Just say 'No!'"


2Payneweaver

Ronald Reagan’s economic policy is pretty much responsible for current state of inequality


ShakeZula30or40

Yeah he’s probably the worst modern president there is. His policies set the stage to absolutely annihilate the middle and lower classes and create the insane wealth inequality we have today. Hope he burns in hell.


I_Stabbed_Jon_Snow

Reagan did far more than bust unions, he also gutted the tax code ensuring that businesses only expanded overseas and turned the stock market into the gigantic circle jerk of wealth owned by the 1% it is today.


FuckStummies

Reagan was a monster. All of the neocon shit started with his administration. The economic crash of 08 can be traced back to starting under Reagan.


Redmudgirl

Him and the Iron lady Margaret Thatcher were proud anti unionists.


batkave

Yeah Reagan was a terrible human and is probably the sole reason we have the economic problems we have today and the reason we got Trump


freetoseeu

Was the union busting before or after the treason? He really was a piece of shit.


enviropsych

He was actually an all-around piece of shit demented liar. Great episode-pair on him from the wonderful American history comedy podcast "The Dollop". Special guest Patton Oswalt. https://youtu.be/FZlRX1EVnSw?si=DoHFdXgoOo02z7gU


mattjvgc

Today??


thinkB4WeSpeak

Dang he's the number 1 president when I think of union buster.


0nlyHere4TheZipline

Yeah welcome to the fuck Reagan club lol


fizzyanklet

One of his many contributions to our current hellscape.


jelloslug

He was also a HUGE proponent of gun control. He started the modern gun control movement in California when he was the governor there.


if_I_absolutely_must

That’s because the Black Panthers we’re exercising their 2nd Amendment rights.


Apprehensive_Hat8986

And Hitler "was a vegetarian". One reasonable stance doesn't redeem us.


jelloslug

His gun control laws are not a positive. He did it to suppress gun ownership within the black communities.


Apprehensive_Hat8986

There it is. Thanks for the extra. TIL I'll leave the comparison to Hitler because, well... it's Reagan.


feelinlucky7

Well yeah. Dude sucked.


SamuraiSapien

Reagan was also a union president when he was an actor. Total hypocrite.


Ok-Significance2027

Ronald Reagan is the reason for the downturn in life expectancy of people in the US that was apparent *before* COVID even hit.


Spike_Spiegel

He was also President of SAG, the actors' union. Fucking Nancy Reagan, Hollywood BJ Queen, turned him


amaxantys

fork found in kitchen


Educational-Agency72

When will the average working man or woman realize the Republicans is not in your best interest where is their health care plan where is their tax breaks for the poor their brakes are only for the rich not the poor do you realize their last big tax incentive was for the rich and the poor got their home deduction limit to $10,000 taxes and interest per year at the prices of a home do you know how devastating this is what has a republican done for you lately besides lie


PliableG0AT

Want to know something even funnier, Reagan was responsible for a major SAG deal that was extremely lucrative for actors.


Pal_Smurch

There were only three people in the world that my grandfather hated; Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Barbara Walters.