253
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2024
253 points (92.0% liked)
Ask Lemmy
27089 readers
230 users here now
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
There are quite a number of good articles on the subject if you want a thorough answer, but some of the main things are:
He's responsible for a massive deregulation of financial institutions that were a precursor to the Wall Street issues that led to the giant government bailout.
He pushed "trickle down economics," which is the theory that if you cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy, they'll succeed more and create more jobs so that everyone wins. This is something conservatives always push and it's always a horrible failure that results in a bigger and bigger income gap.
He funded his big tax cuts (mostly for the wealthy) by slashing federal assistance programs, including low income housing subsidies and mental health support, resulting in an unprecedented surge in homelessness that we're still wrestling with today.
Nancy Reagan was the "Just say no to drugs" lady - the figurehead of the largely failed war on drugs which was like trying to prevent teen pregnancy with an abstinence only education program.
There's a lot more, but those are some of the big ticket items.
Reagan was massively anti-labor and oversaw the air traffic controller strike and fired employees who were striking for better wages and conditions. It was a harbinger of things to come for labor unions, many of which were then so gutted by outsourcing and neoliberal Clinton passing NAFTA, the single most anti-union, anti-middle class piece of law ever. Reagan set the table against labor, Clinton and the Dems delivered the death blow. Organized labor now only accounts for less than 10% of jobs in the US, and only with Coronavirus-driven alignment and efforts is labor finally starting to regain its legs. 40 years Reagan helped kill the American middle class.
I almost added a bullet about killing unions, but it was hard to know where to stop. He also wasn't great for the environment, but I think it's generally accepted that he wasn't the environmental train wreck that people thought he'd be.