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.

So many things.

Refusing to say AIDS for years , let alone doing anything

Iran -contra

Making a deal with Iran to continue holding the hostages until after he becomes president

Breaking PATCO the air traffic controller union

So

Many

Things

He and Thatcher were instrumental in bringing neoliberalism into mainstream politics. Neoliberalism differs from classical liberalism in that its about freeing capital and not people. This directly led to all the problems we face today with a government that used to be by and for the people but now the only people the government serves are the corporations we gave out rights to.

His policies on economy are responsible for billionaire class existing in the US. There is a good read on America only had a handful of billionaires 40 years ago. We’re now creating ‘centibillionaires’–and unless we tax them, trillionaires.

his election came out of treasonous interference overseas, his policy was to bailout people who made too many bets oil prices would never rise, his tax policy was to shift the burdens to the middle class and away from the rich, the current real estate laws that favor investors were created then, he illegally funded south american genocides, he oversaw a domestic crackdown on unions that is ongoing, his administration was run by the ghouls who later invaded iraq under false pretenses, and the guy was was also a huge piece of shit.

I'm sure I left out a lot.

Sorry to be that guy, but I’m trying to promote a community here.

The title should ask, “Why were Ronald Reagan and Nancy…”

This is because the subject, Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan, is more than 1 person.

If anyone wants to learn English I’m moderating lemmy.ml/c/englishlearning

I’m happy to answer any questions.

It might be easier and quicker to digest in podcast form from people who did the research: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-ronald-and-nancy-reagan-29967299/

In short: deregulation, wealth transfer to the rich, harming rights of labor, and genocide.

Everytime we let a celebrity be president they make things worse.

Trickle down economics

He signed in the Omnibus Reconciliation Act on the heels of killing Carter’s Mental Health Systems Act.

Basically killed a chunk of fed assistance for heath care, punted it to the states with a nebulous “we’ll figure it out” which they promptly didn’t. So state mental housing disappeared and now you have mentally ill homeless everywhere.

And on top of everything else, throwing money at rich people, tax cuts for rich people, trickle down, throwing money at the military, and we haven’t even gotten to Gingrich’s bullshit “contract with America” that helped the Regan years push us towards the evangelical and fringe right we have to deal with today.

This question could easily be a college thesis, if not an entire course. I think anyone asking this question and learning more about Reagan is on the right track to better understanding... I really want to say 'everything'. Politics, human nature, consumerism, economics, negotiation, propaganda, cover ups, racism, homophobia, the fallacy of Democracy, and so so much more.

If you're any more interested in the subject than reading through a handful of comments on the internet, I recommend the book "The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America".

He tried to "starve the beast". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

The beast being the government itself. The idea is that the government is somehow overspending in comparison to the tasks carried out and it needs to be fixed by cutting funding.

The result is obviously that the government will function even worse, so it's a self fulfilling prophecy.

In addition to all of the above they would literally consult their "psychic/astrologer" on policy decisions.

He pushed the whole "the government is the enemy" mentality which has made it almost impossible to have national healthcare among other things. The republicans also jumped into bed with Christian fundamentalists at this point and the NRA went from being for gun regulations to no regulations. It was a continuation of the backlash against the 60s that started with Nixon.

I think Iran (let's leave the contra side out) was pretty bad. The US had been helping Sadam Hussein fight Iran by selling them weapons for years, only to discover they also started selling them to Iran too. Talk about hateful... Supplying weapons to both sides so they can go kill each other.

It's why Sadam was so distrustful of the US, especially when Shrub (Bush Jr) came knocking a couple decades later.

Reagan, like Trump and Bush43, was the face guy connecting to people while behind the scenes the wrecking crew drafted their EOs and delivered on their patronage's shadow agenda.

A lot of what Reagan's admin did was foundational- as head of the executive (which includes regulatory agencies) he had the power to quietly dismantle regulatory agencies, and in so doing hamstring America's capacity to regulate its own affairs at the request of lobbyists that didn't want their industries regulated. His legislative affairs team gutted budgets and raided social security while he charmed audiences and the media.

Sabotaged Iran hostages being released during Carter’s administration. And the stuff others said. Check Hell of Presidents on the Chapo Traphouse patreon feed. I found it super interesting (I’m a history nerd).

I guess it also warrants asking, what good, if any, did Reagan do for America?

If you have Paramount+, don't mind doing a free trial, or like to sail the seven seas, you can watch The Reagans documentary series. Another documentary that gives you some insight into the type of people they were is the Rock Hudson one. The TL;DR on that one is that they had been good friends for decades, especially Nancy, and the moment it came out that he had AIDS, they pretended he had never existed.

Ronald was basically an idiot but Nancy was a truly foul human being.

He was so popular he convinced democrats that they needed to move to the right if they wanted to win an election ever again.

I think Reagan can be summed up as the start of "burn it all down". He defined the government as the problem and the solution was to demolish it.

Not many believe in faith and true nationalism but if you hold true to the world of god I think you will see Ronald Reagan really just was the devil.

Reagan cut taxes while increasing spending, despite talking like his goal was to reduce government excess. As a result, the national debt increase for the first time since WWII and has not stopped in that trend since then.

War on drugs.

War on AIDS.

War on middle class.

War on unbiased news.