History
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan was the 40th President of the United States, serving from 1981 to 1989. He is known for his conservative economic policies, including tax cuts and deregulation, as well as his tough stance against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Reagan's presidency is often associated with a resurgence of American patriotism and a shift towards conservative values in U.S. politics.
Written by Perlego with AI-assistance
Related key terms
10 Key excerpts on "Ronald Reagan"
eBook - ePub- Michael Patrick Cullinane, Clare Frances Elliott(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
10 The Reagan Presidency in Retrospect An Assessment of Reagan's LegacySally-Ann TreharneRonald W. Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, has been the subject of considerable debate and at times of outright rancor from his time in office to the present day. He is remembered by many names, such as the Great Communicator and the Teflon President. Critics have suggested that his disengaged leadership style was the principal reason behind many of the United States’ economic and political woes from 1981 to 1989. His domestic and foreign policy objectives were at times considered contentious and/ or ill advised. He is often castigated as an ineffective former actor who relied heavily on aides and advisers. Reagan’s supporters, on the other hand, extol the virtues of an extraordinary and visionary leader, a peacemaker who led the United States through a tumultuous political period with optimism and a sense of purpose that encouraged a resurgence of American pride and nationalism. He has left a distinct yet controversial imprint on both American and international politics. Thus, Reagan is often considered one of the most polarizing presidents in U.S. history. He is, without question, an iconic figure in terms of his presidential legacy.Reagan’s strong anticommunist rhetoric greatly influenced U.S. domestic and foreign policy throughout his two terms in office. His administration was often criticized for its unilateral tendencies in the developing world, particularly in Latin America, but also in the international community, as demonstrated in the U.S. bombing of Libya in April 1986. Notwithstanding such criticisms, Reagan has retained the image of a charismatic and influential world leader among his erstwhile peers. His supporters claim that he was responsible for ending the nuclear arms race and the subsequent collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. In light of such diverging perceptions of Reagan as an effective president, this chapter will consider many of the overarching factors that shaped his legacy on both the domestic and the international fronts. It will assess the president’s much commented-on personal characteristics to help determine the significance of his personal popularity when considering his place in the ranking of U.S. presidents. The chapter will also evaluate the varied domestic policies that Reagan advocated throughout his presidency. In addition, it will examine Reagan’s controversial foreign policy objectives in the context of East/West relations and will place particular emphasis on the so-called Reagan Doctrine and its implementation in the Latin American region. This chapter will briefly assess Reagan’s legacy in terms of Anglo-American relations, particularly with regard to the special relationship with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. By drawing on various polls that ranked Reagan both during and after his presidency, this chapter will illustrate a strong international perspective, and in line with the objectives and scope of this book, it will draw upon the recent findings of the 2011 United States Presidency Centre (USPC) survey—as outlined by Professor Iwan Morgan in the introduction—in order to elucidate a strong British perspective on the Reagan presidency and its polemical leader.
eBook - ePub- Hugh Heclo, James W. Ceaser, George H. Nash, Stephen F. Knott, Paul G. Kengor, Andrew E. Busch, Stephen F. Hayward, Michael Barone, Charles W. Dunn(Authors)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- The University Press of Kentucky(Publisher)
Here and there, reputable scholars—hardly any of them on the political right—began to publish books and articles containing more than a modicum of praise. 33 One sign of this new glasnost appeared in a 1999 essay in the Washington Post by the liberal political scientist and biographer of Franklin Roosevelt, James MacGregor Burns. “When historians tally up the [twentieth] century’s ‘great’ or ‘near-great’ presidents,” he declared flatly, “Roosevelt and Reagan will be among them.” 34 It was a remarkable accolade, particularly considering its source. Why this rapid shifting of the tide? Every president’s place in history depends to some degree on the record of his immediate successors, and here Reagan was singularly fortunate. After the brief economic recession of 1991–1992, the economic revival that had commenced on his watch resumed: the long prosperity (it has been called), arguably rooted in the policies Reagan implemented in the early 1980s. One of the principal criticisms of Reagan had been that “Reaganomics” had led to huge and dangerous federal budget deficits. When the economy nevertheless grew stronger and the deficits disappeared in the 1990s, this part of Reagan’s legacy came to seem far less consequential than once feared, and his free-market, low-tax philosophy seemed vindicated. The Republican capture of Congress in 1994 (including the House of Representatives for the first time in fifty-two years) ratified the Reagan revolution even further. Soon Bill Clinton himself was claiming that “the era of big government is over.” Like the Labour Party leader Tony Blair after the “Thatcher revolution” in Great Britain during the 1980s, Clinton appeared to recognize that Reagan had pulled the political center of gravity to the right. That is one way to measure a presidential legacy. Reagan’s genuine likeability and his courageous response to Alzheimer’s disease no doubt helped to dissipate some of the lingering hostility evinced by his ideological foes
eBook - ePubPolitics and Society in Modern America
How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980's
- Gil Troy(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Princeton University Press(Publisher)
Reagan’s rhetoric made this prosperity patriotic—and transcendent. To the millions who happily began to view the world from his perspective, Reagan’s “vision thing” was more than a perception game or an exercise in image-making. A surprisingly nimble politician, Ronald Reagan understood the alchemy of leadership, especially in the modern world. More than anything else, and transcending all the president’s half-steps and hypocrisies, missteps and muddles, Reagan’s all-American outlook defined his times. Reaganism was liberty-laden but moralistic, consumer-oriented but idealistic, nationalist but individualistic, and consistently optimistic. Cataloguing Reagan’s attributes is not enough; they must be seen in action and understood in context. Reagan’s vision, this gift, demands that the two stories be told together, chronicling Ronald Reagan and America in the 1980s, the decade he dominated and helped define.In Search of Reagan: The Greatest President Since FDR?Nearly a quarter of a century after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration, Americans still have trouble discussing Reagan intelligently, objectively, reasonably. He seems easier to lionize, or demonize, than analyze. Reagan’s near-canonization in June 2004 celebrated a Churchillian leader, an extraordinary character who saved America, shrinking government, restoring pride, triggering prosperity, and winning the cold war. Nevertheless, most academics and liberals charge that “Mr. Magoo,” this “amiable dunce,” ruined America, unleashing the evil genie of mass selfishness, while shredding the social safety nets Democratic presidents from Franklin Roosevelt through Lyndon Johnson had so carefully woven. Even as hundreds of millions worldwide heard Baroness Margaret Thatcher toast a “great president, a great American, and a great man, who, as former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney said, enters history “with certainty and panache,” even while hundreds of thousands clogged the freeways of Los Angeles and the streets of Washington to salute the flag-draped coffin, others condemned Ronald Reagan’s insensitivity to blacks, gays, women, and the poor. Contradicting its obituary, the New York Times
eBook - ePubRonald Reagan
The American Presidency
- David Mervin(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
There were, of course, various foreign policy disasters, including incidents such as the ignominious and costly withdrawal from Lebanon, defeats by congress over South Africa and the Philippines and, surpassing all else, the Iran–Contra débâcle. By any standard the latter was a massive set back for the president personally and for American foreign policy. Reagan appeared to be grossly incompetent with little respect for the law, while the United States was made to look foolish and unreliable in the eyes of the outside world. Furthermore, the Reagan administration failed miserably to accomplish one of its principal foreign policy purposes, the unseating of the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. As Reagan left office his policy in Central America had lost credibility and United States influence in the region was at its lowest ebb for many years. Overall, however, it seems likely that the historians will eventually give Reagan’s foreign policy fairly high marks.REVITALIZING THE PRESIDENCY
By making a reality of his intentions, in successfully imposing his preferences, his choices, Reagan revitalized the presidency and restored confidence in the political system. In the previous decade many commentators had pondered the inadequacy of American political institutions and had queried whether the United States might be becoming ungovernable. The polls showed that public confidence in political leaders was at a low ebb; congress appeared to be more chaotic than ever; political parties had been chronically weakened and special interests loomed large. The presidency appeared to have lost its institutional integrity. Nixon had brought disgrace on the office and his successor proved to be pathetically ineffectual. Carter had gone to the White House with high hopes, but was eventually reduced to agonizing in public over his inability to surmount the obstacles to presidential leadership.The situation was dramatically transformed during Reagan’s first term. He and his staff demonstrated that all the pessimism of the late 1970s notwithstanding, the political system was workable. Congress could be brought to order and the disadvantages of weak parties overcome given the right type of leadership by the White House. Not surprisingly, public opinion polls later showed that confidence in the Reagan presidency was badly damaged by the Iran–Contra scandal, but it seems that this decline by no means completely offset the important gains made in the earlier years. Irrespective of later disasters, Reagan and his team demonstrated that the system could be made to work and that the presidency is even yet a viable institution. Very few incumbents pass on the presidency in strengthened and revitalized form to their successors, but Reagan, despite some setbacks, was able to join this select group.
eBook - ePub- Aaron Wildavsky(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
Denigration of the president has led Democrats to underestimate his policy guidance. For Ronald Reagan has integrated public policy with political support so as to provide creative policy leadership.Reagan is the first president since Herbert Hoover (although, considering his activist temperament, Calvin Coolidge might be better) to favor limited government at home. Pursuing his aim of restricting the reach and reducing the resources available to the federal government, Reagan helped cut income taxes across the board dramatically, reducing the highest bracket from 70 to under 35 percent. His acceptance of historically high deficits, in an effort to use resource scarcity to depress domestic spending still further, is eloquent testimony to his single-minded devotion to decreasing the size of the domestic government compared to the size of the economy.Rumor has it that the president is so dumb that he cannot understand complex tax questions. Presumably that is why we hear little or nothing about raising taxes but a great deal about cutting spending. Shaping the congressional agenda so that the major debate is whether defense or domestic programs should be cut the most, even though this is not entirely to the president's liking, represents a substantial strategic success.Ronald Reagan has succeeded in coordinating domestic policy. Every official in Washington is aware of what the president wants: less. When there are conflicts, the goal of reducing the size of government wins out.Even when the president's ostensible aim is not achieved, his adherence to priorities provides a sense of direction. Reagan's initiative on restructuring the federal system, for instance, failed for a number of reasons, including his unwillingness to come up with the cash to cover the transition. Nevertheless, the budget cuts have had a similar effect. For, as Richard Nathan's studies of the responses show, a number of state governments have elected to fill in the spending gap.3
eBook - ePubThe Presidential Character
Predicting Performance in the White House, With a Revised and Updated Foreword by George C. Edwards III
- James Barber(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
But Reagan won the 1984 election—in a landslide. By the end of his eight-year Presidency, the nation's troubles were even worse. The poor were in deeper trouble, while the rich escalated their profits. AIDS, drugs, homicide, and financial fraud sprawled ever wider across the nation. And the nation was in enormous debt, a burden which could strangle the future economy. The U.S. was the world's leading creditor when Reagan took over—and then became the world's leading debtor. Politics in America degenerated into playtime theatrics, put on in such a way that the people lost touch with the realities they were supposed to know. The quality of public education, essential to democracy, drifted way down, rated below a dozen other nations, including "primitive" ones. Potential democracies, uprising in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, were not working, were on the edge of collapse without effective aid from the United States. Reagan's military adventures—bombing, attacking, supporting secret fights, financing butchering governments, permitting massive sales of high-tech weapons—set the stage for new wars to be triggered by Presidents. After years of hidden operations, Reagan administration scandals finally came forth.The most striking scandal was the "Iran-contra" fiasco. President Reagan had come forth loud and clear prohibiting the selling of weapons to terrorist governments in order to get them to release American hostages. But in fact his administration actually did just that—and secretly shifted the profits earned from selling arms to terrorists into the support of revolutionary forces in Nicaragua, without any Congressional approval. That revelation, expanded by lengthy Congressional hearings, gave the public a shock: the government was doing what it said it must not do, and was operating in contempt of the citizenry and their elected representatives. Reagan's popular rating dropped from 67 percent to 46 percent in one month.7 Mrs. Reagan saw the Iran-contra crisis as "the most difficult period he ever went through."8 President Reagan kept calling the military official who bragged about lying to Congress a "hero" and the admiral who bragged that he had kept the news from the President as "an honorable man."9But not until then—far late in the game—did it come across to the public that Reagan was a passive-positive President. Subsequently, nearly all Reagan's major inside staffers wrote books which confirmed the prediction of the Reagan character which I presented in the Washington Post
eBook - ePubPresidential Leadership in Political Time
Reprise and Reappraisal
- Stephen Skowronek(Author)
- 2024(Publication Date)
- University Press of Kansas(Publisher)
Ironically, Reagan’s reconstructive achievement seems to have been limited by some of the same features of contemporary American government that had bolstered Carter’s more independent stance. In a governmental system in which both Congress and the presidency have come under the control of relatively autonomous political entrepreneurs, it is more difficult for a reconstructive leader to mobilize the requisite number of supporters behind a systemic political transformation. Insurgents quickly find themselves less dependent on one another than on the governmental services they can provide individually to their various constituencies. The greater autonomy of all political institutions and actors, the tighter integration of administrative services and supports into interest networks of social and economic power, and the consequent weakening of collective, cross-institutional resolve at the political center all constitute new encumbrances on presidentially led political reconstructions of American government. The result in Reagan’s case was a reconstruction that, by historical standards, played out as more rhetorical than institutional, its comparatively shallow foundations laid on an ideological aversion to red ink.george h. w. bush and the politics of articulation
The American presidency has been least effective as an instrument for political leadership when the president is, like Jimmy Carter, saddled by a set of politically vulnerable governing commitments and compelled to try to rehabilitate the faltering regime that supports them. The American presidency has been most effective as an instrument for political leadership when the incumbent is, like Ronald Reagan, opposed to a set of politically vulnerable governing commitments and free to hammer away at the interests, institutions, and ideas that gave them vitality. Between these extremes lie two other leadership postures that, although they exhibit a bit more historical variation, have nonetheless framed distinctive political contests.One is well represented by George H. W. Bush, a president who came to power affiliated with a set of governing commitments that he affirmed forthrightly as providing a clear and compelling guide to future action. “There’s a general thrust and President Reagan set that,” Bush said. “We’re not coming in to correct the ills of the past. We’re coming in to build on a proud record that has already been established.”21 Bush presented himself to the nation in 1988 as a faithful son of the Reagan Revolution, an orthodox innovator pledged to continue work on an agenda that was his rightful inheritance. When Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis spoke of the need for a change after eight years of Republican leadership, the Republican convention that nominated Bush responded with the refrain “We are
eBook - ePubRonald Reagan
Champion of Conservative America
- James H. Broussard(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
7 President Reagan, 1982–1984: Recession to Reelection
DOI: 10.4324/9780203081563-7A visitor to the White House once remarked on the “merry twinkle” in the president’s eyes and the “‘tone of familiarity’ that instantly set people at ease.”1 He was speaking of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860s, but the description fit Ronald Reagan just as snugly. Like Lincoln, Reagan told endless jokes, stories, and parables.In Hollywood, he began a lifetime’s work collecting funny stories until, as biographer Lou Cannon observed, in the White House years “anecdotes were Reagan’s fundamental form of communication.”2 Like any good performer, he used jokes to break the ice in political gatherings, in cabinet meetings, and even high-level international conferences.With individuals, his banter served to diminish the interpersonal distance between The President and his companion, whether a fellow politician, a White House visitor, or an ordinary citizen. It was his method of “descending from the throne” and was among the ways in which he was the most egalitarian president since Lincoln himself. Unlike such predecessors as Nixon or Johnson, he was secure enough with the “inner Reagan” to make his age, his habits, and even his lack of knowledge the butt of many of his own jokes.Entering his second year, Reagan would need all his optimism and self-confidence. If the midsummer political victories of 1981 had faded into disappointment by December, 1982 promised to be even worse. The economy shrank, unemployment rose, and deficits grew. Overseas, allies and adversaries worried that Reagan was a combative cowboy. Ending the Cold War seemed less attainable than ever, as the Soviets reacted angrily to Reagan’s military buildup and harsh rhetoric.Reagan’s approach to foreign policy was, like that of many in his generation, shaped by memories of the late 1930s when the failure of Britain and France to face down Hitler’s aggression led to the catastrophe of world war. The conclusion seemed clear: weakness in democratic nations encouraged aggression by tyrants; military strength could prevent war. For Reagan, on these two lessons hung “all the law and the prophets.”
eBook - ePubThe Reagan Revolution and the Rise of the New Right
A Reference Guide
- Kenneth J. Heineman(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- ABC-CLIO(Publisher)
For too long a time, they stood in a chill wind, as if on a winter night’s watch. And in that night, their deeds spoke to us, but we knew them not. And their voices called to us, but we heard them not. Yet in this land that God has blessed, the dawn always at last follows the dark, and now morning has come. The night is over. We see these men and know them once again—and know how much we owe them, how much they have given us, and how much we can never fully repay. And not just as individuals but as a nation, we say we love you.Source: “Ronald Reagan Remarks at the Veterans’ Day Ceremony at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, DC,” November 11, 1988. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.19. Ronald Reagan Farewell Address to the Nation, January 11, 1989In Ronald Reagan’s Farewell Address, he summarized the successes and the failures of his presidency, being sure to credit the American people with his successes. He also advised Americans to cherish their freedoms and learn the values that made the nation great.The way I see it, there were two great triumphs, two things that I’m proudest of. One is the economic recovery, in which the people of America created—and filled—19 million new jobs. The other is the recovery of our morale. America is respected again in the world and looked to for leadership. . . .Some pundits said our programs would result in catastrophe. Our views on foreign affairs would cause war. Our plans for the economy would cause inflation to soar and bring about economic collapse. I even remember one highly respected economist saying, back in 1982, that “[t]he engines of economic growth have shut down here, and they’re likely to stay that way for years to come.” Well, he and the other opinion leaders were wrong. The fact is, what they called “radical” was really “right.” What they called “dangerous” was just “desperately needed.”And in all of that time I won a nickname, “The Great Communicator.” But I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference: it was the content. I wasn’t a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn’t spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation—from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries. They called it the Reagan revolution. Well, I’ll accept that, but for me it always seemed more like the great rediscovery, a rediscovery of our values and our common sense. . . .
eBook - ePub- Charles W. Dunn(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- The University Press of Kentucky(Publisher)
The 1984 Election and the Future of American Politics , ed. Peter W. Schramm and Dennis J. Mahoney (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1987), 245–64. See also Steven F. Hayward, The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution, 1980–1989 (New York: Crown Forum, 2009), 638–39.16 . Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989), chaps. 3–5.17 . Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope (New York: Crown Publishers, 2006), 93.
Passage contains an image
A TOUCH FOR FIRST PRINCIPLESReagan and the Recovery of Culture
Hadley ArkesIn the 1980s, in the days of President Reagan, Lou Cannon started a running line in the Washington Post , called “Reaganism of the Week.” The insinuation here was that Reagan was speaking a version of what Mel Brooks would describe as “frontier gibberish.” In other words, the president was simple-minded. Or he persistently missed the complications of the world as he reduced matters to things he regarded as rather simple or primary truths. Cannon offered once as a case in point an interview in which the president was asked how, as an officer under the law, he could support the Contras in Nicaragua when they were seeking to overthrow the legitimate government of that country. The president responded that it was indeed true that the Contras were seeking to take power at the point of a gun, in resisting the regime of the Sandinistas. But the Sandinistas themselves, he observed, held power at the point of a gun. And so, as he mulled aloud to the reporter, he did not quite see the moral difference between the Contras and what the reporter was pleased to call “the legitimate government of Nicaragua.”REAGAN MISUNDERSTOODNow the Gipper could not fill in the bibliography. He could not explain that his reflections here followed the paths marked off in the past by such writers on international law as Pufendorf, Burlamaqui, and Vattel. He probably could not have explained that his reflections here had led him back to the difference between an international law based on “positive law” and an understanding of international law influenced more fully by the axioms of natural law. By “positive law,” we do not, of course, mean the opposite to something “negative”; we mean, rather, something that is law only because it has been “posited,” set down, enacted, by the people whose edicts are enforceable as law in any place. When the positivist asked the question “Who formed the legitimate government of Nicaragua?” the answer came back without any moral ingredients: The legitimate government was the government that had effective control
Index pages curate the most relevant extracts from our library of academic textbooks. They’ve been created using an in-house natural language model (NLM), each adding context and meaning to key research topics.
