The Real Reason for Republican Reagan Reverence.

Ok so I want you to pretend your a republicans, and from that point of view, please tell me if youd vote for this candidate:

Candidate:  signs a bill expanding Abortion. Tripled the national Debt. Opposes the voting rights act. Signed and supported Gun Control. Believed Nelson Mandela was a terrorist. Funded Al Qaeda. Negotiated with and armed terrorists in South America. Passed 11 tax increases, including one increasing Social Security. Pro Amnesty. Reacted to the murder of 238 americans overseas by doing nothing and pulling americans out of that country. Never fought in combat.

Now it turns out, Republicans did vote for this candidate, twice. And those too young to have voted for this candidate claim to this day they totally would have.

In fact that Candidate is Ronald Reagan. Reagan is widely considered the by modern Republicans to be the GREATEST PRESIDENT EVER......even though he basically disagrees with them on every issue they think is important.

Which raises an interesting question: how did Republicans get into that mess, of singing the praises of a man they would oppose on almost every issue?

Now some of it is Reagan's "fault", as Reagan was one of our most charismatic presidents and alked a good game in terms of sounding like he was really conservative while not actually doing anything that conservative. But its been 30 years, the secret's out for most people.

So what's the explanation: well simple, Reagan is basically the only president the GOP has they can point to as successful in the last century so he wins by default.

Alright so since 1914 we have had 17 presidents. And they have been split pretty evenly, with 8 Democrats and 9 Republicans.

Now if we expand this to include the entire 20th century, this number gets much better for the GOP, as it becomes 12 Republicans and still 8 Democrats.

But when we look at the presidents, if becomes clear most of them are ones you wouldnt want to try to emulate/endorse/support.

So for starters failing to win reelection is basically the kiss of death as far as being considered a good president. I dont think any 1 term president who ever stood for reelection and lost breaks anyones top 20. (even on my list of 10 greatest presidents the 2 one termers I had, Authur and Polk, chose not to run again, so didnt actually lose reelection)

So that forces us to bid Good-bye to Taft, Hoover, Ford and H.W. Bush.

meaning the field of potential great republican presidents has shrunk to 8.

Problem is, more half of those 8 have MAJOR flaws associated with them.

Harding was one of the most corrupt presidents ever, and along with his successor Coolidge is widely seen as causing the Great Depression via their economic polices. In fact their combined tenures in office are called the "gilded age" in that everything was basically rotting but was given a nice shiney "finish" to look like it was working.

And then their is Nixon You know, the guy who resigned as president, generally (and unfairly) seen as most corrupt president ever.....yea moving on

And then we get to W.  Now I declined to rate W when I did my 10 best or 10 worst presidents list, but I'll be honest things arnt looking good for him.

Consider, any time a politician has a major fuck up or scandal, the comparison is no longer "[scandal]-gate" as it had been since Nixon (and Watergate) but is now either "[politican's] Katrina" or "[politican's] 9/11". And those comparisons tend to come from republicans. So yea, when your presidency is the metric used to proclaim "worst fuck up ever" thats not a good sign youe going to be considered great. And that doesnt even get us into the 2000 election results....

So that leaves us with 4 Presidents. But again, 2 of them present problems. William McKinley barely counts as a 20th century president, since was first elected in the 19th century, and was killed about a year into the 20th.  So yea, he was just too long ago to be of any real use as a "example of what the party can do/be" Which is a shame, since he wasnt a bad president.

Much the same can be said of his successor Teddy Roosevelt (who I proclaimed the 3rd best president ever). Not only has he been out of office for more than a century, but one of the things instantly associated with him is "trust-buster". AKA he broke up all the "too big to fail" businesses, something the modern GOP is strongly against. So they cant really use him either.


So that brings us down to two choice: Reagan and Eisenhower.

And I'll be honest, this is where I start to have a little trouble. Cause their is really no good reason to not pick Eisenhower and the model for your party. He was the last republican to balance the budget, and was extremely pro free market. he also attempted to take a very hardline stand on immigration (operation wetback). And he doesnt really have any comments on current social issues that could trip him up.

So why wont republicans pick him and not Reagan (with all of his faults) as the standard bearer?

Well I think it actually comes down to 2 things

First it was Eisenhower who signed the first civil rights acts, and as much as the GOP doesnt want to admit it, they do have a strongly racist element in their party, and lots of their candidates (including all 3 announced candidates for 2016) take great pains to go out of their way to talk about how they would have opposed the civil rights acts then or are in favor of ending them now.

and the 2nd reason is timing.

Ok so you ask any random american to name the 10 greatest presidents odds are very good FDR, Truman, JFK and LBJ will be on that list. For those not good at chronology, those would be Ike's 2 predecessors and successors.

in otherwords he happens to be the odd republican smack in the middle of the pantheon of greatest Democratic Presidents EVER.  Which is awkward placement

Also it makes him the one republican in a quarter century. So yea, he kinda looks a bit like a fluke, and not really an example you want to follow. (which is a shame, because if you read my rankings, I ranked him 9 overall......althought admittedly that did put him below FDR (2) LBJ (5) and JKF (7)...but above Truman (11))

And as a side note, he might also have some Nixon stink on him, given Nixon was his VP.

So yea, I think those are the reasons the GOP basically wont support him and likes to pretend he doesnt exist.

Which leaves Reagan as really the only president the GOP has the CAN stick up as an example, no matter his faults.

Which I think is part of the reason Reagan is worshiped so blindly (unlike say the Dems and FDR, JFK LBJ and Truman....all of whom dems are willing to admit had faults, because they can always pivot to another of the 4). It doesnt really matter what he stood for, he's all the republicans have, and therefore they dont have a choice.

And given that, the odds of another run of universally considered great presidents, like what happened between 1933 and 1969 is pretty unlikely, it doesnt seem like the situation is going to improve for republicans any time soon (although with the 100 year anniversary of FDR's inauguration coming in 4 presidential elections, it wont be all that long before Dem's start losing some of the guys they can point to as great presidents due to the passage of time.....its just going to take a generation to run through the entire list)