One thought on “Ronald Reagan”

1. It is interesting how you note Reagan’s opinion of the government, and how it changed over his two terms. He is more anti-government in his first inaugural address in 1981, but that makes good sense, considering the 60s and 70s was a time where Americans began to seriously lose trust in their politicians. President Richard Nixon, in 1973, was forced to resign from office due to his involvement in the Watergate scandal, and became the first U.S. President ever to just leave his job as Commander in Chief. Americans during that time, preceding Reagan’s first election, had experienced the first war in U.S. history that we as a country had lost. Our government had failed us and as a result, hundreds of thousands of American soldiers lost their lives. So the fact that Reagan openly criticized the government is not very surprising considering the events that led up to his election.

   It is also interesting how similar many of Reagan’s arguments sound to the anti-government arguments made by people today, especially by some in the Republican party, and to a more extreme degree, those in the Libertarian party. Reagan’s dislike of taxes and government programs, which he significantly reduced over his tenure, is something conservatives today constantly use in their arguments against the future increase of taxes.

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   June 15, 2016 at 6:43 pm