Reagan Rules

[marmar]

by Andrew Levin
HuffPost




If the measure is how much harm their cluelessness and ineptitude caused, George W. Bush's administration was the worst ever. If adherence to the principles established at the Nuremburg war crimes tribunal is the measure, the Bush administration might be the worst too. Bush's only serious rival would be Richard Nixon. Unfortunately, we will never know the full extent of either one's criminality because Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon before he could be brought to justice; and because Barack Obama, in a spirit of "forward-looking" generosity, and perhaps also in anticipation of doing more of the same, decided early on that Bush era war criminals would never be called to account. However on the scale of historical villainy, Bush and Nixon are small potatoes. By that measure, the worst administration without a doubt is the one that nowadays receives bipartisan adulation -- Ronald Reagan's.

Like Bush, the Great Communicator was ignorant and lazy. It is therefore unclear how much of the harm done in his name was actually his doing. It is also unclear how much of a role Reaganites played in initiating "the Reagan Revolution." Arguably, it began in the waning days of the Carter administration; incontestably, its basic features were perfected in Britain by Margaret Thatcher's government more than a year before Reagan took office. Nevertheless, it is fair to call Reagan's a "transformative presidency," as candidate Obama did (reportedly to get a rise out of Hillary Clinton). For three decades, it has deformed our politics.

It was the Reagan administration that established the principle that taxes should only go down, the better to assure a permanent fiscal crisis, the better to stifle constructive social spending. It was under Reagan that ways for putting "the Vietnam syndrome" to rest were contrived: finding soft targets with leaders who could be easily demonized; out sourcing tasks that would normally fall on conscripts; funding proxy armies to fight proxy wars, and so on. It was under Reagan too that ways were found to mobilize "populist" and evangelical fervor on behalf of the interests of the super rich, and that "Big Government" - the state's regulatory apparatus -- became "the problem." In countless other ways, it was Reagan who launched the undoing of the New Deal and Great Society - a retrograde process continued by all American presidents ever since.

Reagan's purported role in bringing down the "Evil Empire" was in reality minimal, but he did contrive a substitute, should our military, industrial and national security complex require one, as it did shortly after he left office. The Reaganites were never quite able to launch a war on terror because the facts on the ground couldn't be spun enough to sustain one. But they laid the foundation. Then, when the seeds Reaganites planted in Afghanistan and elsewhere bore poison fruit, the facts became more obliging. It is therefore largely thanks to them that Islamic terrorism was able to take the place of the Red Menace. For scaring people and turning democracy on its head, this new bugbear has proven remarkably useful. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-levine/reagan-rules_b_679669.html