Reply #16: I can only say how he affected my family [View All]

The late 70s were a time of enormous inflation, high gas prices, financial insecurity, and anti-arab fear (a lot like today).

Most people in my family didn't hate Carter, per se, but they thought because they were living through these times that Carter was incompetent. They wanted to feel some sort of sense of security and safety in their lives, and here was Carter on the TV wearing a sweater and telling them to turn down the thermostat. He made a convenient scapegoat.

When Reagan came into office, he did change the mood of the nation. Why do people even try to deny this? He did change the mood of the nation, in almost exactly the same way that "Professor" Harold Hill improves the mood of River City, Iowa in The Music Man. He filled people with false bravado, but when you've been down a long time, false bravado feels better than none at all. He filled people's heads with a lot of anti-government nonsense, and with a sense that, if nuclear war were on the horizon, we weren't going to be the victims. We'd be the winners.

We were lucky to have Gorby at the helm of the USSR at that time. If we'd had an old-style Soviet hardliner, Reagan's fearmongering and saber-rattling might just have pushed us into WW III. Living under Reagan and under the spectre of nuclear war was terrifying.

Having said all that, I basically agree with Obama, and don't understand why so many people seem so determined to demonize Obama for making a pretty obvious generalization. Reagan won in 49 states, people liked him, and he did transform the mood of the country. That doesn't mean he was a good president, because he wasn't. The nightmare we're in today can be traced directly back to Reagan. But I completely understand what Obama means when he talks about getting beyond the framing of the 60s, getting beyond Vietnam, and all the limiting frames of baby boomer politics. I think Obama definitely could be a figure that does what Reagan did --- but without the anti-government, partisan nonsense politics. Who wouldn't want that? I know I do.