Tear Down This Myth By Will Bunch

Tear Down This Myth is a truly excellent book that I highly recommend to anyone who is interested in the truth about the Ronald Reagan presidency and about how the myth about his presidency (which bears little resemblance to the reality of it) has been carefully crafted by a right wing group since Reagan left public life in 1994 due to Alzheimer’s.

Some Facts About Reagan’s Presidency

1. Reagan’s average approval rating during his Presidency was not particularly high. From the Reagan myth you’d get the impression that he was overwhelmingly popular as President but this is not true. His average approval rating was only 52.8% over the course of his Presidency which is lower than the average approval ratings of John F. Kennedy (70.1%), Dwight Eisenhower (65%), GHW Bush (60.1%), Bill Clinton (55.1%), & Lyndon Johnson (55.1%) – It’s also not much higher than Richard Nixon who had an average approval rating of 49.1%.

Of course the GHW Bush & LBJ didn’t make it to a second term while Reagan won a landslide in 1984. How does that work? Well it’s all timing, isn’t it? Winning a second term doesn’t depend on overall popularity but popularity during the election and Reagan was lucky enough to be riding a wave of high popularity in 1984.

To get an idea of how off base the myth that Reagan was overwhelmingly popular during his Presidency is consider a poll in 1987 in which 32% of Americans though Reagan should consider resigning for the end of his second term (this was during Iran-Contra scandal.)

2. The Iran-Contra Scandal. The myth makers don’t want us to remember that the Reagan admin. was involved with this scandal which was actually far worse than Watergate. It’s humorous how those that constantly talk about Reagan in glowing terms (all current GOP leaders) also espouse hard line talking points about never even talking with terrorists while the admin. of their hero not only talked with terrorists, they gave weapons to them (in exchange for the release of hostages.)

3. Reagan raised taxes many times during his presidency. Current GOP talking heads often talk about Reagan cutting taxes and he did cut taxes in 1981 but he followed up that initial tax cut with many tax increases. Why? Because his tax cut didn’t work. The recession actually got worse during the early part of Reagan’s Presidency after his initial tax cut.

4. Reagan was not a warmonger in the vein of Bush 41 or Bush 43. This is actually a positive thing about Reagan but because it doesn’t fit with the current Republican party’s far right wing pro-war positions it is ignored.

Reagan believed that killing civilians in a strike against terrorists would be in itself an act of terrorism.

And Reagan certainly didn’t believe in the current GOP talking point that you shouldn’t talk to your enemies. Even though he described the USSR as an “evil empire” (which was a mistake) he, of course, spoke with Soviet leaders (in particular Michail Gorbachev) on many occasions.

5. Reagan did not “win” the Cold War. This a ridiculous notion. At the time of the fall of the Soviet empire nearly no one gave Reagan credit, it’s only been after years of myth making that many of the uneducated masses have been tricked into thinking that Reagan somehow magically single handily won the Cold War.