It might be easier and quicker to digest in podcast form from people who did the research: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-ronald-and-nancy-reagan-29967299/

In short: deregulation, wealth transfer to the rich, harming rights of labor, and genocide.

This question could easily be a college thesis, if not an entire course. I think anyone asking this question and learning more about Reagan is on the right track to better understanding… I really want to say ‘everything’. Politics, human nature, consumerism, economics, negotiation, propaganda, cover ups, racism, homophobia, the fallacy of Democracy, and so so much more.

If you’re any more interested in the subject than reading through a handful of comments on the internet, I recommend the book “The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America”.

He and Thatcher were instrumental in bringing neoliberalism into mainstream politics. Neoliberalism differs from classical liberalism in that its about freeing capital and not people. This directly led to all the problems we face today with a government that used to be by and for the people but now the only people the government serves are the corporations we gave out rights to.

Sorry to be that guy, but I’m trying to promote a community here.

The title should ask, “Why were Ronald Reagan and Nancy…”

This is because the subject, Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan, is more than 1 person.

If anyone wants to learn English I’m moderating lemmy.ml/c/englishlearning

I’m happy to answer any questions.

I guess it also warrants asking, what good, if any, did Reagan do for America?

He tried to “starve the beast”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

The beast being the government itself. The idea is that the government is somehow overspending in comparison to the tasks carried out and it needs to be fixed by cutting funding.

The result is obviously that the government will function even worse, so it’s a self fulfilling prophecy.

His policies on economy are responsible for billionaire class existing in the US. There is a good read on America only had a handful of billionaires 40 years ago. We’re now creating ‘centibillionaires’–and unless we tax them, trillionaires.

Reagan cut taxes while increasing spending, despite talking like his goal was to reduce government excess. As a result, the national debt increase for the first time since WWII and has not stopped in that trend since then.

They belonged to the bourgeois class and therefore defended the interests of that class to the detriment of the people. That simple

If you have Paramount+, don’t mind doing a free trial, or like to sail the seven seas, you can watch The Reagans documentary series. Another documentary that gives you some insight into the type of people they were is the Rock Hudson one. The TL;DR on that one is that they had been good friends for decades, especially Nancy, and the moment it came out that he had AIDS, they pretended he had never existed.

Ronald was basically an idiot but Nancy was a truly foul human being.

Not many believe in faith and true nationalism but if you hold true to the world of god I think you will see Ronald Reagan really just was the devil.

There are quite a number of good articles on the subject if you want a thorough answer, but some of the main things are:

• He’s responsible for a massive deregulation of financial institutions that were a precursor to the Wall Street issues that led to the giant government bailout.

• He pushed “trickle down economics,” which is the theory that if you cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy, they’ll succeed more and create more jobs so that everyone wins. This is something conservatives always push and it’s always a horrible failure that results in a bigger and bigger income gap.

• He funded his big tax cuts (mostly for the wealthy) by slashing federal assistance programs, including low income housing subsidies and mental health support, resulting in an unprecedented surge in homelessness that we’re still wrestling with today.

• Nancy Reagan was the “Just say no to drugs” lady - the figurehead of the largely failed war on drugs which was like trying to prevent teen pregnancy with an abstinence only education program.

There’s a lot more, but those are some of the big ticket items.

He was so popular he convinced democrats that they needed to move to the right if they wanted to win an election ever again.

In family guy Ronald Reagan was shown punching a wall.

So many things.

Refusing to say AIDS for years , let alone doing anything

Iran -contra

Making a deal with Iran to continue holding the hostages until after he becomes president

Breaking PATCO the air traffic controller union

So

Many

Things