End of Semester and the Death of Reagan

by Cliopatria

Our east and west coast bloggers-in-chief, Ralph Luker and Jonathan Dresner both sent kind encouragements to their fellow bloggers to post a bit more.

I have been quiet of late. As Ralph noted in his email, this was finals time. Probably like most everyone else I did not want to toss stuff up aimlessly. Then there are all those things that we (or at least I) put off until after finals that have to be done ASAP. Then I simply needed a few days in which I did not touch a computer. I actually shuddered when I walked by it.

Now there is the death of Ronald Reagan. Except for one perhaps too acerbic comment I posted in response to Richard Jensen’s HNN entry, I have little to say at this point. He was extraordinary. There are reasons I had my survey class compare his presidency to FDR’s on their final. (I do wish many of them had done it better, but some showed a fine insight.)

And yet. While for Richard Jensen and millions of other Americans, Reagan is the point at which things began to go right for the country, for me he is—or at least he symbolizes--when things began to go wrong for the country in a fundamental way. Probably a careful historian 100 years from now will take both views to task. But history and memory mingle in me, and given who I am I feel a deep sadness right now. I feel it for his family (my stepmother had Alzheimer’s and my father nursed her through it at home), and I also feel it for my country.

But it is not the same sadness that those who celebrate him feel.

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Name Removed at Poster's Request - 6/7/2004

"...than if he'd lived" should read "than if he'd never lived."

On reflection, I feel some sympathy for the surviving Reagans and any grief they might be feeling. But the victims of his policies deserve it far more.

Name Removed at Poster's Request - 6/7/2004

I've read that Reagan died, and I felt nothing. I read all the obituaries saying what a wonderful guy he was and I wanted to respond, but felt helpless, like I did much of the time when he was president. And when I think back on that time, I remember how angry I and many others were as one audacious, mean-spirited policy after another was announced.

Visible national homelessness started during his presidency, I'm convinced due to policies he pushed. It wasn't till he was president that I saw storefront property vacancies in my area, which have continued to now. I don't think the economic "reforms" during his reign were ever significantly ameliorated afterwards, and most of us are worse off for them, whatever many want to believe about Reagan. I think the man truly left the country in much worse shape than if he'd lived. I don't feel happiness that he's gone, or any concern for his predatory family. He did his damage and left the scene years ago. I just don't want to have to see all the "no ill of the dead shall be spoken" tributes to his miserable political life. I have file folders of newspaper articles from his first administration about all the rotten things he did then. I don't need the revisionist history.