The Reagan Revolution is over - by David Sirota

[DonViejo]

Why the GOP has failed to capitalize on nostalgia for the ex-president: The nation has changed and so has the party

BY DAVID SIROTA

The reason the Onion’s spoof about Ronald Reagan being raised from the grave to lead today’s Republican Party still remains one of the funniest political satires in recent memory is because it rings so true. With the GOP in such disarray, you get the sense that the only thing that unifies the conservative movement is a visceral hatred of America’s first African-American president and a cultlike worship of the Gipper. You also get the sense that if Republican leaders could have, they would have done exactly what that Onion spoof suggested — reanimate the corpse of Ronald Reagan and run him for president in 2012 — and for good reason. According to a stunning new national poll released today by the National Geographic Channel, Reagan would have demolished Obama in a head-to-head match-up.

As the coverage of Margaret Thatcher’s death this week reminds us, the 1980s still define us in so many ways. The National Geographic Channel poll, timed to the Sunday premiere of the channel’s three-night “The ’80s: The Decade That Made Us,” is chock-full of revealing findings about why exactly that is.

Some of the survey’s findings are fun but trivial (83 percent of us do not want shoulder pads to make a comeback), some are confounding (men like Harry and Sally as a couple way more than women do), and some are downright important to understanding the present political moment.

For instance, the vast majority of the country thinks things were better back then than they are now, and almost 4 in 5 believe the government ran better in the 1980s than it does now. That 4 in 5 disproportionately comprises those who actually lived in the 1980s, likely because back then — as opposed to now — more Americans could still personally remember past eras when the government successfully accomplished things and took on major high-profile challenges.

-snip-

http://www.salon.com/2013/04/09/the_reagan_revolution_is_over/

[LeftInTX]

1. The 80s were the worst decade ever

Bad music, hair, clothes, soap operas on TV at night, Jim and Tammy Faye.

This Reagan Legacy Project is disgusting: http://www.ronaldreaganlegacyproject.org/index.php

To have a memorial for him in every county of the country. Gross, gross, gross. I'm so sick of him. I guess they want to change the name of the country to the USR (US of Reagan)

[Pufiki]

2. He took a face from the ancient gallery, and he walked on down the hall.

I agree with you completely about this.

[gopiscrap]

4. welcome to DU

[Logical]

3. I still like 80s music! nt