Ronald Reagan: A Right-Wing Nightmare

By David Starr

 

A fitting title for the ushering in of the Ronald Reagan era would be from the Star Wars movie, “The Empire Strikes Back.” After the revolutionary fervor of the left in the 1960s and 1970s, the right feared a repeat of it in the 1980s. After Reagan won the U.S. presidency in 1980, the right felt reassured that its cause and motives would become prominent from then on. And they have gained traction. Today, the Republican Party, with significant help from Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, is veering more and more toward fascism. And many Republicans don’t seem to care.

 

Writing for The Guardian, David Aaronovitch did have something positive to say about Reagan: “Following the deployment of Cruise and Pershing missiles, he then–quite unexpectedly– engaged in a process of arms limitation and tension reduction that made it safe for [Mikhail] Gorbachev to pursue a reform program in the Soviet Union.” 

 

But that’s as far as Aaronovitch would go. “What isn’t so easy to forgive is the Reagan Doctrine, sometimes known as Third World rollback. Rollback was the end of the American proxy war fought between the two superpowers for power and influence in the developing world.”

 

Since the Cold War amounted to a virtual stalemate between the United States and the Soviet Union, U.S. foreign policy, imperialist by nature, nevertheless changed tactically since it was facing a formidable rival. There was emphasis on peace and arms reduction. But since the dissolving of the USSR, the U.S. reverted to a more imperial doctrine, trying to expand further across the world. If there was any country going for world domination, it was the United States.

 

Aaronovitch details the consequences of the Reagan Doctrine: 

 

Recognizing the Khmer Rouge government after the Vietnamese military overthrown it. And because it was pro-Soviet Vietnam that did overthrowing, Reagan and his ilk did not accept that. Vietnam, by the way withdrew its forces out of Cambodia after the overthrow.

 

The doctrine hit Central America hard. Reagan’s regime supported the Nicaraguan contras, a gang of thugs, some coming out of Somoza’s National Guard, who were trying to overthrow the Sandinista government, and committing acts of terrorism against the Nicaraguan population in the process. Reagan called the contras “freedom fighters” and the “moral equivalent of our founding fathers.” And in Guatemala, Reagan supported tyrant Efrain Rios Mont, who headed the government and as a result killed about 100,000 Mayan Indians. Reagan called him “a man of great personal integrity.”

 

 

In Angola, another tyrant, Jonas Savimbi of the UNITA gang, was supported by Reagan in a civil war against the Angolan government. Reagan claimed that UNITA won “a victory that electrifies the world and brings great sympathy and assistance from other nations to those struggling for freedom.” Because of Savimbi prolonging the war, the United Nations declared that about 300,000 children died as a result. It could be said that Reagan and the U.S. were accomplices by supporting UNITA.

 

The U.S. responded to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in the late 1970s by arming and training a gang of religious fanatics called the Mujahadeen. A prominent member was Osama bin Laden, who in later years claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attacks in New York. After the Soviet Union left Afghanistan, the U.S. wasn’t alarmed anymore; and this led eventually to the Taliban. The U.S. did intervene in Afghanistan but after 20 years of war, withdrew, leaving the Taliban once again in power.

 

In domestic policy, Reagan implemented an economic system call Reaganomics. It was also known as trickle-down economics, with the fallacy that huge tax breaks for the wealthy would trickle down to the masses and benefit them. Sort of like giving crumbs to the peasants.

 

Reagan’s economic policies were thus beneficial for the rich but devastating for the working class and poor. In Isocracy magazine, Wes Whitman wrote, “Throughout his life, Ronald Reagan put ideology above ethics. I am doing this badmouthing of Reagan simply for the sake of shattering the myth of Reagan as a great person. He probably believed all of his bullshit, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Reagan probably did believe that his actions were all justified, but he was mistaken.”

 

Reagan’s economic handiwork involved cutting taxes for the wealthy, despite raising taxes. And who hardly benefitted from raising taxes? The common folk. The Tax Reform Act was implemented in 1986 with the top income tax rate dropping to 28%. It was 70% before Reagan got into power. Whitman: “Such tax policies, although generally favored by conservatives, are economically unsound and unethical, and result in stagnating wages in spite of increased productivity. The end result is that while workers produced more, corporations and wealthy individuals end up taking more of a share of that wealth rather than raising wages for the working populace.”

 

Whitman concluded, “America has been ruined by conservative economic policies. America will not become a decent society until the day no conservative ever holds any amount of political power again.”

 

And Reagan didn’t stop at imposing bad economics. Writing for Mid-West Socialist magazine, Dylan Shearer detailed the following: “Reagan destroyed union power, furthered the power of the conservative right, cut social services to the bone, increased red-baiting, allowed thousands of people to die of AIDS, and helped create the blueprint for the current foreign policy of the United States.” Reagan outrageously fired 12,000 air traffic controllers when the latter went on strike. He continued the failed War on Drugs, where nonviolent offenders were imprisoned just for possessing or selling marijuana. While AIDS ravaged the United States (and the world), Reagan refused to acknowledged its reality, until years later. His policy for combatting AIDS? There really wasn’t any; he suggested that kids with AIDS be kept out of schools.

 

Shearer wrote, “Despite being a monster, both Democrats and Republicans continue to hold him up as some sort of saint. The list of his crimes should be read out in schools instead of the Pledge of Allegiance.”

 

Unfortunately, Reagan was popular among U.S. citizens, in other words, those who didn’t know better. But Reagan’s popularity did not make him a good president. In reality, Reagan was a B-movie actor who only played the role of president. Admittedly, he used his acting skills effectively.

 

The publication Soapboxie published a list of 21 things Reagan did and didn’t do as “president.” Among them:

 

Allying himself with Saddam Hussein, who used chemical weapons to kill 5,000 Kurdish civilians, with the Reagan regime continuing to give more weapons to Iraq. When the United Nations produced a resolution to condemn Iraq, Reagan vetoed it.

 

Reagan illegally provided weapons to both sides in the Iran-Iraq War. He thus violated a U.S. law that he himself signed.

 

Reagan also supplied the Nicaraguan contras with weapons. This was another violation of a law he signed. Reagan gave the CIA the authority to create the contras as a way to overthrow the Sandinista government. For those in power before the Sandinistas, they were hell-bent on taking back that power, no matter how many Nicaraguans were killed in the process.

 

In a way to save his ego, Reagan had the U.S. military invade Grenada after he failed to save 241 Marines who were killed in Beirut.

 

Reagan helped to create Al Qaeda from the Mujahideen, which fought the USSR in Afghanistan.

 

In a show of blatant racism, Reagan supported Apartheid South Africa. When the U.S. Congress enacted the Anti-Apartheid Act in 1986, Reagan opposed any sanctions on South Africa and vetoed the bill. But Congress overrode the veto.

 

Reagan supported any brutal tyrant as long as they weren’t “communists.” That includes Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and the right-wing regime in El Salvador.

 

The Reagan regime was the most corrupt in U.S. history. About 138 Reagan officials were investigated, indicted for, or convicted of crimes. Reagan and President George H.W. Bush pardoned most of them.

 

Reagan lied about the “Chicago Welfare Queen,” saying that a woman had 80 aliases and stole $150,000 in welfare payments. Actually, it was a woman who had two aliases and received $8,000. But that didn’t stop Reagan from lying.

 

It seems Republicans increase budget deficits. With Reagan, this amounted to $200 billion. George W. Bush Jr. and Donald Trump also contributed to budget deficits.

 

On YouTube, Leeja Miller, a lawyer, made a video entitled “How Reagan Ruined Everything.” It captures a lot of the misdeeds and crimes committed by the Reagan regime.

 

It’s been 43 years since Ronald Reagan took power. It was a start of the right-wing onslaught on the degree of democracy in the U.S. The empire did indeed strike back. It has to be stopped.