The only thing more insufferable than 8 years of a Ronald Reagan presidency is the inevitable flood of tributes, nostalgia, updates on the location of his corpse, and “Gosh Nancy is a saint” utterances that his death has unleashed .
I practically danced a jig when I learned of his demise. I loath the blind worship that the old fool induces among conservatives who forget that Reagan made the federal government bigger in terms of bureaucracy and spending. And thanks to Reagan’s insane defense and military spending, our country has 1000s of outdated weapons of mass destruction, waiting to fall into the wrong hands. This, tragically, may be his most defining legacy.
Reagan is loved by people who bought his stoic cowboy-like image honed by Hollywood. He made this country crave leaders capable of quotable one-liners and a likable personality rather than a leader who is, oh, just plain CAPABLE.
I first grasped the concept of “President of the United States” from the propaganda-ridden Weekly Readers distributed in my elementary school. The Weekly Reader always featured an article about the great deeds of Ronald and/or Nancy Reagan, and a message from them telling us to stay in school, read, don’t do dope, and don’t accept rides from strangers.
(By the way, thanks to the Reagans and the Weekly Reader, I grew up with the misconception that there are thousands of men with facial hair trolling the streets, looking for kids to abduct, and I was terrified that I’d forget and get in their car. Must… have… vigilance!)
At the same time, our Weekly Readers taught us about the starving Ethiopians. I recollect thinking Reagan was not a good president if he let children in other countries starve. Boy, I didn’t know the half of it.
In conclusion, I sort of wish he lived forever, so we could avoid this whole media-spurred beatification of a B-movie star who co-starred in a movie with a chimp and then got damned lucky.
