Why do so many people worship this guy?

This is absolutely not correct and I was indeed alive even though I was young (born in 84). Productivity was non existent, every venue was overstaffed because of mandatory employment (think of a library with more employees than members/readers), economy was running on debt. By '88 even politicians started talking about how the system needs an urgent reform, I could post videos if you don't believe me, by '89 everyone was already anxiously anticipating it. Talking about commie Czechoslovakia by the way.

It was not any different than '56, '68 or '79. Everyone knew something was going to happen, I won't deny that, but no one thought the end was coming. You go ahead and post your videos, they'll prove me right.

Do these "I know you are but what am I" posts seriously strike you as intelligent?

>See how easy that is to turn around?
You didn't turn jack shit around.

Woodrow Wilson isn't a liberal icon at all.

JFK is a legit meme but he's not particularly liked beyond people that were alive for his hype. People romanticize the dead. It's a known phenomenon.

LBJ is legit one of the biggest and most influential presidents in U.S. history love him or hate him. Severely underrated because of a caustic personality and Vietnam. He isn't exactly a Reagan style icon but there's reason to talk about the guy that ushered in the civil rights movement and invented modern welfare.

68 was a social movement, it wasn't fueled by economic stagnation and Russia still had balls to squash it, while by the late 80s they were running on fumes.

>Woodrow Wilson isn't a liberal icon at all
>literally the biggest progressive icon in American history
>not a liberal icon
Uwot.

Liberals hate him because of the KKK stuff, what are you on about?

Yeah, they sure hate the man who gave women the right to vote and spread democracy.

I've never heard any liberal even mention Woodrow Wilson's name, let alone ride his dick. FDR on the other hand...

I'm 25. I can understand why FDR would be popular, he was Prez during WWII. Learned plenty about that in history classes. But Reagan? He was glossed over in history------

Nevermind, I figured it out guys: youtube.com/watch?v=YtYdjbpBk6A

Clearly Reagan was just one rootin' tootin' son-of-a-gun.

You're mixing presentation of historical fact with iconography. Even if you can build an evidence-based historical case that Woodrow Wilson was the "most progressive president" or a similar statement, your chosen line of "biggest progressive icon in American history" is immediately dubious due to the FDR meme, a horde of presently-available SJWs, etc.

Oh sure, Woodrow had his day. The world-war-I era is no longer really seen has having quite the same direct, immediate relevence to today, in the American mind, in the same way as the precipitations of depression - WWII etc do. and it is /that/ era which is FDR all over, hence FDR is the (presidential) modern ikon of progressivism at least up until Obama, in some sense, irrespective of historical fact, the anti-lynching dealmaking, etc.

Also, this thread in general really is pretty god-awful in that I've got a fucking Carter apologist.

Take this prick: , although he has correctly identified the deity aspect in our national religion, he has also failed to understand something elementary: if you don't get why, let's take our simplest examples of Washington and Lincoln, are very simply and in fact "national heroes" if nothing else, then there's nothing that can be done for you except to recommend reading some more evidence-based historical accounts.

The people writing in this thread never lived through Carter. At the hazard of an anecdotal blogpost, my father did, and he never missed an oppurtunity to remind me of how terrible things actually, really were in the country during those years: high gas prices, Iran humiliation, post-Vietnam malaise (this is the pessimism still pervasive in the popular culture of the period), the Susan B. Anthony dollar, a hideous piece of currency, etc.

Also your zeroing in on Wilson as disproof of that other guy's thing is deeply disingenuous in that you know very well that the left has its own icons, whether Wilson is now one of the polite ones or not.

>if you don't get why, let's take our simplest examples of Washington and Lincoln, are very simply and in fact "national heroes" if nothing else, then there's nothing that can be done for you except to recommend reading some more evidence-based historical accounts
Washington was Hamilton's sockpuppet and almost divided the country into civil war before the Union was even a decade old. Lincoln was a tyrant. There's many reasons to not take either as heroes despite their better aspects. The old adage "nothing is pure" isn't just a meme and these men are no exception.

>the Susan B. Anthony dollar, a hideous piece of currency
Stop oppressing me
t. white male

Ran a bit long but my basic point is this:

The tone of the thread is deeply misguided insofar as it contains both vague Carter apologia and Reagan-reassessment, when quite the opposite more accurately describe history in general.

It is natural, after about a generation or so of hearing that x is the greatest thing since sliced bread (the Beatles, Reagan, etc), for a younger generation to push back and try saying "nuh-uh" and see what happens. Many times, they're even right. In the above two cases however, the present audience is not right. Being an actor, Reagan played his role admirably, and without the humiliations of a Carter, the naked lies of a Clinton, the stutterings of a Bush, or the petulance of an Obama (or even, I will admit, the incivility of a Trump.) This soft skills type-shit, being able to speak clearly and boldly the feel-good shit like "DEAR DOWN DIS WALL :DDD" in addition to core competencies like a governorship? /It fucking matters/ for this type of job. It's central to what the job /is/. Reagan had it where so few of the rest of the past 40 years' schmucks have. His presidency and his performance was an absolute breath of fresh air after Carter.

And the over-riding point which absolutely and inarguably defeats you is that the polity survives to this day, having survived each administration, which collectively represent two of its most trying periods. "national hero": 1) A hero of the nation. 2) Someone who has performed a heroic act on behalf of a country, or nation.

It is not enough for you here, to nuh-uh your way out, and point out the banality that the National Myth-Heroes were human beings who made mistakes. What has been asserted is this: "Washington and Lincoln were national heroes", a sort of neutral-positive assertion (or banality) all its own, with the advantage that in this case it is actually correct and bears scrutiny. With reference to the State, and insofar as we are concerned with the state, care about it, etc, then you've no place for you to go.

I do like the earlier(yours ?) practical observations about LBJ, though.

>Bull fucking shit here. No one in their right mind thought the Soviets were going to fall apart in 1989

Nigga their economy was on life support by the 80s and they had already dealt with some separatist movements. I'm sure loads of people believed it would limp along for a lot longer than it did, but it was plain to see the USSR was in trouble.

>in the above two cases
Nice subliminal Beatles propaganda.

Just accept that the fact that so many books still name the Beatles as "the greatest or most significant or most influential" rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art. Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe. Rock critics are still blinded by commercial success. The Beatles sold more than anyone else (not true, by the way), therefore they must have been the greatest. Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listening to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers. No wonder they will think that the Beatles did anything worthy of being saved.
In a sense, the Beatles are emblematic of the status of rock criticism as a whole: too much attention paid to commercial phenomena (be it grunge or U2) and too little to the merits of real musicians. If somebody composes the most divine music but no major label picks him up and sells him around the world, a lot of rock critics will ignore him. If a major label picks up a musician who is as stereotyped as can be but launches her or him worldwide, your average critic will waste rivers of ink on her or him. This is the sad status of rock criticism: rock critics are basically publicists working for major labels, distributors and record stores. They simply highlight what product the music business wants to make money from.

XD screencapped for dat sweet Reddit karma

shoo shoo, garlic paedo

because he was president during the boom part of the economic cycle, was telegenic and the soviet union fell during his time as president

he didnt reduce inflation, you have volcker to thank for that btw

>The people writing in this thread never lived through Carter. At the hazard of an anecdotal blogpost, my father did, and he never missed an oppurtunity to remind me of how terrible things actually, really were in the country during those years:
>the Susan B. Anthony dollar, a hideous piece of currency

Reagan was charismatic. Thats his only good feature. Sure carter was an Idiot but he wasn't responsible for Vietnam,the islamic revolution or the economic downturn. Reagan just became president at the right time and was charismatic enough to make a lasting impact on the Style of american politics. Just look at the fucking Deals he cut with iran : Prolonging the hostage situation for his political benefit and later deliever weapons to them to fund the psychos in nicaragua.

Reagan simply was a lunatic who weakened the state while bloating the military (always a good combination i mean liberalism is fine and dandy but not while expanding the military), escalated the cold war again (we are lucky the soviets didn't start ww3 and a maybe we would have witnessed a more orderly decline without the massive pressure reagan exerted).

For one thing, no one in 1980 thought the USSR was on the verge of collapse.

second the main reason he is popular is because the economy recovered under is administration and the soviet union fell soon after, something that was perhaps accelerated by the arms race

The Trump years are going to be so great. The greatest.

How a president is perceived is based to a large degree on the state of the economy while he is in office.

If the economy is bad, the President (and authority figures in general) is viewed with suspicion.

If the economy is good, the President is viewed with goodwill.

The economy was very good when Reagan was President, so people remember good things about him.

Now was the economy good because of Reagan or did he just happen to stumble into office during a good economic cycle? I don't know enough to speculate either way.

>I've never heard any liberal even mention Woodrow Wilson's name

That's because most modern american liberals are frightfully historically illiterate. They view everything before the 1960s as an unenlightened dark age and therefore make no attempt to study or understand it.

>The people writing in this thread never lived through Carter. At the hazard of an anecdotal blogpost, my father did, and he never missed an oppurtunity to remind me of how terrible things actually, really were in the country during those years: high gas prices, Iran humiliation, post-Vietnam malaise (this is the pessimism still pervasive in the popular culture of the period), the Susan B. Anthony dollar, a hideous piece of currency, etc.

I think part of why Carter appeals to many people, especially the NPR crowd and younger liberals, is what he did AFTER he ended his term as President: Habitat for Humanity, disease eradication, human rights activist, etc. Just a general nice guy. People talk about him like he was a visionary, and if only Reagan hadn't come along and taken advantage of the Iran hostage crisis we would have had a super progressive four more years.

In fact, Carter barely held off Ted Kennedy as the Democratic nominee before the 1980 election, a sad commentary on his popularity at the time. When, as the incumbent president, nearly half of your own party doesn't think you should represent the party again, you're probably not doing a very good job.

Didn't he try to convince everyone that trees caused pollution?

>Sure he decreased Inflation

That was largely thanks to Carter's appointments, not Reagan.

I mean, who is the GOP going to hold up as their exemplar? Freaking Bush? They're scraping the bottom of the barrel.

>The same reason that Democrats worship Clinton.
They don't though. Lots of current Dems see him as problematic because of his Third Way shit and anti-crime policies. Nah, Dem Reagan is going to be (and already is) Obama.

Because he was great at waging class warfare on behalf of the country's owners, and since they control most subsequent politicians and the media, Americans constantly get to hear how great he was, so as to continue the pillaging of the middle class.

I still don't understand why do people think that the GOP and the Democrats are any different. From an outsider perspective, they're the exact same people.

>Nigga their economy was on life support by the 80s

yeah and you think it was common knowlege to everyone? we can see how shitty it was in hindsight but back then no one really knew shit

They're not the same either though. They do have small differences, and small differences within a system of great power can have enormous consequences.

>Liberals
You keep on using that word...

>The meaning of words never changes

this guy gets a gold star.

That would be okay if we're talking about how petty words like "meat" have changed over time.

But the US was founded by Liberals, based on the ideas of Liberal thinkers during the Liberal Enlightenment. Liberalism has always been a strong part of this country. Changing the meaning has allowed politicians to kill almost all traces of liberalism in this country.

If you respect the original ideas of the US, then you'll stop being a fucking idiot and use the correct definition of "Liberal".

>le american left isn't really left xD

Don't you have a soccer match to burn cars over euronigger?

(You)

>basically created the bloated military-industrial complex we have today
mate I have some really bad news for you... that "complex" has been there since at least before the second world war...

>Democrat Reagan
>not Roosevelt or Kennedy

Because he changed the narrative. He proved that the modern GOP platform can win them elections.

Just ten years ago Wilson was generally considered a pride of the Democrats and was lauded as progressive, especially for his 14 Points and his instrumental work in founding the League of Nations. He was never an icon of the Old Left (people like Chomsky or Bernie Sanders) because of his suppression of wartime dissent and his general hatred for socialism/ populism; definitely had an elitist, patrician attitude.

This has changed in the past five years or so with the "he was a white supremacist and a huge racist" thing (he was, not just against blacks but non-WASP European immigrants like Slavs, etc. as well), and his other generally forward-looking ideas are overshadowed.

And he did poorly.

LBJ was a power hungry bastard who overinflated government to keep poor citizens (and blacks) dependent on handouts. Hands down one of the worst presidents out there.

>he didnt like non wasp whites so he wasnt racist
>t /pol
I'm not even of the opinion that he should be considered particularly racist, but spare me the mental gymnastic and retarded narratives /pol/

>"he was a white supremacist and a huge racist" thing (he was, not just against jews but non-aryan Europeans like Slavs, etc. as well)

>he fell for the welfare queens meme

>>
>muh /pol/
Did you actually read what I wrote? I didn't say he wasn't racist; he was clearly a bigot not just against blacks (he resegregated the federal government), but against most non-WASPs (he was pro-eugenics and thought many different peoples were inferior). My point, if you had read carefully, was that his bigotry is now beginning to overshadow his other accomplishments which were generally hailed as progressive and foundational to international peace and a building block for international human rights.