Here is one of the primary reasons that I detest Ronald Reagan (and yes I will admit my revulsion): He was responsible for making unconscionable things "acceptable" to the mainstream.
The tent got bigger under Reagan, but it was by sweeping in the dregs of humanity - and not the downtrodden ones. The racists, the homophobes, the supremacists, the jew-baiters, the nutjobs, all found a home in the Republican party. He tried to put a pretty face on some of the most meanspirited, anti-American and anti-human policies and made them out as patriotic gestures. He made greed a virtue and constraint a vice. He set the pattern in a very bad way. He was personally deceitful, but worse, made deceit a national policy goal.
The most ardent defenders of Ronald Reagan and his presidency like to ignore those aspects of his "leadership." Iran-Contra was not a mistake, in their view. Withdrawing from Beirut was "reasonable" but getting involved in Kosovo was "irresponsible." The "southern strategy" was good politics, not divisive. Debilitating the government was good policy. Corruption was reasonable.
225 different people in the Ronald Reagan administration either quit, were fired, arrested, indicted, or convicted for either breaking the law or violating the Ethics Code; Edwin Meese alone, the Attorney General, was investigated by three separate Special Prosecutors.
Worst, he made it possible for the likes of Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Karl Rove, Lee Atwater, Roger Ailes, Tom Delay to take over the party and promote party over governance in the likes of Karen Hughes, Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, etc., etc.
ad nauseum. Now, I know he was only one in the line, but he was the first after Nixon and set the tone for others to practice the highest forms of deceit: "Compassionate Conservatism" and other bald-faced lies.
