I still think he was a terrible president, but recent events remind me of two things that Ronald Reagan did right during his eight years in office:
1) He clubbed foreign car companies into building plants in the US. This seems particularly important now that Chrysler is going bankrupt. As the Car Connection wrote shortly after his death (via me at HNN back in 2005):
Reagan also was a free trader and generally turned his bad ear on the demands from unions and Detroit executives such as Iacocca about imposing tough restrictions on Japanese imports. Reagan, however, was also a pragmatic politician and during the heat of the Presidential campaign in 1980, he agreed to support quotas on Japanese autos imports. The quotas were imposed but the end result was that it pushed the Japanese Big Three, Toyota, Honda and Nissan, to expedite the construction of new plants in the United States. Honda already had made plans to open a plant in the U.S. but the plant quickly expanded. The competition ultimately helped make American and foreign cars better.
While I’m at it, I might as well steal my own conclusion to that article:
Lest you think otherwise, I am not suggesting that protectionism is the solution to our problems. Free trade that runs in both directions is beneficial to all countries that participate in it. What I believe is that by taking protectionism completely off the table, this country is being taken advantage of by firms like Toyota that know they can build plants in Canada and still have completely unfettered access to the U.S. market.
My solution is to run trade more like Ronald Reagan did. Love the free market, but remember that a country can’t prosper with a trade policy that is all carrot and no stick.
Can you imagine an America without an auto industry? Those foreign-owned plants may be all we have left soon.
2) The other thing Reagan did right was to sign the international convention outlawing torture. Granted, that’s a pretty low bar, but George W. Bush managed to set the bar practically underground during his eight years in office.
More or Less Bunk 
“The other thing Reagan did right was to sign the international convention outlawing torture.” Yep … because who needs the right to torture when you can rely on US-backed Central American army units to do it for you!
Tell me you don’t really think Ronald Reagan was a terrible President. If so you and the one other guy who agrees with you on that Should have lunch at the Berlin wall, oh wait that came down due to his fight against Communism, Well don’t worry you’ll find a place.
Todd:
If you can tell me the exact mechanism by which Ronald Reagan “defeated” communism, maybe we can begin this conversation.
Jonathan–
The mechanisms were economic warfare, military strength, and the promotion of freedom both through his speeches and his foreign policy. I could point out a couple of good books with which you can edify yourself if you’re interested. But something tells me you aren’t.
Margaret Thatcher and Lech Walesa have both credited Reagan as the driving force behind the fall of the Soviet Union. If you find it so difficult to acknowledge this accomplishment, then there is no possibility of conversation with you.
anb:
Leaving aside your incredibly vague discussion of mechanisms, I have two very basic questions for you:
What role did the Russians themselves have in bringing about their own freedom? Who was more important in bringing about the revolution that ended communism Reagan or Gorbachev?
PS If you say Reagan, I strongly suggest you go talk to some actual Russians some time.
anb — Are you suggesting that Gorbachev purposely brought about the fall of his own government? That sounds like a pretty desperate attempt to hold onto your personal model of world politics. And which Russians shall I ask who brought about their freedom? Should I ask the ones who moved to the U.S.? That would be easiest since they’re nearby and there are a lot of them to choose from.
Sorry that previous post was meant for Jonathan – not anb.
What I’m suggesting is that Gorbachev’s actions were in large part responsible for the downfall of the country as they had unintended consequences. He was, after all, the leader of the country in question. And let’s not forget the people of the Soviet Union who actually stood at the barricades rather than a guy who was already three years out of office in an entirely different country by the time the revolution happened.
Seriously, if this argument made even the slightest bit of sense you folks would give George H.W. Bush all the credit, but you’re all under the mistaken impression that Reagan’s economic policies and speeches about freedom were somehow qualitatively different than that of any previous President. Tell that to Nixon. Tell that Kennedy.
The Soviet Union collapsed under its own weight. Reagan wasn’t even President at the time. How anyone can say Ronald Reagan freed the Soviet Union is therefore completely beyond me.
How you can say it is beyond you is beyond me. It’s hardly difficult to imagine why one would argue (whether you agree or not) that Reagan’s foreign policy, economic policy and economic influence in the world helped end the Soviet Union. The man set out to defeat the U.S.S.R. His escalation of the arms race, at the very least, exacerbated economic weaknesses already festering in the Soviet Union. Whether you agree or not, it’s a well known argument that his influence over the oil market may have hurt Soviet export. Far fetched, probably — but we’re familiar with the thoery. I think you can admit that you see why some folks make the argument.
Your argument about G.H.W.B. being president when the actual revolution took place is a stretch. I’m sure you’ll still be blaming George W. for our current economic woes for the next 8 years, so let’s put that theory to rest. The idea of a preceding President’s policies effecting current world conditions is not new. The “inevitability” you propose of that revolution was well underway before G.H.W. Bush took over.
I don’t think anb was too vague when he answered you’re question about “mechanisms”. This is a blog comments section. How in depth do you expect your readers to get? It was a perfectly pointed reponse to a perfectly pointed question. It’s no mystery what he meant by any three of the “mechanisms” he listed.
And yes, Reagan’s ecomomic policies were different than Nixon’s or Kennedy’s. It’s rough to compare them considering the differing world affairs, but labeling the Soviet Union an “evil-empire”, flat-out saying that the U.S.S.R. can be defeated, and an expensive policy of nuclear proliferation is qualitatively different.
I commented on this post because I hated the disregard you paid anb. Less snooty dismissiveness toward the people who disagree with you, and more respect recognition of them would make this blog interesting. Who else is going to comment on your posts? People who agree with you? Who wants to read a bunch of people agreeing with each other? If you want us to take our senseless, vague, and beyond-you opinions and go elsewhere just say so.
And still I hear nothing about the actual revolutionaries…
Okay, you’re right — here’s my belief:
There were no Russian revolutionary figures. Reagan just drove in on a bulldozer, tore the Berlin Wall down, blasted the Soviet economy with his space age Collapse-Phaser, then flew away in a cape and tights.
…Does that make it easier to discuss this topic? We were discussing the influence of economic and foreign policy. No one would argue that a Soviet revolution took place without Russian revolutionaries. Is that what you think we believe?
Well haven’t we made progress on this thread? It’s gone from Ronald Reagan being the “driving force behind the fall of the Soviet Union” and the Berlin Wall coming down “due to his fight against Communism” to discussing how much credit the Russians deserve for starting their own revolution.
Here’s what I think:
I think Ronald Reagan’s fan club doesn’t want to acknowledge the role the Russians played in their own revolution because this makes their hero seem less heroic.
I think Ronald Reagan’s fan club doesn’t want to acknowledge the fact that the Soviet economy was such a basket case that the Soviet government would have collapsed if Ronald Reagan had never been born because it makes their hero seem less heroic. [And this doesn’t even take into account the ethnic problem!]
I think Ronald Reagan’s fan club doesn’t want to acknowledge that other Presidents of both parties ever did a thing to fight communism because it makes their hero seem less heroic.
I think Ronald Reagan’s fan club wants to credit their hero with ending communism in the Soviet Union because its members want to start a long series of pointless wars all over the globe in his name.
I think Ronald Reagan’s fan club is dangerously uninformed about recent European history and that its members like it that way as then nothing gets in the way of their preconceived notions about America’s influence in the world.
Ha! This post has gone nowhere near where you’d like to imagine! You’ve resorted to some sad, repetitive diatribe about how everyone else is stupid! Which was exactly the point I was trying to make with my post about Reagan in a cape and tights. That’s the image you need to have of people you disagree with. We’re dumb. We’re uninformed. If only we were smart like you. Marginalizing your opposition like that makes discussion impossible. But, maybe that’s the point. Rarely does anyone want to hear anything but the sound of their own brilliant voice. The funny thing is, your blog is the “fan-club”. We’re the visitors. I get it – no conservatives allowed. I’ll go play with my Reagan Action Figure somewhere else. And you and you’re clubhouse can call it whatever you like.
The best thing Ronald Reagan did was to fire the air traffic controllers. That set the stage for all the great things that came after. I will make it my hobby this year to search Ronald Reagan and post similar ideas.