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Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future

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Ronald Reagan was out of the public eye for the ten years preceding his death. During his time in office, and in his first five years out of office, there was an anti-Reagan backlash. (Even George H. W. Bush had a small hand in that, when he spoke of a "kinder and gentler" America, Nancy Reagan was said to have asked, "Kinder and gentler than who?") Numerous critical books were written about Reagan both during and immediately after his presidency.

After Reagan movingly went public with his Alzheimer's diagnosis in 1994, negative criticism in print and on the broadcast media ceased - partly out of respect, but mostly because publishers thought negative books on Reagan would not sell. The former president was consigned to the mist of hagiography. By the time he died in 2004, there were serious calls for memorialization such as adding his visage to the dime and even to Mount Rushmore.

It takes time to look back at history with real perspective.

Two books have been recently published which attempt to present an alternative perspective on the Reagan presidency. One, William Kleinecht's The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America, is revisionist polemic and does more to enrage than enlighten. Will Bunch's Tear Down this Myth, however, is a fair and balanced (to borrow a phrase popular with right-wingers) look at the Reagan presidency. Far from polemic, and often complimentary to President Reagan, Bunch attempts to reveal the presidency of Ronald Reagan as it was experienced by those during the era. Many of the negative reviews appearing on Amazon are obviously written by those who didn't read the book. As I've said before, Amazon needs to look more carefully at reviews before publishing them. This is not a chat board.

The difference between Reagan and George W. Bush, Bunch implies, is that while Reagan had a general philosophy (lower taxes, deregulate the market, stand tall against the Soviets), Bush was dogmatically rigid. True, Reagan signed a massive (and warranted) tax cut in 1981. But he signed six tax increases in the years that followed. Despite what idolaters parrot, the '81 tax cut did not spur economic recovery, but preceded an even deeper recession than the one Reagan inherited. Faced with a Democratic controlled House, Reagan had to compromise on many of his programs. After proposing draconian entitlement cuts in 1981 (anyone remember "ketchup is a vegetable?"), Reagan realized they would never sell and backed off. Ever the pragmatist, Reagan worked with House Speaker Tip O'Neill (who were poles apart politically but enjoyed each others' company) to reform Social Security. He also signed immigration reform and programs to improve health care for the catastrophically ill. Talking tough against the Soviets, Reagan nevertheless was able to hammer out agreements with Mikhail Gorbachev which did more to reduce Cold War tensions than the détente favored by his predecessors. (He also became so worried about increasing tensions in 1983 that he considered inviting Yuri Andropov to an emergency summit.)

But Reagan made mistakes which have been glossed over: including the stationing of Marines in Lebanon and providing aid to Saddam Hussein. The Iran-Contra scandal, which nearly sank his presidency, has been almost forgotten. And the spiraling deficits of the 1980s (repeated 20 years later) proved that the Laffer Curve, which was the cornerstone of Reaganomics, had no basis in actual fact.

How then, did Reagan will two landslides? It's simple. Even though numerous polls showed the American people were leery of his policies, they just liked the guy.

Tear Down this Myth is well researched and Bunch writes in fine, easily readable style. Conservatives have touted Ronald Reagan as America's savior, while Liberals have painted him as the devil incarnate. Reality, as Will Bunch demonstrates, is somewhere in between.

I was a young adult during the Reagan presidency and let's just say I was not a fan. For that reason, I wasn't all that sure I wanted to read this book -- I felt I pretty much "got it" about Reagan, and having lived through the era, could separate myth from reality on my own. I was wrong. This is a fascinating book, whether you remember Reagan as a fan or a foe, or whether you are younger and know him primarily through the legend of conservative purity and wisdom that has grown up around his memory.

Mr. Bunch reminded me of some of the things I disliked about Reagan, but he also reminded me of some things I liked. And I found out about a few things I'd missed at the time and would have liked had I known about them. He also does us a great service by examining how different Reagan the man was from Reagan the myth. In myth: uncompromising. In reality: a pragmatist who would cut a deal to get things done. In myth: the warlike figure who scared the hell out of the Soviets. In reality: a person haunted by the idea of nuclear war and dedicated to arms control and negotiation. In myth: the ferocious tax cutter. In reality: raised taxes every year in office except the first. And so on...

I don't think this book will change your mind about Reagan, exactly. But it will educate you about Reagan, whether you worship him, detest him, or aren't sure. Given how long a shadow the myth of Reagan has cast, essential reading for anyone interested in American politics.

I first ran into the Reagan mythmaking machine when a family member gushed a few years back about how Ronald Reagan won the Cold War. Shocking as this statement was to me, I managed to sputter something about how many presidents -- Democrat and Republican -- had contributed to the win, and that Reagan just happened to be there at the end. But I was always unsettled by the claim.

Now, Will Bunch provides a reminiscence of the story of Reagan's presidency -- both the good and the bad. Bunch reminds us that Reagan was not particularly popular during most of his presidency, and that many Americans had good reason to wonder whether the country was in competent hands. Bunch runs over the Iran-Contra scandal, which came close to ending up in Reagan's impeachment. Far from being a thrifty government downsizer, he added $2 trillion to the national debt and grew the government. Bunch also reminds us that Reagan was the original "cut and run" artist, pulling US troops out of a failed mission in Lebanon within weeks after 241 Marines were killed there in a terrorist attack. We are reminded that Reagan's overtures to Iran to free hostages only resulted in more Americans being taken, and that his economic plans sowed the seeds of deregulation and greed that we are still reaping. We also see Reagan, the man who hated committing troops to war, who was a pragmatist economist who raised taxes when his trickle down theories did not working and whose personal diplomacy with the Soviets came close to riding the world of nuclear weapons.

The second half of the book lays out the players involved in turning Reagan into a poster child for ideas that he did not espouse. Grover Norquist and others are shown twisting Reagan into a champion of constant tax cuts, removal of long-time fiscal regulations and intervener in foreign affairs. George W. Bush eagerly wore his mantle. And even Barack Obama is unable to escape his shadow.

Apart from laying out the facts, Bunch writes well and engagingly. And he is fair. I personally have long thought that the invasion of tiny Grenada, coming close on the heels of the Marine barracks disaster, was meant to distract the public from Reagan's ineptitude. Bunch disagrees, pointing out (not completely convincingly) that the invasion had been in the planning for some time. Bunch argues persuasively that Reagan's popularity grew at the end of his presidency only when he had been so weakened by his own blunders that he had to move to the center. And he was fortunate in becoming an Alzheimer's victim, gaining popular sympathy as he left the public stage.

"Tear Down this Myth" is a must read for liberals as well as conservatives -- anyone, really, interested in basing the politics in reality rather than in myths and wishful thinking. With luck, the political climate may finally be right or this kind of accurate accounting.

I am a Republican that has been in denial until I read this book. This book is long overdue and, with no doubt, it will be bashed by denying and doting Reaganites who refuse to acknowledge and address the undisputable contents of this defining book on the truth of the Reagan years. I'm so glad that the myth has been exposed.

It has taken a journalist Will Bunch to have written the most objective account of the Reagan presidency. According to Bunch, Ronald Reagan was great at creating an easy storyline that the public could follow as seen in his "tear down the wall," speech and his visit to Normandy in 1984. However his domestic policies were a flop such as tax cuts to the very wealthy that did nothing to improve the American economy in the early years of his presidency. Reagan's foreign policy was not that successful either because the arms build up in the first four years of the eighties actually strenghthened the hands of the Soviet hardliners. While in Latin America and the Middle East, Reagan allowed the problems in these regions to fester and his advisors broke laws with the Iran-Contra scandal. Reagan only improved his standing with the public when he took pragmatic steps such as talking with Gorbachev and eventually raising taxes sixteen times during his two terms. When Reagan exited in 1988, journalists and politicians were relunctant to question him about Iran-Contra because they were afraid of another failed presidency.
After Reagan left office, he was rated on a low-average rating by journalists and historians but this perception started to change in 2000. Grover Norquist started the Reagan Legacy Project which made started a campaign to name highways,buildings,an airport, and a aircraft carrier after the former president. When Reagan died in 2004 most of the mainstream journalists took the the myth to heart and did not question some troubling legacies of the fortieth president. This distorted legacy was used by Bush 43 in his insistence on staying in Iraq even though Reagan opposed using military force in combating terrorists and pulled out of Lebanon after a suicide bomber killed 241 marines.Bunch concludes his book by stating that Reagan's greatest failure was rolling back Carter's energy conservation polices that ultimately made the US behind the rest of the industialized world when it comes to the development of alternative energy. The only aspect of the book that Bunch leaves out is how some academics like John Gaddis, Douglas Brinkley, and John Patrick Diggins contributed to the Reagan myth by legitimizing right wing talking points against the actual facts. Despite this minor weakness, Bunch has written the best work about Ronald Reagan and his legacy.

This book shines a light on a concocted myth that was built for political purposes to represent former President Ronald Reagan. But it also reflects on many positive aspects of the former President and his administration, most of which are in direct conflict with the myth. To me, that is the thesis of the book: The "Reagan Myth" is a contrived version of the real Ronald Reagan, for better or worse.

A major reason why a contrived version could be built is that Reagan died in 2004 at the age of 93, after suffering from Alzheimer's for many years before his death. As a result, any direct role in defining his own legacy was over long before his death. No, it was for others to define this myth, not so much for his posterity, as for the contemporary benefit of conservative political candidates.

Not included in the myth, as developed, is the fact that the national debt increased from $700 billion to $3 trillion over his eight-year administration. Also not included is that Reagan never denounced his signing and approval of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. And his tax cuts of 1981 that we hear so much about were followed by tax hikes every single year thereafter that we do NOT hear about. Additionally, the size of the federal government grew significantly during the Reagan years. And his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal was probably the biggest blunder of his Presidency.

Some neutral points are that Reagan ran for President against a relatively unpopular and weakened President Jimmy Carter, and that his business experience was limited to his tenure as Governor of California. Additionally, he was President in 1987 when the DOW had a one-day drop of 508 points.

To his credit, as President, Reagan many times showed the ability to compromise and to be pragmatic. And with his sincere belief in the superiority of democracy and capitalism, he met with confidence with Soviet ruler Mikhail Gorbachev, with whom he worked to reduce the world's supply of nuclear weapons. He also felt strongly that it would be inappropriate to kill civilians, unintentionally or not, in response to terrorist acts. He favored surrogate armies to do the fighting, not American soldiers. And, he once said, "The United States does not start fights. We will never be the aggressor."

Back to the negatives, the author tells us that Reagan:
* Failed to address AIDs or homelessness in any meaningful way as President;
* Failed to foresee the limited future of cheap oil-based fuel or the warming of the planet;
* Did extraordinary damage to the middle class and working people;
* For the most part, showed an obvious callousness toward African-Americans;
* Resisted increasing power of federal regulators, leading to the S&L crisis soon after he left office;
* Oversaw an increasing sense that greed was good and an increasing gap between the salaries of corporate CEOs and the average worker;
* Saw unemployment rise to 10.5% and his approval rating drop to 35%;
* Reportedly opposed Medicare when it was introduced in 1965;
* Raised payroll taxes on workers in 1983;
* Approved the spending of billions of dollars on new weapons systems, which required money the nation did not have;
* Near the end of his second term, was described as being "weak, out of touch, distracted."

As for the myth, the author says that the major thrust to build it began in 1998 at the time of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. And, by his death in the summer of 2004, the occasion of his funeral was billed by some as "a legacy-building event." George W. Bush used the momentum of this effort to gain a narrow victory in the 2004 Presidential election.

The Myth was designed to be selective and simplistic. A basic tenet was that Reagan was a homespun public intellectual. Also included was the belief that Reagan's buildup of the military caused the Berlin Wall to tumble, when, in fact, communist Russia was clearly collapsing under its own weight. And it said that Reagan was a man of God, when he had seldom attended a church when President. And that he shrunk the size of government, when, in fact, it had increased during his tenure. Plus the perception that "there is no problem that cannot be solved with a mixture of optimism and painless policy choices."
Per the author, the Reagan Library is "a great place to escape the real world." There, the President is seen to be all about reducing taxes and shrinking government. There is no mention of the Iran-Contra affair. And even his nomadic alcoholic father is depicted as having stood for "the value of hard work and ambition."

Per one source, "Reagan embraced the consumer-oriented, pleasure-seeking culture that seemed to thrive during the 1980's and 1990's." In polls that rank our U.S. Presidents, he comes out above average in most. But what is hard to distinguish is whether voters of these polls are evaluating the real President Reagan or the myth. After reading this book, I feel that I have a much better understanding of the differences between the two.

Bunch tells how the right-wing hijacked the mixed legacy of Ronald Reagan and turned him into a bronze icon to revive their ideology. The result - all GOP presidential candidates in 2008 tried to claim his mantle.

Reality is that, while he was in office, a majority opposed most of his policies and by 1988 felt strongly that the nation was on the wrong track. Reagan's 1981 tax cut, weighted heavily towards the rich, did not cause the economic recovery of the 1980s - instead it was falling oil prices, the normal business cycle, and tight fiscal policies of Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker - appointed by Carter. Neither did his $1.5 trillion 50% over five year military buildup win the Cold War. Some experts, including George Kennan and Richard Nixon, believe Reagan's military buildup and Star Wars delayed and complicated Gorbachev's liberalization; it would have collapsed anyway - Gorbachev himself pointed to the weak Russian economy and backwardness, denied Reagan's military buildup was a factor. Reagan did, however, help bring in the era of deregulation and greed on Wall Street.

Reagan's real contributions - a willingness to talk to the Soviets, a desire to eliminate the nuclear weapons, and bringing about a temporary cure for Social Security ills, are not mentioned by his fawning admirers.

The first day of the Reagan presidency (1/20/81) was the day Iran's revolutionaries released the 52 American hostages held 444 days - per agreement with Warren Christopher 1/19/81. (Other sources credit George H.W. Bush.) Reagan officials' efforts to free new Iranian hostages led to the Iran-Contra affair. Reagan's legalization of an estimated 2.7 million illegals in 1986, an action he never renounced and clearly did not end the problem, is also ignored by his disciples. Likewise, so his is withdrawal from Lebanon after the 1983 Marine barracks bombing.

The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 reduced marginal tax rates for all Americans by 25% over three years - 70% to 50% for those at the top, 14% to 11% for lower-income payers. It also reduced taxes on business profits, capital gains (28% to 20%), inheritances ($165K floor raised to $600K), and oil income. Sixteen months after Reagan's 25% reduction in tax rates for all, unemployment reached 10.85 (12/1982). Federal debt also rose from $700 billion to $3 trillion under Reagan. When he took office, middle-income Americans with children paid 8.2% of pay in income taxes + 9.5% in payroll taxes; when Reagan left it was 6.6% and 11.5%. Marginal tax rates for those at the top fell from 70% to 28%. Meanwhile, the federal civilian workforce went from 2.8 to 3.0 million.

Some believe IBM's 1982 introduction of the PC was more important in lifting the economy. Regardless, lifting many restrictions on S&Ls in 1982 was followed by a bailout 7 years later due to losses in high-risk commercial real estate ventures, and then the 2009 prime-mortgage fiasco. Manufacturing jobs declined under Reagan by an estimated 300,000 - 1.8 million, we became the world's greatest debtor nation, wealth inequality began its great upward leap, and the middle-class began its decades of real-income stagnation. Consumer debt rose from 74.9% of after-tax income to 96.9%.

Extended deregulation to S&Ls, with a $160B bailout in 1989.

Federal spending grew 2.5%/year in real terms while Reagan was in office.

Supporting surrogates to wage war in Central America provided tacit endorsement of their atrocities - eg. the Salvadoran death squads.

A USAToday poll 4 days after the fall of the Berlin Wall g ave 43% of the credit to Gorbachev, and 14% to Reagan; the figures were 70% and 2% among Germans. The Soviets never increased their military spending to match the Reagan building - insiders say this may even have delayed reforms.

The 1986 bombing of Libya was the only major military response to terrorism under Reagan.

Reagan's approval rating bounced back to 63% when he left office - it had been as low as 40%, and averaged 53%, about average for modern-day leaders.

Finally, Reagan unwound Carter's efforts to improve fuel efficiency, rolling back CAFE standards, reducing funding for alternative energy, and removing the solar heating panels on the White House. Auto safety issues were also ignored. Federal spending under Clinton dropped from 21.4% in 1993 to 18.5% in 2001. Clinton's 1993 tax hike as followed by a greater boom than that following Reagan's tax cut.

Overall, Bunch does a good job of pulling back the legacy that clouded Republican actions since Reagan.

For anyone who questions the anointing of Ronald Reagan as one of the greatest presidents in American history, this book provides ample evidence of an effort to manufacture a legacy beyond what he deserved. Journalist Will Bunch, and don't forget that this is a work of journalism and not of history, begins by asking why there are so many Ronald Reagan buildings, roads, etc., and argues that it is the result of a conscious effort to enhance Reagan's legacy by political operatives within the Republican Party. He then proceeds to analyze the claims made on behalf of Ronald Reagan, usually finding them overblown at best and fallacious at worst.

The most significant claim is that Ronald Reagan won the cold war, after 40 years of stalemate. His famous statement at the Berlin Wall in 1987, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," was eloquent but belied a subsuming set of initiatives on both sides and a crippling set of weaknesses in the Soviet Union that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was far from a magical event. Anyone seriously studying the subject realizes that the Soviet Union collapsed for internal reasons ranging from economic crisis to imperial overstretch to the incursion of knowledge that a better future might be achieved by pursuing a different political agenda more in synch with rather than in tension with the West. Mikhail Gorbachev was forced to pursue the new policies of glasnost and perestroika and in the process dismantled the Soviet empire and ended communism. Although no one person was responsible for this turning point, Gorbachev deserves much of the credit for transformations in the Soviet Union, especially its demise without a death struggle.

That is not to say that Reagan played no role. Both Bunch and numerous historians have observed that Reagan was astute to allow the internal situation in the Soviet Union to play out, that he was also helpful to the process by working with Gorbachev on arms control and the reduction of nuclear weapons. A legitimate claim to effectiveness for Reagan in this instance, however, is subverted by an outrageous claim on his behalf. Outrageous because it rests on the most egregious of all historians' fallacies, that of causation, especially "post hoc, ergo propter hoc," Latin for "after this, because of this." It is, according to David Hackett Fischer "the mistaken idea that if event B happened after event A, it happened because of event A" (David Hackett Fischer, "Historian's Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought" [New York: Harper, 1970], p. 166). Many events follow sequential patterns without being causally related. Historians commit the Post Hoc Fallacy whenever they assert a causal conclusion based solely on the supposed cause preceding its "effect." Assigning Reagan credit for ending the cold war because he talked tough is a stellar example of the Post Hoc Fallacy, as the case must always be made on the basis of the most circumstantial, and perhaps nonexistent, relationships.

Then there are the discussions of Reagan's economic policies, his tax and monetary policies, regulatory stance, and his emphasis on values and virtue. Will Bunch also spends considerable time on the Iran-Contra affair, a subject that has not received the attention that it deserves. He takes aim at them as well.

While I find "Tear Down This Myth" a useful corrective to all of the chattering about Ronald Reagan as saint, it was repetitious, sometimes pedantic, and too often given to hyperbole. Don't get me wrong, politically I agree with Bunch. As an historian, however, I would have liked a more judicious and dispassionate analysis. "Tear Down This Myth" has more of a patina of advocacy than of historical scholarship. It is, I believe, an important start in the scholarly analysis of Reagan administration in the U.S. in the 1980s, but it is a long way from being the ending point. Bunch has contributed a useful, thought provoking account, one that will serve as a major demarkation for future investigation.

Ronald Reagan was the actor who later went onto a political career. So it is ironic that his Party successors earnestly now attempt to rescript his legacies for subsequent generations. They honestly confuse the real-life man with the roles he adopted to hold public office.

This is an ongoing attempt to 'pick up' from Reagan's initial years in the White House. It was the same administration previously suggesting that children obtain more vegetable intake through eating ketcup during public school lunches. The White House only issued its first AIDS statement in 1985, even as his friend Rock Hudson was gravely ill with this new disease years earlier.

Such positioning marked a 'curious' rightward shift from his stint as California Governor. In 1967, then-Governor Reagan signed a bill into law permitting California women to obtain legal abortions inside that state. But wanting the 1980 GOP presidential nomination, and aware of the New Right's growing intra-party power, Reagan (or by now, his handlers)placed politics before conviction. He had to appeal to certain voters.

We frequently yell about the elected officials who compromise. We are not conceding their actions are part of American politics.

Because of this, Bunch's assessment is professionally-balanced. He does argue that this president was, unlike his modern successors, frequently able to compromise with Democrats on important policy areas where and when it effectively counted. Some of the errors (like Iran-Contra) were retrospectively severe though and cannot be erased though naming.

In today's era of government shut downs and grandstanding, I'm reflecting that Ronald Reagan and then-Speaker Thomas P. 'Tip' O'Neil could personally get along despite politically appearing to not have much in common with each other. What would they say about the 'advanced' 21st century?

People looking for a book to simply justify hatred of the right are going to be disappointed by Will Bunch's excellent research. Because it does make a strong case that could also be of mutual interest to many conservatives today, the book should have another title. It has so much potential to reach larger audiences with really important information.

I'll admit that I was never a fan of Reagan, finding him terribly overrated and his many faults willfully ignored. What puzzled me most was the deification of Reagan that seemed to build during the last 20 years, literally rewriting history to create a sanitized and sometimes entirely false persona. For that reason I read this book.

Bunch demonstrates how this was done and by whom. He provides item-by-item rebuttals to each point of the Reagan "legend", especially the more blatant untruths regarding his supposed victory in the Cold War, his reputation for cutting taxes, and his bravery in the face if international terrorism. In fairness, Bunch also shows that Reagan was more pragmatic that even his supporters are willing to acknowledge, using negotiation instead of threats in dealing with other nations. But he mostly shows quite convincingly that most of the Reagan story is so much fiction.

The book will not likely convince anyone who believes the created Reagan story, the people who give the one-star ratings without ever reading the book. But if you prefer facts to fantasy and like to apply your best critical thinking skills, definitely read this thin but insightful book.