re: These days are gone and will never return in our lifetime.

It's a trap.

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He admired Reagan the leader

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But did he get a thrill up his leg?

Yeah...

That friendship got us the amnesty that turned Cali blue (Tip promised the Dema would pass significant immigration laws/restrictions in exchange-never happenes) and a tax "reform" that catered the commercial real estate market and precipitated the S&L crisis.

I love Reagan but he did some dumb shite in his second term.

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Reagonomics led to a remerkable increase in the living standards of the working class, yet the knucklehead still believes this.

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The Midwest had been gutted by the time Reagan got into office.

Louisiana was quite immune to the economic ills of the 70's due all of the exploration and production of oil, including all of the supporting businesses. Mid 80's hit us hard. It also hit farmers hard when Reagan cutback give aways by a lot. Farmers had been very heavily subsidized with the Feds purchasing grain since the end of WWII which kept prices artificially very high.

At least in Lake Chuck, the Cadillac dealer salesmen would call up rice farmer wives when the new models came in, drive out the new car with the whistles and bells desired, collect last year's car and a personal check for the balance then drive the trade in back to the dealership. That stopped by 1982.

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Here’s the actual issue

In 1980, the U.S. population was around 226.5 million, predominantly White (about 80%), with Black residents at 11.5%, Hispanic/Latino at 6.5%, and Asian Americans at 1.8%

Compare that to now. The foreign-born population hit a peak of 53.3 million in January 2025 (15.8% of U.S. population)

Whites make up 57-59%
Hispanic/Latino 20%
Black 13%
Asian 7%

We’ve imported the Third World in the last 45 years. So, of course things won’t be the same

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One example particularly relevant to the point of this book is that both Reagan and O'Neill were Irish (the Kennedys too) and that probably helped establish a baseline of trust and common ground to work from.

Also one of the nails in the coffin of the old America was the 1986 amnesty, which was one of the fruits of this supposed great cooperation between Reagan and O'Neill.

most people get their news by glancing at theie phone for 30 seconds....
headlines and sound bytes....no content.

Most of that is anecdotal. I believe it, but it does not refute the statistics, which show that the poor got richer. The middle class got richer. And the wealthy got richer.

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Most of that is anecdotal. I believe it, but it does not refute the statistics, which show that the poor got richer. The middle class got richer. And the wealthy got richer.

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I'm not disagreeing with you in the least. FWIW, the Louisiana rice/soybean farmers I knew who went belly up by 1982 were living lavishly on low interest farm loan money and farming rented land. Those who survived just had to cut back on some luxuries. Interesting that very large landowners changed their business model of owning their own equipment and hiring their own farmhands which they provided housing and medical attention for switched to sharecroppers. Thus, they owned the land and in once case had two sharecroppers who farmed each 10,000 acres. The sharecroppers had investment in $millions in equipment and did the work. The landowners' only investment was in the land, while maintaining drainage and irrigation pumping stations. It was a win/win.