I Still Hate Ronald Reagan | Ronald Reagan

This fucking guy. Hello my little jelly beans. Welcome to This Fucking Guy, a podcast about self-care, if self-care is one long scream into the void. Here is where we use expletives and alcohol to emotionally process creeps, jerks, and dingleberries that compose the shitty elevator music of our lives. I'm just a girl. Ren Martinez. And I'm sorry I'm not home right now. I'm walking into spiderwebs. Ginger Golub. Leave a message and I'll call you back. Unlikely sorry. Yeah.

I love that there's that ska girl 90s voice that's like right in the back of your throat. Like you just get right on back there. That's where you live. It's very Gen X. Yes. It's the caterwall of the Gen X that made up 90s music. Either, you know, like... Yeah, it's the Lady Creed voice. There's no consonants at all. There were no consonants in the 90s. Yeah. Not a single fucking one. Or blondes in that band. You're right.

Four non-blondes. The whole name of that business. Oh, goodness. 90s music. I miss you. You were messy. you less messy

I am less messy than four non-blondes. You know, I'm doing all right. I think it's a testament to how ungodly hot it is outside. I'm recording this from my attic where it's 81 degrees, according to this thermometer. And I'm just like, this is lovely. Yeah, that is. It's a time of Virginia summer. I think fondly known as Satan's front porch. And it's the worst. It's not only where the temperature is in like the 99s, 100 range, but humidity is like...

Over 9,000. Like, it's 150% water in the air. You are literally breaststroking every time you're outside. It's really deeply unpleasant. Anybody... from the South who says that their favorite season is summer, just still hasn't gotten over being in, like, primary school and getting the whole summer off and not having to deal with that. That's the thing.

I think anyone who says summer is their favorite season is just remembering when they had summers off. That's the only association as to why summer was the best. If you had all winter off, it would be winters. Yes. Because you have the whole thing off. Well, winter also has the present holidays. That's true. Definitely the best time for presents. Also really good food. Good food holidays.

Yeah, I mean, you can, nobody's gonna stop you if you try to make a green bean casserole during the summer, but, like, someone should. It's like wearing white shoes after Labor Day. It would be deeply unsettling. Could you imagine going to someone's like Fourth of July cookout and there being green bean casserole there? I would be... Honestly, that would send me spiraling into a panic attack. I'd be like, something's wrong. Like, what timeline is this? Deeply uncomfortable. Yep.

Oh, God. So, Ren, I gotta ask, is there anything you need to scream into the void? Well, um, there's been a lot of, uh... I would say white nonsense happening recently at a place relatively near our work. The same city, at least. The same city, at least. A gentleman was a... relaxing at a strip mall, just in front of a restaurant on their bench. It's hot as balls. He's just sitting there on her umbrella, fucking chilling.

But he's a black man, therefore a threat. So I think in the end it was like 10 police officers and a van and a whole thing to like... get this man, like, who was trespassing. Like, what the fuck? And of course, you know, the rest of them was like, well, he didn't buy anything. And then... apparent onlookers were like well we'll buy stuff for him it's fine and they're like that doesn't count anymore like get the fuck out of here like

Get out of here. I think since then, like, the white nonsense has increased a little bit because now... A lot of people are, like, jumping to this restaurant's defense saying, like, well, I heard he had been drinking. To which I say, it's quarantine still. Are we not all doing that? Right? Also, like, still not bothering anyone. If I want to get drunk on White Claw on a stoop, like, quietly by myself, who am I bothering? It's not Prohibition Era, seriously. Truly.

But that's not the only one. There was this couple at Walmart wearing face masks. That kind of looked more like scarves, but whatever. But face masks. With giant swastikas on them. I mean, like plate-sized swastikas on their face. And of course, people are like, um, hello. that's awful and you should be ashamed of your whole life. And they were saying the reason they're wearing it, this is amazing.

The dude was also wearing a Trump shirt. You already knew, but just to really double down. In my heart, I knew. They said, well, we're wearing this because if Biden's elected... We're going to be under a new Nazi regime and be forced to wear this. So this is actually a protest against voting Joe Biden, which I... I'd like to, there's a lot wrong there. There's a lot. But I would like to point out what the Jews were forced to wear by Nazis was the Star of David. Yes. Not the swastika.

People wore that voluntarily. So it's, your history's wrong. So there's that. But also, maybe rethink your entire existence. I mean, like, God, we want them to wear masks, but at what cost? Like, there's a little part of me that's like, at least they were wearing the mask. Yeah, I mean, but, you know... But along that thought... That's a wrong takeaway, but still. Along that thought, like, you're gonna see... Like, I'm just...

I never would have thought, right? I was expecting MAGA and, like, Trump and, like, Blue Lives Matter, whatever the fuck. But, like, straight-up swastika face. Like, I'm like, oh, okay, so clearly... There's no boundaries. There is no limit. So I'm expecting the next video to go viral on Reddit where people are straight up wearing KKK hoods, like going to Walmart, being like, well, I'm wearing a face mask. And it's like...

Side note, swastika face sounds like the laziest Bond villain. Yeah, I mean, but Bond villains got pretty lazy. Oh, yeah. I mean, just like what makes him evil? His, his finger. What makes him evil? He has bad teeth. He had bad dental work and now he's evil because of it. Like, yeah. Give the man a break, okay? Not everyone gets dental in their insurance plans. God. So judgy. So that was, that's, I think, really just continuing white nonsense.

It's just what I am still screaming about all day and every day. The caucasity of it all. And on that note, I suppose we might need therapy.

Alright, so Jinji. Yes. We're at that point where your back is relatively okay. Yes, for now. So now you can tell me about this fucking guy. Okay, so, Ren. Yeah. I know that at this point we're like 32 episodes deep and that... asking for a recall of like around episode nine is a whole lot. But I want you to think back to the Roy Cohn episode when we were talking about him just being connected to everything that was... Bad. Shitty. Right.

I want you to remember that there was a certain somebody that we ended up talking about as a sidebar, and I told you that for your birthday you were going to get them as... Your very own special, this fucking guy. Is this ringing any bells? Oh, I think, okay, yes, maybe. Ronald Wilson Reagan. Ah, this mother... I hate him so much. Yeah. You might want to get a pillow before you collapse on the floor. And while Ren is doing that, dear listeners, I do feel the need to mention this topic.

is obviously so expansive. There's so much we could talk about that there's a couple things that I have just... held back and I'm saving for other episodes, so if you listen to this and you go, well, you didn't talk about this, like, it's probably coming. Yeah. So, the pillow I have, this was really...

When I was super into BBC Sherlock. Refused to watch anything after the second season. It just ends there. Just so you know. It ends there. My sister got me a felt Sherlock pillow. And a little scarf. A little hair. So that's what I'll be using to scream into when the time comes. Just scream directly into Benedict Cumberbatch. Who is like a very... handsome aliens interpretation of what humans may look like at some point. He's like if a hammerhead shark decided to model.

I've always heard that it's like it's aliens decided to breed humans as show dogs. But both are correct.

So yeah, we're going to talk about literally my favorite president ever. I'm super excited. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to you. And happy birthday to Ronald Wilson Reagan, who was born on... February 6th, 1911. A little late, but alright. A little late, but, you know. Or possibly a little early. Hmm? In Tampico, Illinois, Reagan's father nicknamed his son Dutch due to his fat little Dutchman appearance and Dutch boy haircut. The name stuck with him throughout his youth. Now, okay.

Right off the bat, that baby did not give himself an unflattering haircut, and I have, like, I have no love for Reagan, but it seems cruel for his father to make... This little kid look terrible and then make fun of him for looking terrible. I don't... I don't know what a Dutch haircut is. Is that... What is that? Uh...

I think I'm a little lad who loves berries and cream. Well, I mean, but that's curls to me. No, it's like the straight across bangs and then the slightly longer bob, but on a boy. So the prince valiant. Yes. See, I know it has no connection to the Dutch for me. It is very much that Prince Valiant cartoon that was still in the Sunday comics that was really boring and I did not care about.

Yeah, no, I tried to read that because I was like, well, the art looks very elevated to me as a five-year-old. I have no idea what the fuck is going on. It seems like there's several decades of backstory I don't have. It's just like, get me to Marmaduke. I don't have time for this. Reagan attended Eureka College, a liberal arts school where he was both in a fraternity and was a cheerleader. He was a truly mediocre student and majored in economics and sociology and graduated with a C average.

After graduating from Eureka in 1932, Reagan took jobs in Iowa as a radio announcer at several stations. He was known for doing like the sports play-by-plays, which are the only... thing more boring to me than watching sports on television. But he was covering the Cubs training season in California in 1937, and then he was like, hey, I'm going to take the screen test. And then he got a seven-year contract with Warner Brothers, because that's how that was working at the time.

He did a bunch of films over the next couple years that I had never heard of, except for the weirdly titled Canute Rockne All-American, which is where he acquired the lifelong nickname The Gipper. I'm sorry, how many lifelong nicknames could one person have? Yeah, I don't know if the gipper is better or worse than Dutch. Well, Dutch at least sounds name-like. What the fuck is a gipper?

The guy's last name that he was playing was, like, Gip. Okay. And he, I guess, is languishing in some scene, and he tells, like... one of his colleagues do it for the Gipper. And I'm like, no, you cannot give yourself a nickname. Yeah, you cannot give yourself a nickname. There's that. But also, like, I was in Footloose, like, the musical.

back in, like, college, and I played a character named Earlene, and I didn't, like, start going by Earlener. Like, that's not how anything works. Weird. Uh, yeah. Your guess is as good as mine. Reagan co-starred in the film Brother Rat. All of these titles are real winners. All straight to DVD. With actress Jane Wyman, who he married in 1940 and had some kids with.

in 1942 he was ordered to military active duty in san francisco due to his reportedly poor eyesight he was excluded from serving overseas, like he didn't have to go into combat. Instead, he was assigned to the first motion picture unit in Culver City. By the end of the war, his units had produced about 400 training films for the Air Force. He retired from what I guess we're calling active duty? I guess? I guess?

I mean, this kind of reminds me, side note, the military in Hollywood have always been banging. Like, they've always been hooking up. And the most recent sort of media Hollywood military thing is Twitch. Twitch is a channel where you can stream video game playing. They recently suspended the Army's official Twitch stream game team.

Because they were playing games, but of course it's a recruitment tool. The whole point is to recruit. And people kept commenting in the chat box like, what about those war crimes? And so they were trying to ban the use of the word war crime in their chat box. And then Twitch was like, you can't do that. And then they're like, you're, you're, you're impeding on our first amendment rights. And we had to remind.

the u.s army that you're actually the government and so it doesn't account like it's not the same like you're the government you're literally The government. While he was in the service... Reagan obtained a film reel depicting the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. He held onto it, believing that doubts would someday arise as to whether the Holocaust had occurred, which is like... A weird amount of foresight, and I guess good job? I guess, but also... What? Wouldn't...

What? I mean, he was right. Like, I'm not gonna shit on him for that. Well, yeah, but like, why would he save it? Wouldn't he give it to somebody else? Like, did he keep it in his basement? Oh, that I don't know. That I don't know. I don't know if you go to, like, the Reagan estate and go through the junk drawer if you just find a film reel of Auschwitz. Right, like, wouldn't you give it to, like, the Library of Congress to preserve?

Reagan was elected to the board of directors of the Screen Actors Guild in 1941. He became president of SAG, the Screen Actors Guild, in 1947 and was then re-elected six times. He led the SAG through the Hollywood Blacklist era. You remember the Blacklist. Mmm. We haven't talked about it explicitly, but there was sort of like a lot around it when we were talking about the Hays Code.

And it's not the same thing as that, but it's the thing where the studio executives would refuse to hire anyone that they thought might be a communist. So... Many decades later, we found out that during the late 40s, Reagan and his then-wife, Jane Wyman, provided the FBI with names of actors that they believed to be communist sympathizers. So, he's a fucking snitch. Yeah. And a scab. Already. It's not a good look. With Holocaust footage in his man cave basement. Holocaust footage in hand.

His wife started to see that Reagan had political ambitions above being president of SAG and very sensibly said, oh, fuck no, and filed for divorce in 1948. Super ironically. Wyman was a registered Republican, and she stated that their breakup was also due to a difference in politics because Reagan was still a Democrat at that point. She divorced him for being too liberal.

Right, right, right. But like a Democrat who also sells out colleagues as possible communists. Like, you know what I mean? Yes. A very Biden Democrat. Reagan, the most Biden Democrat. Oh, God. In the 50s. It's coming in hot. In the 50s, he was hired as the host of the General Electric Theater, where he basically went around and gave talks as to, like... business good. It made him very popular and earned him a shitload of money.

But Reagan met actress Nancy Davis in 1949, about 15 minutes after his divorce was finalized. She had contacted him because he was president of SAG still, and she needed to get unblacklisted. Because, oops, she was on the blacklist. Not because of anything she actually did, but because there was another Nancy Davis working who apparently was a communist. And, yeah. Oh, no. She was like, I couldn't be associated with this possibly. And who is this handsome man who is helping me?

They got married in 1952 and had two babies. He often called her mommy. Yeah. For my mom. that is even more awkward than Mike Pence calling his wife mother. I mean, yeah, mother's bad too, but mother's kind of like old-timey weird in a way, so like you could... possibly get away with it in a weird old timey way mommy is just you like to be pegged and you're very much not hiding it like it is woo yes

Like, mother is, you're a Puritan, mommy is, you are an adult baby. Either way, you are the bottom in that relationship. And he was. Anyway, Reagan began as a Democrat and often said that Franklin D. Roosevelt was a true hero to him. But as we know, he did not stay a Democrat. Allegedly, part of the reason he became a conservative was that... A little bit... the money, a little bit of the I fucking hate communists, a little bit that Nancy was a Republican.

You know, the anti-communist zeitgeist and yada, yada, yada. He endorsed Eisenhower and Nixon. You know, endorsing Nixon, that thing that's always a good look. When the legislation that would become Medicare was introduced in 1961, he created a recording for the American Medical Association, warning that such legislation would mean the end of freedom in America.

He's not wrong. Did you know that Medicare is what ended freedom in America? You know, it's one of the top things that ended freedom in America. Yeah, providing health care was definitely one of the top things that ended all of our freedoms. Yeah, I think it's providing health care, then masks, and then avocado toast. Absolutely. In that order. Yeah. Reagan said on the General Electric Theater thing that if his listeners did not write letters to prevent Medicare from passing, quote,

we will awake to find that we have socialism. And if you don't do this, and if I don't do it, one of these days, you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it... once was like in America when men were free. Which men were free at the time, Reagan? Which men were those again? Like, when you talk about a time when men were free... What men were those again? At that time?

We can gain national attention in his speeches for conservative presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. We will get around to him. So he was campaigning for Goldwater in 64. In late 1965, he announced... his campaign for governor of California. In his campaign, he emphasized two main themes. One, to send the welfare bums back to work. And two, to clean up the mess in Berkeley. He won and was sworn in. Yeah, Berkeley, like...

In case you don't know, like, what he was referencing was student protests of the Vietnam War. Like, how dare they? That really shitty war that made no fucking sense? How very dare they? Someone that we lost? But communists, Ren. But communists. But communists. He won and was sworn in on January 2nd, 1967. He tried running for president to get the nomination in 68, but did not. So as governor, he sent the...

California Highway Patrol and other police to crush anti-war student protests in Berkeley. This led to an incident that became known as Bloody Thursday, resulting in the death of student... James Rector, and the blinding of Carpenter Alan Blanchard. 111 police officers were also injured in the conflict. Sir Reagan clearly did the only sensible thing he could have done.

deployed 2,200 State National Guard troops to occupy the city of Berkeley for two weeks to crack down on the protesters. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. This will never happen again, I'm sure. I'm sure that America will learn its lesson. Just learn that lesson so hard. One year after the incident, Reagan responded to questions about campus protests.

movement saying, quote, if it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with. No more appeasement. Very, very cool. Very chill. Very cool and chill. And what about... The liberties again? What was it about giving healthcare will end free men and the liberties that we have as Americans to free speech thing? Is that... Related?

He also got real weird on abortion after signing a bill that allowed clinically appropriate abortions in an effort to curb back alley ones. But then conservatives made him feel bad for it, and he went super anti-abortion after that. I do not have time to get into all of the speeches at evangelical churches that he made about it.

Like, if we ever want to punish our Patreon subscribers, we might do a bonus episode that's just us reading wiki quote Ronald Reagan at rallies. Well, this is also the time period... And I think it was Jerry Falwell. I think it's a Jerry Falwell thing. It's usually Jerry Falwell. Evangelicals actually didn't really give a shit about abortion. That wasn't their thing until the 60s and 70s when it became less cool to cite the Bible to keep school segregated.

So like in order to try to keep school segregated and keep political power, they're like, well, abortion looks better than the whole racism thing. Like racism is starting to be a little bit. So let's just go full speed abortion. Well, did they know if they just waited, it would be socially acceptable again. It's all cyclical. Reagan was also pretty questionable on the... He opposed the expansion of Redwood National Forest, saying, a tree's a tree. How many more do you need to look at?

I finally have her screaming! Yay! He also drastically misunderstood the science behind pollution and climate change, saying Well, that's not new. saying approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation. So let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards from man-made sources. dude you're a c plus student like what the you don't fuck all you know not even plus you know nothing like you barely graduated like get out of here

In 1967, Reagan signed the Mulford Act, which repealed a law that allowed public carrying of loaded firearms. So basically, he made it illegal to... to do open carry with firearms in California. In that year, he stated very sensibly, Americans don't go around carrying guns with the idea that they're using them to influence other Americans. There's no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.

A conservative hero. Fair. A conservative icon. So he's a Republican. He's a fucking NRA member. What in the world would ever make him criminalize open carry? Hmm.

Well, the bill was drafted in response to members of the Black Panther Party who were lawfully conducting armed patrols of Oakland neighborhoods in what would later be termed cop-watching. There it is. So, of course. As long as... that criminalizes the actions of black people it turns out reagan and the nra support the shit out of it yeah that has that's that's pretty much the same today not much has changed they're like hey man

freedoms and liberties are really important and then out of the corner like a woman a black woman let's say a black woman's like hey hey that means like reproductive rights and i can carry a firearm right Actually, we're going to retract what we said about the liberties. Who let her in here? Who let her in here?

One of Reagan's greatest frustrations as governor was the controversy surrounding capital punishment, which he strongly supported. And anyway, he was doing his best to kill folks, but was... when the Supreme Court of California issued its People v. Anderson decision which invalidated all death sentences issued in California before 1972. It got overturned later.

But the poor little Dutch boy only got to execute one person during his whole governorship. And he was very sad. I wanted to murder more people. He was so sad. So pro-life of him. So pro-life of him. In 1969, Reagan signed the first no-fault divorce legislation in the United States, which is a surprisingly decent thing. But of course, he later told his son Michael that the signing of the law was his greatest regret in public life.

That was his greatest regret? His greatest regret. No fault, Davor? Are you fucking kidding? Are you f- I- Oh, oh no. Oh, Jesus. I need another beer. Ooh, this one's- This one's going down too quick. Oh, pause for Ren to get another beer. Like literally pause. I will be, I need more alcohol. Oh my God. I'm going to crack this beer in the microphone. So you have the sound clip for later.

She's back. My husband is very confused and bewildered. As to why there's so much screaming? As to why there's so much screaming. He's like, why are you so angry? I'm like, it's Ronald Reagan! He's like, oh, right. Keep the door closed. Your screaming's a little loud. You know how much I hate Ronald, right? He's like, I know. The answer is so much.

So anyway, you ready to get back into it? Yeah. Okay. So Reagan, in total... tried to get the Republican nomination for president twice and totally failed before he actually got it. In the 1980 presidential election, he ran against incumbent President Jimmy Carter during the Iran hostage crisis. So that worked out extremely well for him, seeing as he won 40. four states in the popular vote I hope that that bodes well for this November that like a president

Actively fucking up everything. Perhaps. I mean, we all love Jimmy Carter in retrospect, just not as president and actively. Not that I was there to know. Yeah, I mean, everything I know about Jimmy Carter is that he was the nicest man ever who had to give up his peanut farm. Because of potential conflicts of interest with the peanut farm. Yeah. Imagine.

On March 30th, 1981, John Hinckley did what you are contemplating at this very moment and tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan. He got even more popular after this and was fine. That's essentially all I wrote about it. I don't know if you watched the John Oliver's last week tonight about conspiracy theories. Yes. Which was really, really good. But that whole thing about like...

Because Reagan lived, there's no conspiracy theories about the event. Because it wasn't that big a deal. If he had died, there would have been like, aliens came and whatever. John Hinckley, you could have been an American hero. Yeah. Now, one thing that I will say for Reagan is that I do not agree with his policies, but he had...

hilarious comedic timing, because apparently when his wife rushed to his bedside in the hospital, all he said was, I forgot to duck. Which is like, you know, solid goof for just being shot. is that Reagan actually reminded me reminds me a little bit of Barack Obama in terms of like the ability to present something to the public that is

really amiable, very funny, like people really connect with. Like there is a certain... public persona that people really gravitate towards that Reagan had and Obama have so like I recognize that he was this person that was very jovial and charismatic and like I get all that it's it's just sort of the whole like The rest of the stuff you're going to talk about makes me be like, I don't care how nice you are, really. As president, Reagan campaigned to restore organized prayer to the schools.

In 1981, he became the first president to propose a constitutional amendment on school prayer. Oh my god, really? Never mind that there had already been a Supreme Court case prohibiting state officials from composing an official state prayer and requiring that be recited in public schools. Ugh. In 1985. That's just for points. He's just doing that for political points. He knows it won't go through. I don't even know. He's just trying to jerk off to his base.

Also worth mentioning, the year before he was elected, he stated at an evangelical convention that... Evolution has in recent years been challenged in the world of science and is not yet believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was believed. But if it was going to be taught in schools, then I think... I think that also the biblical theory of creation, which is not a theory, but the biblical story of creation should also be taught. There's...

No one was fighting about that in science. No one. It's not a theory. It's a story, Ran. Oh, my God. I mean, hey, here's my thing. Here's my thing. I will always say it. Like, look, if you want to have school. If you want that to be mandated, that's fine. I pray... With, like, a crow skull and candles and, like, naked in the moonlight. So this is how I get to pray in schools. Yes. So, except.

I mean, I'm such a fan of this theory that because it's a story and not a theory that it is therefore more credible. To which I would like the Secretary of the Interior to look into the number of homes owned by bears that little girls are breaking into and burglarizing. You know what's another great story? The lore. So maybe we should stop making sneeds and, like, listen to the trees. Okay? Yes.

Reagan promoted a lot of economic policies that clearly were written by someone with a liberal arts college economics major, which means that they made the economy seem like it was working great for a lot of middle and upper class people, while also making the poor more distant. I am not going to harp on the economic stuff just because I don't find it particularly interesting. You can Google it. There's a lot out there. Just know.

Trickle down economics isn't a thing. It does not work. It's not how anything works. Listen to any actual economist tell you it does not work. Reagan, despite being the literal head of the government, kind of hated the government, and he cut the budgets of non-military programs, including Medicaid, food stamps, federal education programs, and the EPA. He pretends... Yeah, so again, fuck him.

The Reagan administration was often criticized for undermining civil rights legislation. In March 1968, he vetoed the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987. But his veto was overridden by Congress. Reagan had argued that the legislation infringed on states' rights and the rights of churches and business owners. We talked about the shitty dog whistle shit during this episode.

southern strategy episode if anyone's interested in hearing more on that but the upshot is that it's gross the thing is is that when these dumb fucks come to me about states rights i'll be like Rights to do what? Mm-hmm. Rights to do what again? Could we enumerate what those are? Could you really explicitly tell me what rights we're talking about?

Yeah, because it's very rarely like states' rights to put more restrictions on carbon entering the atmosphere. It's almost always states' rights to discriminate against someone. Well, that's, like, the whole thing, like, with, you mentioned that, but I'm also thinking, like, sanctuary cities, like, states, like, creating legislation to protect sanctuary cities, and then, like, the federal government being like, you can't do that!

And then it's like, where are the states' rights people? Where are the states' rights people? These are the states' rights. Oh, I guess it doesn't matter if it's like protecting people of color. I guess it's not what the point was. Oh, no.

Reagan escalated the Cold War and ordered a massive buildup of the United States Armed Forces. Under a policy that came to be known as the Reagan Doctrine, Reagan and his administration also provided overt and covert aid to anti- communist regime movements in an effort to roll back Soviet-based communist governments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Ren, my sweet. How do you think that went? You know what? I think it led to very peaceful exchanges of power.

where the peoples who elected these officials, those choices were accepted by other countries, and everything went smoothly. Reagan deployed the CIA's special activities division to Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were instrumental in training, equipping, and leading Mujahideen forces against the Soviet army.

That means that Afghanistan was able to oust their Russian overlords, but also suddenly had a bunch of weapons that they could use against the United States and did years later. Oopsie doodles. Oopsie whoopsie doodle. A big whoop whoa. The administration was criticized for backing anti-communist leaders accused of severe human rights violations, such as Efrain Rios Mont of Guatemala. I apologize if I'm...

not saying that right. During the 16 months Mont was president of Guatemala, the Guatemalan military was accused of genocide for massacres of members of indigenous groups. They sure were. Reagan said that Mom was getting a bum rap and described him as a man of great personal integrity. You know, you know what's the... best way to preserve democracy as like the beacon of democracy in the world. The best way to preserve it.

is to overthrow other people's governments and install your own person on it. Like, that is democracy at its finest hour, okay? Is when we decide what you want as a nation. Yeah. Also, I feel like the word integrity is going to become like the word literally where it can mean that or the exact opposite of that.

Because I very rarely hear people described as someone of great integrity if they have not committed genocide or other, like, atrocities. The only time anyone brings up integrity is, like... immediately post like blackface scandal or like yeah or maybe they raped somebody in college right but they're a man of great personal time Man of great integrity. Ronald Reagan.

Previous human rights violations had prompted the United States to cut off aid to the Guatemalan government, but the Reagan administration made sure they got those sweet, sweet non-military dollars. On October 25th, 1983, Reagan ordered the U.S. forces to invade Granada, codenamed Operation Urgent Fury. I know. Okay, that's the dumbest... fucking military codename. Urgent Fury sounds like diarrhea. I was gonna say it sounds like the symptoms of a urinary tract infection.

There were several days of fighting in Granada, but the Americans won, as they tend to, and left once they were sure another non-communist government was in place. I pulled two quotes from WikiQuote that I did not quite know how to integrate, so I'm just going to give them to you as a little switching up the palette. Why not? While speaking about Latin America. While I learned a lot, you'd be surprised. They're all individual countries.

Additionally, in November 1983, he reacted to international criticism of the invasion of Granada, saying... 100 nations in the UN have not agreed with us on just about everything that's come before them, where we're involved, and it didn't upset my breakfast at all. that whole sorry that whole it's not just they're all different they're all individual countries like that if that isn't the most american thing i've ever heard in my life

Like, if he was being funny, it was a pretty shitty joke. And if he wasn't being funny, oh god. Just, it's... I mean... He used British air bases. There's so much of this girl. He used British air bases to try to attack, to attack, um, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Um, that didn't work well. Uh, in the attack, uh,

much like what was going on in fucking Granada, was condemned by many countries. By a vote of 79 in favor to 28 against, with 33 abstentions, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution I'm not going to bother reading that number, which condemns the military act perpetuated against the socialist peoples Libyan Arab Jamahira on April 15th, 1986. which constitutes a violation of the Charter of the United Nations of International Law. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds like us.

Did you know that when the UN unilaterally said that food was a human right, there was only one country that voted that it wasn't? Uh-huh. America, the best country. Yes, life is right, but not food. Don't get greedy. So speaking of wars.

Reagan began the war on drugs campaign in 1982 in response to concerns about the crack epidemic. You mean the ones that the CIA started in inner cities? Like, you mean that one?

You mean that one? You mean that one? There's going to be an episode on that, too. I got an... really an argument but in a dialogue with my dad about whether or not the crack epidemic was essentially started by the government and he was like I need you to cite your sources and I was like well fuck it if I have to research it

I'm just going to do a podcast on it. So, um, coming to you soon, boys and girls. Yeah. When I, I was talking about the conspiracy, John Oliver episode with my parents and grandmother. Um, Not that Grandma could hear anything, because, I mean, God bless her, but, like, woo, death. But I mentioned, like, this whole, like, you know, because people like conspiracy theories. Like, we as a species, like, really want to attribute...

big events to, like, big machinations. Like, it's natural. And, like, literal conspiracies happen. And, again... Looking at my father in the face and being like, you know, like the FBI really tried to have Martin Luther King kill himself. Yeah. God bless my husband being like, yep, they did that. They did do that.

And then moving on to, like, the fake-ass conspiracy theories that, like, masks impede your corona herd immunity, whatever the fuck. Oh yeah, it's the masks themselves that wake up the coronavirus inside you? Or whatever the fuck. The real coronavirus with the friends we made along the way. God.

Though Nixon had previously declared war on drugs, Reagan advocated more aggressive policies. He promised to fight for drug-free schools and workplaces, expanded drug treatment, stronger law enforcement, and drug... Interdiction efforts? What the fuck is that word? Obviously, I copy and pasted that. I don't know. In greater public awareness. In 1986, he committed $1.7 billion. to the effort, but also also did that fun thing of specifying mandatory minimum penalties for drug offenses.

As we know now, the war on drugs has led to significant racial disparities in the prison population. Oh my god, who would have known that this war on drugs specifically was like... directed toward a drug that was particularly used by people of color and in urban communities that were literally put there by the CIA. And listen, like...

Reagan definitely went out of his way, because I read every quote of his listed on Wiki quote, I did this for you. He went out of his way a lot of times to be like, you know, I... You know, I think that all men were created equal and race doesn't matter. And I love to teach my children tolerance. And I'm so glad I'm not a racist. He also...

said at least one quote during a call to Richard Nixon that I included and then had to take out because saying it made me so uncomfortable. This may be its own episode. This, like... Yeah, he was talking about, like, some ball, and there were African diplomats there, and it did not. Yeah, I remember when that came out, and people were just like, that's just how people talk in the 80s, and it's like...

No. No, it's not. But, you know, who would have known that these drug policies would have led to Rachel... Rachel Disparities? Rachel Disparities. Sister of Rachel Justice. Of Rachel Justice? Rachel Disparities and Rachel Justice. That's our new sitcom. This is our YouTube channel. We're going to have Rachel Disparities and Rachel Justice do Vegas or something. I don't know.

Nancy Reagan made the war on drugs her main priority by founding the Just Say No Drug Awareness Campaign, which aimed to discourage children and teenagers from engaging in recreational drug use by offering... various ways of saying no. The Just Say No campaign was so precious. Like, thinking about it, it's just, where you had, like, fucking Bugs Bunny and shit.

saying, like, just say no to drugs, and it's like, aw, you think that's gonna work. Yeah, like, as if the problem was, well, shit, no one told me that was an option. I've never heard the word no before. To be fair, like, I don't think he had. I mean, I think it's the same sort of like middle class white people. like thought train of thought that leads to them thinking like oh my god people are going to give my kids weed

gummy bears at Halloween. And it's like, no one's giving your kids that. That's expensive. It's so expensive. I'm using that on me. Like, are you fucking... Like, no one is giving their edibles to your children. If I thought there was a chance that was true, I would start trick-or-treating again. When Reagan ran for a second term in 1984, he did real bad in the first presidential debate. He seemed confused and forgetful, and rumors began to circulate that Reagan had Alzheimer's disease.

Table that, because I guess his debate performance improved and he did win re-election by carrying 49 of the 50 states. Oh, well, I mean... He was running against Walter Mondale.

Oh, right. Yeah. Nobody wanted a president named Walter. Mondale. I mean, that's like Biden all over again. The same year that Reagan took office, the AIDS crisis began to emerge. AIDS research was chronically underfunded during Reagan's administration, and requests for more funding by doctors at the Centers for Disease Control were routinely denied. By the time Ronald Reagan gave his first prepared speech on the epidemic? Six years into his fucking presidency?

36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS, and 20,849 had died of it. By the time Reagan left office two years later... More than 100,000 people had been diagnosed with AIDS in the United States, and more than 59,000 of them had died of it. God, remember when that seemed like a lot of people dying at a public health crisis? I'm sure this will never repeat itself. I'm sure things like this will never repeat itself. I didn't think that I would need a pillow. Jesus Christ.

Again, here's another, like, I did not know how to integrate it, but this was a quote that made me scream a little bit from around this time period. He spoke.

on Good Morning America in 1984, defending himself that he was being callous about social justice issues, saying, what we have found in this country, and maybe we're more aware of it now, is one problem that we've had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless, who are homeless, you might say, by choice. Yep, that's it. Everyone who's homeless wants to be homeless. That's what it is. No one wants homes. No one wants that. So apartheid.

What a smooth segue. Queen of segues here. Reagan was a supporter of a very gentle, gradual end to apartheid. Understandably, anti-apartheid activist called bullshit. In August 1986, Congress approved the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, which included actual meaningful sanctions. Against South Africa, unless they ended apartheid. Reagan tried to veto the act, but the veto was overridden by Congress. Afterward, Reagan reiterated that his administration and...

All America opposed apartheid and said the debate was not whether or not to oppose apartheid, but instead how best to oppose it. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay, I'm sorry. Okay. That's it. Yeah, we oppose this bad thing, but, like, y'all are being real meanies. Real meanies about opposing it. So, like, who's really in the right here? Like, putting people's heads on spikes? Like, sure, that's bad.

But you, sir, are using curse words when talking about how bad it is to put people's heads on spikes. So really, it's equal here. Like, we need a gentle end to putting people's heads on spikes. In 1986, he signed legislation to make it illegal to knowingly hire illegal immigrants, but did also... Grant amnesty to approximately 3 million illegal immigrants who entered the United States before January 1st, 1982 and had lived in the country continuously.

There's some issues here. There's a little bit of good in there. There's a lot of bad in there. There's some good. He said the employer sanctions program. is the keystone in major element. It will remove the incentive for illegal immigration by eliminating job opportunities which draw illegal aliens here. How...

Wren, how's that working out? It worked out beautifully. No one's ever hired an illegal immigrant since. Certainly not... giant golf resorts in florida and across the united states like named mar-a-lago and if we're on on this probably like nancy reagan's entire home staff

So, again, Queen of Segways. I ran Contra? Oh, yeah, that's a thing, too. There's so many things. There's so many things to hate him for, and then you're like, oh, there's another thing. So Irene Contra is the thing that I always heard about and didn't understand, much like the Teapot Dome scandal. It's just one of these things that you know it was a scandal, but you kind of, like, don't know why if you weren't alive then. But what had happened... What happened?

The Contra rebels fighting against the government in Nicaragua. And doing that thing had been specifically outlawed by an act of Congress? Yeah. Reagan said that he didn't know about it. It made a big show of investigating the scandal. The commission he put together could not find direct evidence that Reagan had prior knowledge of the program, but did criticize him heavily for his disengagement from managing his own staff, which made the whole thing possible.

Reagan's popularity declined from 67% to 46% in less than a week. And 11 of his staff were convicted. I mean, that's something, I guess. It's a little something. But it's definitely one of those things where it's like, you knew. Like, come on. Like, you knew. Like, you knew.

Come on. Well, I mean, this was in his second administration. He didn't remember who those staff were. I'm sorry, that's a terrible thing to say, but it's also true. That's what, they all wore name tags, and some of them were like... You know, you had to, like, you go and you're like, all right, Mr. President, we have an agenda. He's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You're Joe. Yes, I'm Joe. What's your job again? This is my job.

And you're involved in the thing? Yes, I'm involved in the thing. But I don't want to know about the thing. No, sir, you don't want to know about the thing. No, you don't want to know about the thing. Cool. All right. Do you think Nancy Reagan just put on a name tag that said, hello, my name is mommy? Oh, I hate it on so many levels. That's my least favorite sentence I've said. Anyway.

The International Court of Justice ruled that the United States had violated international law and breached treaties in Nicaragua in various ways. But the U.S. was like... Do you even have authority over this? And then Reagan withdrew the agreement between the United States and the International Court of Justice. So, you know, consequences. That's cool. That's cool.

Back, this is rewinding a little bit to the first administration, or the first term in office. Back in March 1983, Reagan introduced the Strategic Defense Initiative. So this is a project that would have used ground and space-based systems, which I think were supposed to be counter-missiles, to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear missiles.

there was much disbelief surrounding the program's scientific feasibility, leading opponents to dub the Strategic Defense Initiative or SDI Star Wars. And argue that its technological objective was unattainable. This will come up again. I will be calling it Star Wars because I think it's hilarious. It's... Reagan is Donald Trump. They're the same person. No, I'm sorry. I cannot get with you on this. Dude, Star Wars, Space Force.

No, girl, Ronald Reagan is what Donald Trump is aiming for. Both of them can't pass a cognitive test, like... Ronald Reagan is the version you get when you order on Amazon. Donald Trump is the version you get when you order on Wish. But they're the same dress. They're the same dress in theory.

I mean, one, you're right, one is the shitty wish version, but they're both the same shitty dress. Yeah, they're both the same shitty dress, but is it white and gold or is it blue and black? But, you know. I'm just saying, there's a lot of- There's a lot of parallels, right? There are a lot of parallels. I spent a lot of time thinking about this. And, like...

With Reagan, you have moments where you get drawn in, in a way, and you forget that it's not all a terrible idea until you remember, no, I'm a middle-class white lady, and if I'm not... This is all bad. All bad. Oh, yeah, but Star Wars. Anyway, that brings us to the Cold War again. We teased at it before. Reagan really hated communists. I don't know if I've mentioned this. I mean, he definitely took that philosophy 101 class and just like really leaned into it. Yeah. He labeled the Soviet system

an evil empire and plan to build up so many weapons that the Soviets would be like, Ooh, no, sir, we could not possibly. And then I guess they'd get rid of them. They'd get rid of their own weapons in response. He met with Mikhail Gorbachev several times and tried to convince him that democracy was lit as fuck. In no...

In October 1986, they met alone with translators but no aides. To the astonishment of the world and the chagrin of Reagan's most conservative supporters, they agreed to abolish all nuclear weapons. Gorbachev then asked for the end of the Star Wars program thingy and Reagan said no it's not worth it in the deal fell apart. The possible end of nuclear weapons in our age ended because Reagan was like, hmm, no, but I like the idea of rockets firing from space.

I mean, Star Wars was very popular at the time. And, like, who doesn't want to blow up the Death Star? Christ. Ronald Reagan wishes he were Luke Skywalker. That is also true. You're not Luke Skywalker? No, he wishes he was Han Solo. Oh, that's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He wishes he were Han Solo. You know who he is? He's that ran... What the fuck was that dude's name? He definitely works for the Empire. But he's not the Emperor.

And he's not Darth. He's not Darth Vader. He is, and I had to look it up because I could not remember this man's name because he's not important. Admiral Moti. Okay? You don't remember that man's name. No, because I hate Star Wars. I'm sure you remember the scene. You at least recognize the cultural scene. of that round table of empire fucks where one starts mocking Darth Vader being like oh look at you with your wizardiness like what the fuck is this like weird new age bullshit astrology shit

And then Darth Vader starts choking him and goes, I find your lack of faith disturbing. The choked out man is Ronald Reagan.

But he was so into astrology New Age shit. He wasn't into astrology. He was into the Death Star. No, he was specifically into astrology. It was a big thing that is going to be like its own. What? Yes, girl. No, like, Nancy Reagan was so into astrologers and psychics, and like, especially once his memory started. Have you seriously not heard of this? No, I basically, no, not at all.

Okay, this is going to be next week's episode, because I do not have it, like, researched and pulled up, but, like, he was really into astrology. Like Ronald Reagan was sort of this weird proto-millennial and just like, no, but tell me your moon sign. He's such a Capricorn. Oh my God. My understanding is that there were legitimate... like, national interest decisions that were made by calling Nancy Reagan psychic. Oh my, oh, and this isn't part of this episode? Ginger. No, it's not. Ginger!

Nor is closing the mental hospital, because I figured both of those were going to be their own thing. Because Nancy Reagan, by herself, is this fucking guy. Yeah. So that's that's going to have to be another. I don't know if you want to cut this out for like spoiler purposes, but I do have. My favorite quote that I came across during this entire thing, he was doing a mic check for some speech. Reagan was doing a mic check during which he said, Woo! What a fun thing to do. Funny joke.

Fun thing to say on the mic check, it was leaked to the general populace, and upon learning of it, Soviet defenses went on high alert. I mean... But Ronald Reagan was the one that said, like, Gorbachev, please tear down the wall. Yes. That's my next paragraph. He was the one with the ugly birthmark, right? Is it the bald-headed baby with the birthmark? Oh, yeah. No, he's the one that seems to have maybe the country of whales on his head.

Speaking at the Berlin Wall in 1987, Reagan challenged Gorbachev saying, General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, he said it less sarcastically than I'm saying it. If you seek... Come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

Later in November 1989, East German authorities began allowing citizens to pass freely through border checkpoints and demolish the Berlin Wall over the next few years. Hey. They can't do that. That's history. Okay. If you knock down the wall, how will you remember history? That is a monument. How will you remember that there used to be a wall? After leaving office in 1989, the Reagans purchased a home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, in addition to the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara.

In August 1994, at the age of 83, Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. There was speculation over how long Reagan had been symptomatic. In a 2011 book, Reagan's son, Ron, said that he had suspected early signs. of his father's dementia as early as 1984. What was he doing then? What was he doing? It was in fact that debate where the entire country was going, does this guy have Alzheimer's disease?

And he did. If he can identify an elephant, then he's fine. The last questions I hear are very hard. Okay? Reagan died of pneumonia complicated by Alzheimer's disease at his home in Bel Air on the afternoon of June 5th, 2004. I read a lot of articles on Reagan's legacy. This is just my favorite synopsis. These are the key four other facts listed on CNN's page about Ronald Reagan. Appointed.

the first female U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, nicknamed the Gipper due to his famous movie role as George Gipp in the film Canute Rockne All-American. He liked to feed the squirrels outside the Oval Office. He loved jelly beans. What a weird combination of facts. They had to have like put a whole bunch of facts in like a bucket and shaken it around and just picked out four. Yeah, like, hey, this is a really important thing. Hey, this is historically a thing.

The man loved a Jolly Rancher. Like what? Jelly beans. No, I know. I just, I think jelly beans are fine. Jelly beans are also like an old person thing, but like my grandpa in particular. Whenever I went to my grandparents' house, Grandpa always had his armchair. He always had his cane in his magazines. And then he had a whole glass thing full of Jolly Ranchers. The man always smelled like Green Apple Jolly Ranchers. It's a fond memory. But like...

Old people love that one candy. Like, Jelly Beans, Jolly Ranchers, Werthers. Like, my grandmother was a big fan of the strawberry and cream lifesavers. Which can't, you know... It has to be suck em candies because of the dentures. Speaking of that. Speaking of old people and hard candy. Speaking of hard candy, are you ready for a self-care plan? Are we done with, are we done?

Is that all? Yes. No, he's dead and he loved to feed the squirrels. And he loved jelly beans. The man loved a jelly bean. He knew that with his teeth, hard candy, not the way to go. He needed a soft candy that he could chew. without, like, you know, ruining those oxidant whites. Ruining, mm, mm-hmm. Yeah, no. So are you ready for a self-care plan there, Rand? You know what? I suppose I am.

All right. So in honor of former President Reagan, we are going to be talking about memory care tips, tips for keeping your memory for. building memory. First and foremost, reduce your sugar intake. Maintaining a healthy diet and reducing your blood sugar are key to maintaining memory. So cut back on those jelly beans. Less jelly beans. Try a fish oil supplement or another supplement rich in omega-3 fatty acids.

And make sure that you're getting enough sleep, which is essential to keeping and improving your memory functions. So maybe just don't watch the news. Yeah, maybe... Maybe don't. Well, that's going to be all for us this week, folks. If you also hate Ronald Reagan, you should check us out on our social media. Our website's thiseffinguypod.com or... female psychopath dot info yes it's never forget never forget female psychopath dot info um we have a twitter

at this effinguypod. We have a Patreon. Don't worry about it. I'm just saying it. We also have a Facebook. Which is this fucking guy, which is literally just Ronald Reagan's the worst. So... As always, I'm Ginger Golub. I am still Ren Martinez, and I still... hate Ronald Reagan. Here's a bonus self-care tip. Never read the comments section. Yeah, don't. Just don't do that. Also, don't be Ronald Reagan. This fucking guy. Peace.