Reagan Would Rebuke The Teabaggers

I did not care for the economic policies of Ronald Reagan. I believe history has shown that his "trickle-down" economic theory was a disaster for this country -- creating a vast gap in income and wealth between the rich and the rest of America, and throwing this country into the most serious recession since the Great Depression.

But while his economic theory was deeply flawed, I do believe Reagan loved his country and wanted to see it survive constitutionally. He understood that church and state must remain separate, and that no religion should ever be elevated over any other or given a special status by the government. He also understood that the lack of belief in a religion did not make any American less than a patriotic citizen. In short, he believed in religious freedom.

He also understood that taxes were a necessary thing, and he wasn't afraid to raise them when needed (which he did several times during his presidency). He also believed the rich should not pay a smaller percentage in taxes than other Americans, and he said so publicly. And he believed in compromise for the good of the country (and that Democrats were not enemies of America, but simply fellow Americans who believed in a different way forward).

While the modern Republican Party, ruled by the teabaggers, like to mythologize and deify President Reagan, the truth is that they are far to the right of many of his positions. I have to believe that if he was alive today, he would seriously rebuke the teabaggers for their anti-religious freedom, anti-tax, and anti-compromise beliefs.

Reagan was not a great president (in my opinion), but he was no teabagger. He loved his country too much to have been a teabagger.