The Reagan Revolution

[SheilaT]

7. What others have said. I would like to add

that too many people aren't willing to think critically. They'd rather watch some reality TV show, and only pay brief attention to snippets of news. As we all know, if they watch Fox news they are singularly uninformed.

I can recall quite clearly an article in either Time or Newsweek in the summer of 1984, which profiled several voters. The article actually pointed out that some of those planning to vote for Reagan that time were voting against their own self-interest, although it didn't bother to analyze WHY the voters would do that.

Reagan got an incredible pass from the Press, probably the greatest pass before or since. Trust me, not reporting JFK's sexual indiscretions was absolutely nothing compared to what Reagan got away with. People actually believed his b.s. about things like welfare queens driving Cadillacs, in no small part because the press didn't bother to debunk such crap. Reagan could not distinguish between movies he'd made and what happened out there in real life, and come to think of it, a lot of people I know can't tell the difference between movies and reality.

In addition, history is very badly taught in our high schools. And has been at least going back fifty years, to when I was in high school. All too often the history teacher is a coach who has to teach a few classes a day, and history is considered harmless. But even many of the actual trained-to-be-history-teachers are singularly ignorant. Add to that bland textbooks, a desperate fear of offending anyone, and it's a wonder students retain anything at all.