BBC: 'Storyville American Idol- Ronald Reagan Documentary'

Source:BBC- President Ronald W. Reagan (Republican, California) being sworn in as the 40th President in 1981.

"BBC Storyville American Idol Ronald Reagan Documentary." The video is currently unavailable in the United States. 

As a Liberal Democrat I guess I have mixed feelings about Ronald Reagan our 40th President of The United States. Because compared with today's Republican Party, Ron Reagan looks like a God as someone greater than the GOP could ever imagine to be. 

The Reagan-Goldwater conservative coalition that rebuilt the GOP in the 1970s and 1980s, has now become the Christian-Conservative coalition GOP thats more of a theocratic or religious party rather than a true conservative party. And Reagan went after the votes of the Christian Coalition but he did that to win to have their votes. And so they wouldn't back a candidate from the Far-Right that would cost the GOP elections. Not because he was part of that coalition. 

So I guess Ron Reagan if he were alive and functioning today probably wouldn't be very happy with todays GOP. So thats one reason why I have a lot of respect for Ron Reagan was his character and his realism. You knew exactly who he was and when he said he was a Conservative, you could believe him for the most part.

Despite Reagan not being much of a fiscal conservative with his supply-side economics and all of the borrowing that came from that. But he was a true government out-of-my-wallet, bedroom and classroom Conservative. 

But what I don't have much respect for Ron Reagan was his libertarian almost anti-government side of him. That we are still dealing with as a country that the GOP has taken to heart when it comes to economic policy. 

The Republican Party is certainly pro-government when it comes to social policy, where Reagan didn't have much in common with Religious-Right. And pro-government when it comes to defense policy, but the economic philosophy that Reagan built that the GOP almost has got around across the board and it's made it very difficult for the Federal Government to address major issues and problems of the day as it relates to debt and deficit. Immigration, infrastructure, healthcare, energy, reforming entitlements and social welfare as a whole. Because this wing of the GOP essentially believes government has no role here.

So what I like and respect about Ron Reagan was that he was a true anti-big government and statism Conservative. Who believed that it wasn't the job of government to tell Americans how to live their lives. Which is why he almost looks liberal compared with todays religious and neoconservative Republican Party. 

But the other part of the Reagan political legacy it's made it almost impossible for the Federal Government to do its job. And has brought so much opposition towards him that the country today is left politically between two wings. One believing that government should so almost everything from the New-Left. And the other wing believing that government should do almost nothing from the Libertarian-Right. Which isn't much of a choice for the country.