Thanks for that summary of RR’s two terms. I lived through that time and you are exactly right. But I did not have Free Republic or conservative radio to help me understand what was happening. Looking back at it, it became very clear to me what had happened.
In addition to the examples you cite, one thing I remember; there were NO homeless people prior to RR, then when he was in office, homelessness was a major national problem. Then when Clinton became president, there again was no homelessness.
I moved to Philadelphia in 1981, and encountered homeless people there, although the other students I knew called them "vent men." I had seen them before when I visited Manhattan, and I just thought they were part of big-city life. I didn't realize that their presence was connected with the shutting down of large insane asylums in the 1970s. Without the internet, there were many things that you could only wonder about back then.
I'm certain that homelessness will become a big issue again under President Trump.
I remember RR’s time in office, as well. I remember going through the angst, wondering how in the world he could be elected. Didn’t people understand that he was going to start WWIII? I believed every single thing the press said about him, and waited fearfully for some horrible thing or another to happen, which never did.
Eventually, after the press bombarded RR for years and all of the horrible things they predicted did not come to pass, I began to realize that RR was not the monster the press made him out to be. It would still take a few more years before I realized just how lying and manipulative the left is (the nomination of Bill Clinton for president was the day I swore never to vote Democrat again).
Now look at the current situation. The press is unrelentingly hostile towards Trump. If we believe the left, he is going to destroy the world. The hyperbole is over the top, and the tantrums of leftist snowflakes will not stop. The major difference between then and now is that the press cannot publish its evil rhetoric without immediate push-back, and social media enables leftist “anarchists” to organize with an efficiency that was not possible in the 1980s. What happens when some of the snowflakes who were duped by leftist propaganda realize that it was never more than propaganda? What happens when they realize that it actually is a good thing to stop illegal “immigration” and the attendant crimes such as drug and human trafficking? And so forth. Some of the snowflakes are irredeemable, since they thrive on strong negative emotion. But others actually are intelligent, albeit naive. Trump may be what they need to break them free of the leftist illusions that have been placed in front of their eyes.