Heroes have value, but hero worship is a useless thing. Heroes can inspire us and provide an example or inspiration in our lives, but too much adulation makes us forget they were just human beings, people like us. Hero worship can negate or remove our own belief in ourselves. It’s even worse when the hero being worshipped is an empty shell, a mere image or concept, void of any true values or attributes. Enter the poster child for modern conservatism: Ronald Reagan. He was an actor from his start in the ‘50s and through his presidency.

First, I want to get out of the way what will probably be my most trite complaints against Reagan. Nevertheless, they are the ones that irritate me the most. He consulted astrologers during his presidency. Seriously? Astrology is so clearly asinine, to think that the most powerful man in the world would seriously consider using it as guidance is terrifying. Just think about it: Reagan and his astrologer in the Oval Office. “Pisces has aligned with Jupiter. This clearly means Gorbachev is pliable on the arms-reduction treaties!” Please. Also, another small gesture of Reagan’s that sums up a lot about his presidency: Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the White House roof and offered tax credits to those installing solar panels. Reagan, with his great insight, saw fit to have the solar panels removed from the roof while also rescinding the tax credit, neutering an entire industry.

Besides relying on prehistoric superstition and acting with arrogant impunity about simple conservation measures, Reagan was basically devoid of any true ideas and an effective actor for a long line of hawkish ideologues. Which brings up the question: how did he attain the posthumous star status he has now? His idol status reveals the trite nature of politics overall and conservatism in general. Reagan was an actor. He spoke in amorphous platitudes delivered with the philosophical complexity of a Hollywood geo-thriller.

Reagan is supposed to be the philosophical basis for many neo-conservative ideas, and he is idolized regularly. Now, like them or not, most presidents are usually respected and consulted after their presidencies for ideas and speaking engagements. I understand Reagan got Alzheimer’s, but that wasn’t diagnosed until 1992. He basically retreated to his home in California and didn’t say a peep about any issue. He wasn’t tapped for advice or consulting. This is because he essentially had no ideas of his own and merely was effective at parroting the interests of the tobacco industry, the military-industrial complex and the anti-tax, anti-government far-right (among others).

Reagan’s administration essentially dismantled parts of government that served the general population. He believed in “government as the problem-” unless the government was killing people in foreign countries. He funded the “freedom” fighters in Afghanistan, along with oppressive right-wing governments all through Latin America that killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians. The Reagan Administration also was buddy-buddy with one Mr. Saddam Hussein, giving him the infrastructure to build chemical weapons against Iran. One priceless photo I urge you to google shows Donald Rumsfeld smiling, shaking hands with Saddam. When it comes down to it, all the world’s leaders are the same: crooked.

Now, I’m not going to go so far as to say Reagan was racist, but he had a record of severe insensitivity on racial matters as well. Reagan vetoed the imposition of sanctions on the racist regime in South Africa. He had a questionable record on civil rights all through his political career, even saying at one point in 1966 while running for governor of California that “if an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house, he has a right to do so.” He also opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as “humiliating” to the South. Finally, Reagan also expanded the clueless War on Drugs that is harming minority communities in its inequitable treatment.

Finally, Reaganomics is the sacred cow of neo-conservatives, and just spelling it out plainly will expose its horrible flaws. Personally, I know next to nothing about economics, and I suspect many people don’t. I find the study of economics to be a study of ideal conditions that are never practical in the real world. I’m going to venture that Reagan was somewhat economically challenged. Look at his theology: increased spending with reduced taxes. Hmm, sounds like a plan to me. If you want to increase the national debt beyond the quadrupling that Reagan achieved, I suppose it could seem like a sensible policy.

If you’re saying this was necessary to defeat the Soviet Union, this too is a falsehood. I’m definitely not an econ major, but I am a history major, so I can comment on this a little better. First, history is unbelievably complex, and to credit one man for the fall of the Soviet Union ignores so many contributing factors, people and conditions, that even a cursory glance at all the other things going on around this time diminishes what is usually ranked among Reagan’s greatest legacies. While he may have contributed somewhat to the end of the USSR, the Soviet Union was well on its way to crumbling in on itself. The long war in Afghanistan had tapped its resources and morale. If someone wants to gush praise on one man for ending the Soviet Union, gush it upon Mikhail Gorbachev. His reforms unintentionally triggered the collapse of the Soviet Union.

I’m not saying Reagan was a bad person necessarily. I do think he was a clueless puppet for definite bad people who wanted to neuter the American federal government because it was a detriment to their own profits. We are still dealing with the repercussions of his decimation of social programs. He was a charming, slightly daft man who spoke on the behalf of bad men. The trite nature of American politics lends itself well to a charming cowboy-like man who tells good jokes. This is what Reagan was. He was not a philosopher or hero; he was just charming.