History UsefulNotes / RonaldReagan

Fun fact: Reagan was once a member of the Democratic Party and voted for UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt four times. He also was very, very addicted to jelly beans. He started eating them [[AddictionDisplacement when he quit smoking]], and he seriously had jelly bean cup-holders placed on government planes. When he won in 1980, he wanted a jelly bean flag of red, white, and blue to be created to celebrate the occasion. There were no blue-colored jelly beans at the time, so the Jelly Belly company created the blueberry flavor specifically for the ceremony. It ended up becoming one of their most popular flavors.

%%* TwoWords: ''[[http://www.comics.org/series/16342/ Reagan's Raiders]]''

* In Creator/StephenKing's ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'' series, one of the characters, Susannah is transported from the America of 1964 into a fantasy world. When she meets Eddie, who came from 1987, she doesn't believe that Reagan is the president by then, and thinks he's just kidding.

* In ''Series/WetHotAmericanSummerFirstDayOfCamp'' he's played by a deliberately unconvincing Creator/MichaelShowalter as a CloudCuckoolander who scarfs down jelly beans and goes way too far in trying to invoke GetAHoldOfYourselfMan, but is still pretty reasonable in the end.

** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1981 SCP-1981]], an anomalous VHS tape of Reagan's 1983 "Evil Empire" speech. Something happened to the tape so that every time it's played back its contents are different, with the contents always consisting of Reagan giving [[WordSaladHorror nonsensical (and creepy) anecdotes and parables]] while [[BodyHorror he's being mutilated by an invisible force]].

* In the satirical puppet show ''Series/SpittingImage'' he was often portrayed as in a relationship with UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher, and as a CloudCuckoolander always accompanied by the chimpanzee Bonzo (see NeverLiveItDown). Along with Thatcher he was one of the AcceptableTargets that made the show enormously popular in the United Kingdom.

%%As always, be cool and use the Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment: lots of people have strong opinions on him, his legacy and his economic policies.

%%As always, be cool and use the Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment: lots of people have strong opinions on him, his legacy and his economic policies.

Detractors cite the increased dependence upon and vulnerability of the economy to an increasingly unstable financial sector, the growing impoverishment of the poor, the growing wealth of the ultra-rich via the extraction of wealth from the poor, the inarguably ineffective and temporally doomed-to-fail "War on Drugs" which again disproportionately affected the poor, the ''191 percent'' increase in the national debt, his union-busting (specifically his [[{{Pun}} handling]] of the PATCO air traffic controllers strike), the slow response (for whatever reason) to the [=AIDS=] epidemic, his support for Islamic fundamentalist militants (to counter communism) e.g. al-Qaeda's predecessors, the mujahedeen, in UsefulNotes/{{Afghanistan}}, and his nearly triggering the virtual extinction of our species during ''Able Archer''[[note]]although that last was bad timing -- Brezhnev had instituted a program to prove that the US was planning a nuclear sneak attack, and his successor Andropov continued it. Andropov, having found sufficent "evidence" that the strike was imminent, and addled by sickness decided that the Able Archer exercise was just a front for a surprise attack and came close to ordering a "preemptive" strike. That being said, Reagan didn't do himself or us any favors with his tough rhetoric earlier in 1983, including the "evil empire" speech and boosting of the "Star Wars" system which threatened an upending of [=MAD=], both of which certainly poked Andropov's paranoia. Also not helping was a series of deliberate "psyop" flights, where Air Force bombers went as close to the limit of Soviet Airspace as they dared to provoke a response from the Soviet Air force and reconiassance flights that breached Soviet airspace meant to uncover SAM and radar sites. This last contributed to Soviet paranoia that resulted in the shooting down of Korean Air Lines flight 007 in September, 1983 after the doomed 747 accidently strayed over the Kamchatka Peninsula. This event strained tensions between the US and [=USSR=] even further, adding more fuel to Andropov's suspicions of a sneak attack.[[/note]] Critics of Reagan also tend to argue that the economic recovery that happened during his tenure was actually the delayed results of ''Carter's'' policies, with Reagan simply receiving the credit because the benefits started to appear during his presidency. The severity of the economic recessions that occurred after Reagan's second term ended is also frequently attributed by critics to his laissez-faire approach to economic policy, with Bush Sr., UsefulNotes/BillClinton, and [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush Bush Jr.]] after him also being criticized for not reining in or exacerbating the issues that this approach had.

Detractors cite the increased dependence upon and vulnerability of the economy to an increasingly unstable financial sector, the growing impoverishment of the poor, the growing wealth of the ultra-rich via the extraction of wealth from the poor, the inarguably ineffective and temporally doomed-to-fail "War on Drugs" which again disproportionately affected the poor, the ''191 percent'' increase in the national debt, his union-busting (specifically his [[{{Pun}} handling]] of the PATCO air traffic controllers strike), the slow response (for whatever reason) to the [=AIDS=] epidemic, his support for Islamic fundamentalist militants (to counter communism) e.g. al-Qaeda's predecessors, the mujahedeen, in UsefulNotes/{{Afghanistan}}, and his nearly triggering the virtual extinction of our species during ''Able Archer''. Critics of Reagan also tend to argue that the economic recovery that happened during his tenure was actually the delayed results of ''Carter's'' policies, with Reagan simply receiving the credit because the benefits started to appear during his presidency. The severity of the economic recessions that occurred after Reagan's second term ended is also frequently attributed by critics to his laissez-faire approach to economic policy, with Bush Sr., UsefulNotes/BillClinton, and [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush Bush Jr.]] after him also being criticized for not reining in or exacerbating the issues that this approach had.

Reagan was the first president since UsefulNotes/JamesMonroe not to fall victim to the "Curse of Zero" (sometimes called the Curse of [[UsefulNotes/WilliamHenryHarrison Tippecanoe]]), in which virtually every president who won an election held in a year ending in zero had died in office.[[note]]UsefulNotes/WilliamHenryHarrison (1840), UsefulNotes/WarrenGHarding (1920) and UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt (1940) all passed away due to illness, while UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln (1860), UsefulNotes/JamesGarfield (1880), UsefulNotes/WilliamMcKinley (1900) and UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy (1960) were all assassinated.[[/note]] He did come close to meeting an untimely end in office, however, as barely three months into his first term, he was shot and severely injured by John Hinckley, and only survived due to prompt medical care. Reagan remains the only sitting president to be injured but not killed in an assassination attempt, and his brush with death is credited with having boosted his approval ratings from "pretty damn good" to "astronomical," and helped him score arguably the most decisive victory in a seriously contested presidential election when he was re-elected in 1984, with only 3,761 voters in UsefulNotes/{{Minnesota}} coming between him and victory in ''every single state''. Ironically, the only reason he almost died from the attack was because of the protections meant to keep him safe in the first place: the bullet ricocheted off of his bulletproof limo and hit him in a vital area. Had it been an ordinary car, he would've escaped unharmed.

* Music/{{Genesis}}' video of 'Music/LandOfConfusion' uses ''Series/SpittingImage'' and their puppets, including that of Reagan as a would-be superhero. Reagan is depicted as a senile old coot incapable of dealing with the problems he tries to solve (failing at ChangingClothesIsAFreeAction when he tries to put on a {{ComicBook/Superman}} suit) and suffering from dementia (when he tries to call a nurse, he pushes the "Nuke" button by mistake and sets off a nuclear weapon).

* Issue #344 of ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica'' had The Viper using a serum she got from Slithers (a minor ''ComicBook/XMan'' villain) turning Ronald and Nancy into BrainwashedAndCrazy serpent-men with the rest of Washington, DC in an earlier stage of the transformation. The Captain (as he was known at the time because of a dispute with the government) didn't manage to stop the plot before throwing down with the suddenly scaly Commander-In-Chief who was clad only in his underwear. Reagan even used old glory as a weapon during the fight. While Cap was preoccupied with the president, Viper was able to make a VillainExitStageLeft but she was not able to get very far before she was stopped and defeated by Cobra (who is usually an enemy of ComicBook/TheMightyThor). He said it was payback for Cap helping Sidewinder retake control of the Serpent Society and had nothing to do with his political affiliation.

More simply, the entire leadership of the USA's Republican Party '''{{hero worship|per}}s''' him, most of the Democrats' leadership approve of his economic policies and admire his ability to extract concessions from an opposition party that was still mildly in favor of the New Deal (his presidency was the last where the heavily Democratic GI generation who grew up during the [[TheGreatDepression Depression]]/New Deal era was a significant portion of the Congress and electorate), and a small minority of prominent progressive Democrats (like Elizabeth Warren) say that while the fractures which threaten to tear American society apart did not ''begin'' under Reagan, the wealth gap and corrosive influence of wealth upon politics began to worsen exponentially during his presidency.

Detractors cite the increased dependence upon and vulnerability of the economy to an increasingly unstable financial sector, the growing impoverishment of the poor, the growing wealth of the ultra-rich via the extraction of wealth from the poor, the inarguably ineffective and debatably doomed-to-fail "War on Drugs" which again disproportionately affected the poor, the ''191 percent'' increase in the national debt, his union-busting (specifically his [[{{Pun}} handling]] of the PATCO air traffic controllers strike), the slow response (for whatever reason) to the [=AIDS=] epidemic, his support for Islamic fundamentalist militants (to counter communism) e.g. al-Qaeda's predecessors, the mujahedeen, in UsefulNotes/{{Afghanistan}}, and his nearly triggering the virtual extinction of our species during ''Able Archer''. Critics of Reagan also tend to argue that the economic recovery that happened during his tenure was actually the delayed results of ''Carter's'' policies, with Reagan simply receiving the credit because the benefits started to appear during his presidency. The severity of the economic recessions that occurred after Reagan's second term ended is also frequently attributed by critics to his laissez-faire approach to economic policy, with Bush Sr., UsefulNotes/BillClinton, and [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush Bush Jr.]] after him also being criticized for not reining in or exacerbating the issues that this approach had.

The universally acknowledged problem of his administration was massive corruption. While not necessarily from the man himself, his "hands-off" style of leadership led to his officials committing federal offenses without check. Various scandals from his administration led to the investigation, indictment, or conviction of over 138 officials, the most for ''any'' US president. The most infamous one was the "Iran-Contra" affair, where military officials sold weapons to the UsefulNotes/{{Iran}}ian government in exchange for the release of hostages in UsefulNotes/{{Lebanon}}, plus money to fund the Contras, an anti-Communist guerilla group in UsefulNotes/{{Nicaragua}} that was revealed to have committed human rights violations. All of that despite explicit congressional bans on any funding going to the Contras and an embargo against Iran that is still in place today. Though the political fallout from Iran-Contra was not particularly long-lived, especially after half a dozen of those implicated were pardoned by UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush, two associated events left a mark on American popular culture: Lt. Col. Oliver North of the National Security Council shredding so many documents that the paper shredder broke down, and the coincidental release of an UsefulNotes/ArcadeGame titled ''VideoGame/{{Contra}}'' (though nowadays the latter is generally remembered as its own entity, with any ties to the Iran-Contra Affair being forgotten about, in part due to the game's original player base having been children at the time with no real interest in what was going on with the government). In 2019, a phone conversation between (then-California Governor) Reagan and President UsefulNotes/RichardNixon surfaced, where Reagan described African delegates at the [[UsefulNotes/UnitedNations UN]] as "monkeys" who barely looked comfortable wearing shoes, an indication that Reagan in private may have held racist views towards non-white people.

Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the UsefulNotes/UnitedStates, serving from [[TheEighties 1981 to 1989]] between UsefulNotes/JimmyCarter and UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush. He was the sixteenth Republican president and the first to serve two full terms since prior Republican president UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower.[[note]]UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy was assassinated partway through his term, UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson served the remainder of that term plus one full term before declining to seek reelection (which was constitutionally permitted due to Kennedy having already served three quarters of his term before his death), UsefulNotes/RichardNixon served one full term before resigning partway through his second, UsefulNotes/GeraldFord served out the remainder of that term before losing reelection to Carter, and finally, Carter served only one term before losing reelection to Reagan himself.[[/note]] Reagan is well known for restructuring the USA's political economy to allow the wealthy to keep more of the money they had earned (under the theory that high taxation stymied economic growth) and working together with UsefulNotes/MikhailGorbachev to end the UsefulNotes/ColdWar. He also was the last president to be in office during a war in which the United States officially declared itself to be neutral: UsefulNotes/TheFalklandsWar, fought between the UsefulNotes/UnitedKingdom and UsefulNotes/{{Argentina}}.

* Music/{{Genesis}}' video of 'Music/LandofConfusion' uses ''Series/SpittingImage'' and their puppets, including that of Reagan as a would-be superhero. Reagan is depicted as a senile old coot incapable of dealing with the problems he tries to solve (failing at ChangingClothesIsAFreeAction when he tries to put on a {{ComicBook/Superman}} suit) and suffering from dementia (when he tries to call a nurse, he pushes the "Nuke" button by mistake and sets off a nuclear weapon).

* Music/LemonDemon's song "Reaganomics".

* In an ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' episode, "De-Zanitized," Reagan appears in Scratchansniff's flashback, taking place when he was an actor, and tells the doctor about his dream where he becomes president. Scratchansniff deems him incurable. May be a FunnyAneurysmMoment. The episode came out in 1993, a year before he revealed his Alzheimer's.

Another film Reagan famously played in was the comedy movie ''Bedtime for Bonzo'', in which he [[EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys costarred with a chimpanzee]] in a standard "[[LoopholeAbuse Ain't No Rule]]" story. Reagan always displayed a sense of humor about this movie; he's famously said to have once signed a promo photo of himself and Bonzo with the inscription "I'm the one with the wristwatch."[[note]]During his presidency, when Creator/ClintEastwood was running for mayor of Carmel, California, Reagan jokingly telephoned Eastwood and quipped "What's an actor who once appeared with a monkey in a movie doing in politics?", referring to Eastwood's role in ''Film/EveryWhichWayButLoose'' and having some [[SelfDeprecation Self-Deprecating Humor]] at the same time.[[/note]] He viewed ''That Hagen Girl'', a 1947 melodrama co-starring Creator/ShirleyTemple, as his real OldShame. It's even rumored that Reagan tried to suppress or destroy copies of that film. There's also a common story that he was originally slated to star in ''Film/{{Casablanca}}'', which derives from a claim made by the Creator/WarnerBros publicity office while promoting his film ''Kings Row''. Like many similar claims made by the Warner Bros. publicity office during the period, it has no basis in fact.

Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States, serving from [[TheEighties 1981 to 1989]] between UsefulNotes/JimmyCarter and UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush. He was the sixteenth Republican president, and the first to serve two full terms since prior Republican president UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower[[note]]UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy was assassinated partway through his first term, UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson served the remainder of that term plus one full term before declining to seek reelection (which was constitutionally permitted due to Kennedy having already served three quarters of his term before his death), UsefulNotes/RichardNixon served one full term before resigning partway through his second, UsefulNotes/GeraldFord served out the remainder of that term before losing reelection to Carter, and finally, Carter served only one term before losing reelection to Reagan himself[[/note]]. Reagan is well known for restructuring the USA's political economy to allow the wealthy to keep more of the money they had earned (under the theory that high taxation stymied economic growth) and working together with UsefulNotes/MikhailGorbachev to end the UsefulNotes/ColdWar. He also was the last president to be in office during a war in which the United States officially declared itself to be neutral: UsefulNotes/TheFalklandsWar, fought between [[UsefulNotes/{{Britain}} the United Kingdom]] and UsefulNotes/{{Argentina}}.

Yes, he's the first actor to become President. This fact arguably popularized the "celebrity president" trope that took off in popular media throughout the 1980's and '90s, most of it out of mockery (later getting a major second wind after the election of UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump, another American celebrity). However, many of the jokes about that don't work very well, since, when his political career commenced in 1966, he was only the "former actor who's running for governor of UsefulNotes/{{California}}". From 1976 to 1980, he was known as the "former two-term Republican governor of California who's running for president." People today will more likely know Reagan for his presidency in UsefulNotes/TheEighties; that said, his former acting career was and still is a big point of notoriety, even though Reagan was a B-lister during his acting career. It wouldn't be until Trump's electoral win in 2016 that an ''actual'' media celebrity would get into the Oval Office.

More simply, the entire leadership of the USA's Republican Party '''{{hero worship|per}}s''' him, most of the Democrats' leadership approve of his economic policies and admire his ability to extract concessions from an opposition party that was still mildly in favor of the New Deal (his presidency was the last where the heavily Democratic GI generation who grew up during the [[TheGreatDepression Depression]]/New Deal era was a significant portion of the Congress and electorate), and a small minority of the Democrats' leadership (Elizabeth Warren, etc.) say that while the fractures which threaten to tear American society apart did not ''begin'' under Reagan, the wealth gap and corrosive influence of wealth upon politics began to worsen exponentially during his presidency.

Detractors cite the increased dependence upon and vulnerability of the economy to an increasingly unstable financial sector, the growing impoverishment of the poor, the growing wealth of the ultra-rich via the extraction of wealth from the poor, the inarguably ineffective and debatably doomed-to-fail "War on Drugs" which again disproportionately affected the poor, the ''191 percent'' increase in the national debt, his union-busting (specifically his [[{{Pun}} handling]] of the PATCO air traffic controllers strike), the slow response (for whatever reason) to the [=AIDS=] epidemic, his support for Islamic fundamentalist militants (to counter communism) e.g. al-Qaeda's predecessors, the mujahedeen, in UsefulNotes/{{Afghanistan}}, and his nearly triggering the virtual extinction of our species during ''Able Archer''. Critics of Reagan also tend to argue that the economic recovery that happened during his tenure was actually the delayed results of ''Carter's'' policies, with Reagan simply receiving the credit because the benefits started to appear during his presidency. The severity of the economic recessions that occurred after Regan's second term ended is also frequently attributed by critics to his laissez-faire approach to economic policy, with Bush Sr, UsefulNotes/BillClinton, and [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush Bush Jr.]] after him also being criticized for exacerbating the issues that this approach had.

The universally acknowledged problem of his administration was massive corruption. While not necessarily from the man himself, his "hands off" style of leadership led to his officials committing federal offenses without check. Various scandals from his administration led to the investigation, indictment, or conviction of over 138 officials, the most for ''any'' US president. The most infamous one was the "Iran-Contra" affair, where military officials sold weapons to the UsefulNotes/{{Iran}}ian government in exchange for the release of hostages in UsefulNotes/{{Lebanon}}, plus money to fund the Contras, an anti-Communist guerilla group in UsefulNotes/{{Nicaragua}} that was revealed to have committed human rights violations. All of that despite explicit congressional bans on any funding going to the Contras and an embargo against Iran that is still in place today. Though the political fallout from Iran-Contra was not particularly long-lived, especially after half a dozen of those implicated were pardoned by UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush, two associated events left a mark on American popular culture: Lt. Col. Oliver North of the National Security Council shredding so many documents that the paper shredder broke down, and the coincidental release of an UsefulNotes/ArcadeGame titled ''VideoGame/{{Contra}}'' (though nowadays the latter is generally remembered as its own entity, with any ties to the Iran-Contra Affair being forgotten about, in part due to the game's original playerbase having been children at the time with no real interest in what was going on with the government). In 2019, a phone conversation between (then-California Governor) Reagan and President UsefulNotes/RichardNixon surfaced, where Reagan described African delegates at the [[UsefulNotes/UnitedNations UN]] as "monkeys" who barely looked comfortable wearing shoes, an indication that Reagan in private may have held racist views towards non-white people.

Reagan was the first president since UsefulNotes/JamesMonroe not to fall victim to the "Curse of Zero" (sometimes called the Curse of [[UsefulNotes/WilliamHenryHarrison Tippecanoe]]), in which virtually every president elected in a year ending in zero had died in office.[[note]]UsefulNotes/WilliamHenryHarrison (1840), UsefulNotes/WarrenHarding (1920) and UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt (1940) all passed away due to illness, while UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln (1860), UsefulNotes/JamesGarfield (1880), UsefulNotes/WilliamMcKinley (1900) and UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy (1960) were all assassinated.[[/note]] He did come close to meeting an untimely end in office, however, as barely three months into his first term, he was shot and severely injured by John Hinckley, and only survived due to prompt medical care. Reagan remains the only sitting president to be injured but not killed in an assassination attempt, and his brush with death is credited with having boosted his approval ratings from "pretty damn good" to "astronomical," and helped him score arguably the most decisive victory in a seriously contested presidential election when he was re-elected in 1984, with only 3,761 Minnesota voters coming between him and victory in ''every single state''. Ironically, the only reason he almost died from the attack was because of the protections meant to keep him safe in the first place: the bullet ricocheted off of his bulletproof limo and hit him in a vital area. Had it been an ordinary car, he would've escaped unharmed.

Fun fact: Reagan was once a member of the Democratic Party. He also was very, very addicted to jelly beans. He started eating them [[AddictionDisplacement when he quit smoking]], and he seriously had jelly bean cup-holders placed on government planes. When he won in 1980, he wanted a jelly bean flag of red, white, and blue to be created to the occasion. There were no blue-colored jelly beans at the time, so the Jelly Belly company created the blueberry flavor specifically for the ceremony. It ended up becoming one of their most popular flavors.

As always, be cool and use the Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment: lots of people have strong opinions on him, his legacy and his economic policies.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/president_ronald_reagan_1982.jpeg]]
[[caption-width-right:350: ''"[[UsefulNotes/MikhailGorbachev Mr. Gorbachev]], tear down [[UsefulNotes/BerlinWall this wall]]!"'']]

* In ''ComicBook/DeadlyClass'', main protagonist Marcus blames Reagan for his parents' death, as his slashing of federal mental health funding led to numerous mental patients being unleashed onto the streets, including the one who crushed Marcus' parents by landing on them when jumping to her death. As such, Marcus intends to use the assassin training he's gaining at King's Dominion to kill Reagan in revenge one day.

* The Franchise/CthulhuMythos story, ''A Colder War'', by Creator/CharlesStross has Reagan accidentally causing TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, by jokingly saying "We'll starting bombing in fifteen minutes!" during a speech in UsefulNotes/{{Finland}}. This leads to the Soviet Union, as well as the warring states of UsefulNotes/{{Iraq}} and Iran, panicking and unleasing their horrifying {{Magitek}} weapons they got from studying Cthulhu and Soggoths, but still don't fully understand. The US quickly retaliate by lauching their own horrifying weapons they don't fully understand either, which they got from studing leftovers from the Elder Things, and soon humanity is utterly doomed.

* Rich Little did a fictious appeal to minority voters as Reagan rapping and Nancy on Bass. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XECby_mT1w "Rappin' Ronnie."]]

** Homer's "Rappin' Ronnie Reagan" tape. This is actually a ShoutOut to Rich Little's "Rappin' Ronnie", a fictious appeal to minority voters with Ron rapping and Nancy on Bass. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XECby_mT1w Watch it here.]]

'''Ronald Wilson Reagan''' (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States, serving from [[TheEighties 1981 to 1989]] between UsefulNotes/JimmyCarter and UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush. He was the sixteenth Republican president, and the first to serve two full terms since prior Republican president UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower[[note]]UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy was assassinated partway through his first term, UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson served the remainder of that term plus one full term before declining to seek reelection (which was constitutionally permitted due to Kennedy having already served three quarters of his term before his death), UsefulNotes/RichardNixon served one full term before resigning partway through his second, UsefulNotes/GeraldFord served out the remainder of that term before losing reelection to Carter, and finally, Carter served only one term before losing reelection to Reagan himself[[/note]]. Reagan is well known for restructuring the USA's political economy to allow the wealthy to keep more of the money they had earned (under the theory that high taxation stymied economic growth) and working together with UsefulNotes/MikhailGorbachev to end the UsefulNotes/ColdWar. He also was the last president to be in office during a war in which the United States officially declared itself to be neutral: UsefulNotes/TheFalklandsWar, fought between [[UsefulNotes/{{Britain}} the United Kingdom]] and UsefulNotes/{{Argentina}}.

His most famous role was probably in the 1942 film ''Film/KingsRow'', which contains the famous line: "Where's the rest of me?" (his character had [[AnArmAndALeg lost both of his legs]]). ''Where's the Rest of Me?'' was the title of his 1965 autobiography. He had a memorable PlayingAgainstType role as a brutal and abusive crime lord turned CorruptCorporateExecutive in his last film, ''Film/TheKillers'' (1964) by Don Siegel (of ''Film/DirtyHarry'' fame). Cinephiles and film historians actually consider that role his best performance since he held his own against strong performers like Creator/JohnCassavetes, Creator/LeeMarvin and Angie Dickinson (who he slaps around in a notorious scene).

* ''Film/TheKillers'' (1964)

* Music/{{Genesis}}' video of 'Music/LandofConfusion' uses ''Series/SpittingImage'' and their puppets, including that of Reagan as a would-be superhero.

* [[ImpersonationParadox Rich Little]] did a fictious appeal to minority voters as Reagan rapping and Nancy on Bass. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XECby_mT1w "Rappin' Ronnie."]]

** Homer's "Rappin' Ronnie Reagan" tape. This is actually a ShoutOut to [[ImpersonationParadox Rich Little's]] "Rappin' Ronnie", a fictious appeal to minority voters with Ron rapping and Nancy on Bass. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XECby_mT1w Watch it here.]]

Oh, and one last thing: [=Creator/RonaldReagan=] redirected here to Useful Notes. So tropes about his acting career go here, too.

[[quoteright:340:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/president_ronald_reagan_1982.jpeg]]
[[caption-width-right:340: ''"[[UsefulNotes/MikhailGorbachev Mr. Gorbachev]], tear down [[UsefulNotes/BerlinWall this wall]]!"'']]