After a long battle with Alzheimer’s, Ronald Reagan died yesterday at the age of 93.
Reagan’s legacy has many facets. From his ending of the Iran hostage crisis at the start of his presidency, to the fall of the Berlin Wall just after the end of it, his administration was a decade of noteworthy achievements and economic prosperity. He is also remembered for inflating the national debt, and for the Contra scandal.
But perhaps his biggest achievement was to formally, once and for all, obliterate the line between celebrity and politics. Reagan ushered in the era when Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura get elected to government. And if you think that it’s inconceivable that Jerry Springer could get elected as President, just wait.
Ah, Sari, but if Jerry Springer were to run for President that would just be him returning to the political arena from which he, uh, sprang. (sorry for the bad pun) He was a councillor and then Mayor of Cincinnati. He’s also the child of refugees from the Holocaust, apparently.
I think you’re being a bit hard on Reagan. He was a politician for a lot longer than he was an actor – recall he was the governor of California during the ’60’s – and he was president of the Screen Actor’s Guild for quite a while as well. Even then, he showed he was quite politically thoughtful – as his testimony before the HUAC showed.