>More complex than that. R's fam life early on wasn't happy, and he sought to
>fill whatever emptiness he felt by embracing and espousing the simplest
>narratives.
Or, as they NYT obit put it:
>"For Ronald Reagan, the world of legend and myth is a real world,"
>said Patrick J. Buchanan, a longtime political ally who was Mr.
>Reagan's director of White House communications. "He visits it
>regularly, and he's a happy man there."
And that's a lot of the reason why he was such a malevolent influence. Of course we all take refuge in fantasy, and our views of the world are always refracted through defense and wish, but RR was an extreme case of this, and pushed politics far more deeply into the fantastic realm. No doubt his family loved him, but that's not really our concern. He managed to package viciousness and ignorance as liberation and charm, and he deserves really rough treatment. Fuck him.
Doug