Yeah, we all remember what a paradise the USSR was prior to the 70s. What Reagan did was not to damage the Soviet economy; what Reagan did was to put the USSR on notice that the USA would not restrict arms to a level that allowed the USSR's creaky economy to remain ahead. That did not damage the Soviet economy, it merely forced the Soviets to admit that they could not match Western productivity and technology. Without Carter-style appeasement, the Soviets had no hope of retaining parity with, much less superiority over, the West.
Remain ahead? The best the Soviets ever did was about 50% of US GDP with a per capita GDP that royally sucked. By the time Reagan took office, the Soviets were already far behind and stagnating. Reagan didn't force the Soviets to do anything, the damage had already been done. There were already severe shortages of consumer goods, especially housing, in the USSR before Reagan took office. The war in Afghanistan didn't help, but that was 1979.
I guess I don't understand your argument. How did Reagan force the Soviets to admit defeat? How would you even measure that? It is clear that the SU was in sharp decline before Reagan took office. If his sole accomplishment was to "act tough" on Communism, then why don't you credit the presidents that committed troops in Korea or Vietnam? Weren't they tougher on Communism?
People love Reagan for what he did, not for what he spent and only partially for what happened to the Soviets as a result of his refusal to play the Soviets' game by their rules.
What game and what rules? The game of economic decline which started before Reagan took office? I have news for you, that would've continued regardless of who was in office.
Also, people love Reagan for what he said, not what he did. Most have very little idea of what he actually did. If anything, he's more like Obama than anything else. An excellent orator who delivered horribly the policies that he preached.
Carter had established the idea that the United States was not special or unique or even a particularly good nation, that we were a declining empire that had to get used to lowering expectations and making do with less.
A man before his time then perhaps. What he said then is true to this day, even if we are only now feeling the pain.
Reagan reversed this. Reagan spoke of the US as a special place, the shining city on the hill, a beacon of freedom and an example to the world despite our warts. Reagan spoke of the US as a nation whose best days were ahead of us. People either get that or they don't, agree with it or not, value it or deride it. For most of the left, it's not something they understand, agree with, or value. Oddly enough, Obama seems to get it, or at least has someone savvy enough to understand it and use it.
Obama and Reagan are a lot alike, and they both fail miserably at implementing good policy. But in the end, some people only remember what they said and not what they did. It would be nice if the US was the shining beacon on the hill, but I live in reality and we have actual problems to address. Plugging your ears and crying "American Exceptionalism" solves nothing and is to a large degree why we are where we are. You call it hope and devotion, I call it ignorance and blindness. It has nothing to do with being left or right.