Imaginary version??? Hardly. The man swept 49 states and not with a bunch of phoney rhetoric. The man turned a nation that was beaten down into the proud and great again. Reagan was not some creation of imagination, he was real. I can still listen and be inspired by his speeches that are some 30 years old.
That's all true, but it still doesn't mean a lot of the folks here on FR would be denoucing him as a RINO SELLOUT.
Mark my words: If freerepublic was around during Reagan's term, people around here would be up in arms, denouncing him for:
1. 'Real' Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants, not earned citizenship;
2. Arms Control Agreement with the Soviet Union;
3. Runaway federal spending;
4. 'Caving' to the Democrats on tax increases;
5. Nominating RINO's Sandra Day-O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy to the Supreme Court;
6. 'Appeasing' the terrorist in Lebannon;
7. Causing us to lose the Senate, and lose seats in the House, in 1986
etc.
At LEAST 1/3rd of FR, if not more, would be saying that they 'wished he would have lost in 84' because it would have been 'good for the movement longterm' because he 'sold out his principles'. They'd be ranting 'I didn't leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party under RINO Ronald Reagan left me!' and other such nonsense.