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I was standing in front of the Department of Labor building (ironic, I know) and there were people all the way up the little hill leading to the building and people crowded onto the main steps. I was standing on the sidewalk, which was already about four or five deep an hour before the procession passed. It was about six to seven deep by six. The sidewalk on the other side of Constitution was blocked off, save for one family that appeared to have claimed a spot before they started closing off the area. The roof of the building next to DOL was full of people, and you could see that each window was full of people too. Given the heat of the evening, I envied them. I might have seen one or two people in uniform in the crowd around me. Looking through the picture on the Washington Post website, there seems to be crowds of up to ten deep at the Ellipse. The route stretched from the Washington Monument to the Capitol, and even if the people were lined only five deep the whole way, it would still be a substantial crowd. Everyone except for the small children were there of their own free will.
The crowd around me was almost all white, although there was a black lady standing behind me. I couldn't help but notice the lack of minorities. The ages varied greatly. There were many tourist-types there, as well as people who had just gotten off work. I walked down to Constitution at noon and people already had their lawn chairs set up under the shade.
I went for a mixture of reasons. A state funeral is a rare event and I would hate to miss it, regardless of who was being honored. The pomp of the bands, the military units, the flyover, the horses and the crowds were quite exciting and moving. I was too young to remember much of Reagan, but my father and grandmother who are both lifelong Democrats liked the man. Just twenty years ago he won 49 states, which is just unfathomable today. I was reading some old articles from the New York Times today, and it's remarkable how poorly the outlook for this country was in the late seventies. A prediction just before New Years 1980 was hopeful that the inflation problem could get under control be the end of the 80s. It really was a time of great pessimism.
Whether Reagan had anything to do with the successes of that decade: the ending of massive inflation, the end of the Soviet Union, the spread of democracy throughout Europe, and the other things really doesn't matter. If we link him to the bad things of that decade - the AIDS epidemic, propping up evil regimes, runaway budgets, increases in inequality..., then we must link him to the good as well. He was the President of the country I love, and in a democracy that doesn't mean that I have to agree with him or even like him, but it means that I should honor and respect the wishes of the majority of people who saw in him their greatest hopes. I am not so full of hate that I couldn't take a couple hours out of my day to pay tribute to that.
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