The Great Communicator

There is a lot I just don't understand about Ronald Reagan. Like how did the son of a Democratic ward organizer wind up leading the troops of the new Right? And how did a divorced B-movie actor eventually become President and literally end the cold war by outspending the Russians ( who would've ever thought that the problem with Socialism was that there was no money in it...)?? We all know that the American political scene is filled with strange twists and turns but the story of "The Great Communicator" has got to take the cake... Ronald Ray-Gun, the man who despite mounds of credible scientific evidence indicating that it could never work, successfully sold the idea of a Star Wars type missile shield to the American public to the point where people today still believe it to be a viable option. This is the same man who sold the country on "trickle-down economics", the notion that if you give breaks to the rich their excess money will somehow drip down into the hands of the middle class who will be so overwhelmed or something that they will let their excess monies further trickle into the hands of the poor. The man became a national hero!! How this happened is truly beyond me...
Regardless of my generally negative view of his performance as President there are a couple of things I do admire about him. First, unlike our current president, Ronald Reagan actually held a job in his life prior to becoming a politician. This indicates he had some relationship, however distant, with reality. And remember when he "accidentally" slipped at the microphones after calling the USSR the evil empire and humorously said "the bombing will begin in five minutes" ? What a joker...
The biggest mystery to me is the presence of his fan club. The major newspapers are reporting that they expect "tens of thousands" (a big number) of persons to view his coffin while it lies in state and that many more will observe other funeral activities. Who are these people?? Has the Reagan fan club been meeting in secret all these years?? What were they planning on doing in the event that President Reagan hadn't died?? These unanswerable questions are but another small piece of the strange and twisted American puzzle. Ronald Reagan, the great communicator, another American original...