Every president since my birth has a game in this series. The pieces combines the text from their inaugural speech with a board game that symbolizes their presidency.
Ronald Reagan had an incredibly full presidency. In his first term, he survived an assassination attempt, spurred the War on Drugs, invaded Grenada, and fought public-sector labor unions. His supply-side economic policies “Reaganomics” advocated tax reduction, economic deregulation, and reduction in government spending on social welfare, while dramatically increasing military spending. In March 1983, Reagan introduced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a defense project that would have used a combination of advanced ground- and space-based systems such as X-rays and lasers to protect the United States from attack by nuclear missiles. Even today, it sounds like far-fetched futuristic fantasy. Despite earning the moniker “Star Wars” due to widespread disbelief in the program's scientific feasibility, Regan full-heartedly believed that this defense shield would render a nuclear attack on the United States impossible. The Soviets felt that the SDI represented a ratcheting up of Cold War tensions; leader Yuri Andropov said it would put "the entire world in jeopardy.” In 1987, the Strategic Defense Initiative released a study suggesting that they would need ten more years of research to determine if the SDI was even possible, and their funding was cut. The program was eventually scrapped by President Clinton. Ironically, the SDI probably did cause the end of the Cold War because the Soviets increased spending on nuclear arms so dramatically, that it crippled the economy of the Soviet Union, causing it’s collapse in 1991. This is exactly why Star Wars: Escape from the Death Star, the board game, is a perfect analogy for Regan’s presidency. The game has Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo and Chewbacca trapped in the Death Star Trash Compactor and the goal is to help them escape to the freedom of the Rebel Base.
