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Its not as much Reagan himself but I will say his stance on positions really did help create the divide between liberals and conservatives:
His era is clearly one of the most conservative in the era of U.S. history - akin to the 50's if you will - but the 80's saw the rise of many many issues that were growing - homosexual rights, abortion, affirmative action, to name a few - Reagan really took a stance on those controversial topics - and thus, many modern day conservatives (who pretty much all idolize him lol) follow a lot of his stances. Now obviously he didn't create these stances - far from it, but he really made it public and influenced a lot of people today.
The problem was, a lot of his stances were on very very controversial topics which could be defended or attakced by any person - and many obviously opposed Reagan's position.
So after his era, we see all these issues all over the 90's even larger and larger and becoming more of an issue during election time.
Think of pre-80's - affirmative action, abortion, gun control, and what not, were hardly issues used to garner votes.
The 2000 election saw Gore and Bush using these stances to get votes - and often times, they were both fuzzy stances - somewhat yes on affirmative action, some what no, jsut to simply gain votes if anything.
I can say it will only get worse - because people are more and more willing to be polarized on these issues.
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