Republican populist Ronald Reagan was the first – and, until Donald Trump, only – US president to have been divorced. He is also the reason that Americans have been able to divorce without the imposition of an undue government burden over the past 50 or so years, having been the first US politician to sign a no-fault divorce bill into state law while governor of California in 1969.
The vast majority of American states had such laws in place by the early 1980s, ending the need for somebody wanting a divorce to prove to a court that their spouse was at ‘fault’ due to adultery, domestic violence, bigamy, or some other accepted category.
It's a bit funny that Reagan, who was swept into the presidency in 1980 on the support of right-wing evangelical Christians, ushered in the US’s era of no-fault divorce.
