As a person who became an adult (legally, not necessarily emotionally) when Ronald Reagan was President, I have a complicated perspective on the man and his time as President.
The marginalization of targeted demographics (based on skin color, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnic origins and more) that is so pervasive in today's Republican Party, the seeds for that were planted and nurtured in Reagan's run up as the leader of the Republican Party. The demonization of the so-called "welfare queen", the wholesale indifference to the AIDS crisis, the adherence to white evangelical Christianity as a basis for political policy, all this and more that serves to crack and corrupt the foundation of conservative political thought today began with Ronald Reagan.
BUT...
For all that, Reagan was mostly a positive dude, tending to expound on positive American attributes instead of dwelling on the negative, the view of America as "a shining city on a hill".
Reagan wasn't out to make America great again. His view was we were already great; we just needed to remind ourselves of it.
I'll admit I got caught up in all that positivity. The first President I was old enough to vote for was Ronald Reagan. After a childhood of the dour Richard Nixon and milquetoast Jimmy Carter, Reagan represented a sense of confidence and pride that we had lost in ourselves as a nation and as a people. He was the avuncular grandpa who could get shit done.
He was also a pragmatic person, prepared to do what was necessary to get the business of government done. Rock ribbed conservative Ronald Reagan would sit down with liberal Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill to hammer out a budget deal. Reagan may not have liked O'Neill but dammit, they were both in positions of power and responsibility and it was their respective jobs to get things done.
Compare that to the modern state of the Republican Party that casts the Democratic Party as those who "hate America", who are "out to destroy America", a party to be marginalized and ignored, even it means nothing gets done.
Even if it means the government shuts down.
All of this comes to my mind from a recent story by Brad Reed about the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute (that oversees the Reagan Library) throwing shade at Donald Trump.
One of the board of trustee's described Trump as a "spoiled brat in a sandbox. So many of the things that Trump did, and what he stood for, are just not consistent with the Reagan philosophy. I wouldn’t want to condone what Trump had done by inviting him to speak. That would be sort of an acceptance of his behavior over the years.”
An adviser to the board had this to say: “The legacy of Reagan, fair or unfair, right or wrong, was ‘shining city on a hill’ — upbeat and positive and have a beer with Tip O’Neill. And Trump is Voldemort. He was the opposite. He wanted to burn everything to the ground, attack people.”
Now as much fun as it is to see these Reagan advocates throw shade at petulant man baby Li'l Donnie, it is important to acknowledge that the Reagan Library has hosted as speakers various Trump sycophants like Mike Pompeo. It seems somewhat disingenuous to be dismissive of the man but welcome those enabled him.
And the path that took Trump to the Presidency was blazed by Ronald Reagan, the "southern strategy" that targeted poor rural white under educated evangelicals to vote Republican. It seems a bit hypocritical for representatives of the Reagan Library to dismiss a man who came to power following the road laid out by a man whose virtues you extol.
But for whatever commonalities there may have been between Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, there remains to my mind a significant difference.
Reagan's message to the poor rural white under educated evangelicals was "You're already great and I'm here to remind you of that."
That's not a bad mission statement for the President of the United States.
Trump's message to the poor rural white under educated evangelicals was "You're NOT great because OTHER PEOPLE are getting stuff you deserve and I'm here to save you from that."
Which just divides Americans against each other and is a terrible mission statement for the President of the United States.
Reagan's legacy may be tarnished with time but he never spoke ill of his own country, never demanded citizens to rise up against each other and never gave his ego precedence over his country.
You know, like this guy...
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