REAGAN'S LEGACY: "IT AIN'T JUST A QUESTION OF MISUNDERSTOOD"
In an opinion piece titled “Too many Republicans misunderstand Reagan’s legacy,” (Washington Post, 10/12/21) conservative columnist Henry Olsen wants Republicans and, more broadly, the Post’s readership, to look beyond “Reagan’s legacy as a simple, policy-focused creed” of limited government, low taxes and strong national defense, and focus on the softer side of Reagan. “His epitaph,” Olson writes, “doesn’t mention a single word about his monumental achievements. Instead, it is more general and encompassing: ‘I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will eventually triumph, and there is purpose and worth to each and every life.’”
Zombie Reaganites (whose “uncompromising agenda includes never raising taxes, foreign interventionism and a commitment to shrinking government spending, especially on popular entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare”) fail to acknowledge Reagan’s policies (raising FICA taxes, withdrawing from Lebanon and increasing government spending) contradicting their zombie agenda.
More importantly, they miss Reagan’s softer side, an omission Olsen then takes pains to correct, underscoring Reagan’s love for people. . . the virtues of the American people. . . their compassion . . . everyday American heroes . . . their love of country and quiet patriotism . . . and many other honeyed words penned by Peggy Noonan and a talented bench of speechwriters. Waxing on eloquently, Olsen adds:
Reagan valued his specific accomplishments, but he arguably most highly valued something less tangible: “resurgence of national pride.” He once said that he dreamed to “help Americans rise above pessimism by renewing their belief in themselves.” His legendary optimism wasn’t Pollyannaish; it was based on a fundamental belief in the inherent worth and dignity or human beings. He loved America because it enshrined that principle at the center of its founding for the first time in history, and because the Founders’ system of government allowed those facts to take root and grow.
Saying “Thoughtful Republicans are beginning to recover this aspect of Reagan’s legacy,” Qlsen quotes former Wisconsin Governor Walker – now heading the Young America’s Foundation, which owns the Reagan Ranch and the president’s boyhood home: “Focusing on the untapped, untamed potential of the American people was Reagan’s most important legacy. ‘He made us feel good again.’”
From Nikki Haley, Olson adds:
“More than anything,” she told the crowd [at the Reagan Library], “Ronald Reagan renewed our will to compete and win.” She continued: “The most important mission of our time is to stop our national self-loathing,” arguing, like Reagan, that American principles need to be re-embraced and extolled.
Olsen concludes with:
This version of Reagan’s legacy also counteracts some of the worst aspects of former president Donald Trump’s influence. Walker saw many parallels between the two men, but he also noted that “Trump didn’t leave an aspirational view.” A Republicanism that can articulate that sense of American purpose and destiny will do much to solve that problem while healing the party’s divisions. It will also renew the real Reagan legacy for our time — one that can again credibly speak of America as a shining city on a hill open to all.
Viewed from my perspective as a former William F. Buckley Jr. conservative who voted for Reagan in 1980 but became disenchanted when the donor-serving chicanery of Reaganomics became evident by the end of his first term, I found Olsen’s attempts to polish Reagan’s legacy grating and, indeed, hollow and hypocritical.
From Reagan’s first inaugural address, Olsen highlights: “How can we love our country and not love our countrymen, and loving them, reach out a hand when they fall, heal them when they are sick, and provide opportunities to make them self-sufficient so they will be equal in fact and not just in theory?” Noble words indeed, flowing straight from the pen of Ms. Noonan, no doubt.
It’s no wonder Olsen wants to refocus our attention toward “love of country and countrymen” and away from Reagan’s policies, because this one sentence reveals the hollowness and hypocrisy of his words when matched with deeds. None of Reagan’s policies, and especially the policies of his Republican successors and ideological heirs, match Reagan’s words: no “hand when they fall,” glaring gaps in health care for the sick, limited opportunities for self-sufficiency, and as for “equality in fact and not just in theory?” don’t make me laugh.
With Reaganomics -- tax cuts mainly for the rich, deregulation and bloated military spending increasing corporate profits mainly benefiting top management and shareholders -- Reagan launched the greatest legislated upward redistribution of wealth in history resulting in the U.S. becoming the most unequal society among advanced nations. (For further analysis, see my September 27, 2021 post “Legislating Inequality of Income and Wealth – How Reaganomics produces long-term economic, financial and social chaos.) The resulting deficits doubled the national debt and initiated the era of "Deficits don't matter." Emulated by G.W. Bush, Reaganomics produced the Panic of 2008 and Great Recession, and fostered yet more military spending, opening the way for 2 long and pointless wars in the Middle East, and adding trillions more to the national debt and thousands of graves at Arlington, not to mention Afghanistan and Iraq. Reprised by Trump, Reaganomics added more than $6 trillion to the national debt and further heightened inequality of income and wealth. Look at any indicia of inequality or mounting federal debt, and the point of inflection occurs at the outset of the Reagan administrations.
Reagan got the ball rolling on distrust of government (“Government is the problem” and “The nine most terrifying words in the English language. . .”) giving birth to the Tea Party, the Alt-Right, and culminating in Trump MAGA insurgents who attacked the Capitol, believe Trump’s Big Lie, and menace anyone who opposes Trump with physical violence.
We also have Reagan to thank for lending credibility to Jerry Falwell and the emergence of evangelical so-called Christians as a political force, later to form the core of G.W. Bush's support and Trump's base, morphing into Q-Anon crazies, anti-vaxxers, and the corrupted Republican party committed to undermine democracy, perpetuate white minority rule, oppress people of color, end the separation of church and state, criminalize abortion, promote unregulated gun ownership, undercut the health of the population, heighten inequality and establish a permanent white aristocracy ruling a government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.
The attempt to bathe Reagan’s shining city in sunshine and sarsaparilla overlooks the darker side of a man who was in the end, as Gore Vidal so eloquently put it, nothing more than "the best cue-card reader they could find."