The Tortured, Miserable Ghost of Ronald Reagan.
Ronald Reagan and Elvis Presley have two things in common: (1) They were both movie stars who ate fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches as a snack, and (2) they both died at exactly the right time.
Elvis died in 1977. Decades after his death, Prof. Arthur Berger summed up Elvis’s lasting appeal: “Elvis is a distinctive persona that people can latch onto. He’s a pop culture icon. He had a distinctive look, which led to a bunch of clones, and his death made him more interesting. If he had lived, perhaps he would be an old has-been, long in the tooth, fat, druggie.”
In other words, Has-Been-Obese-Druggie-Elvis died just in time to permanently cement the legacy of Iconic-Sex-Symbol-Rockstar-Elvis.
Ronald Reagan died in 2004. Just as we were entering the prelude-to-a-recession “Wait, Iraq Didn’t Have WMDs But We Invaded Anyway??” Phase of the Bush administration, the Last Great Conservative President died of pneumonia at age 93. Like wistful Elvis fans rediscovering dusty old records by The King that had been neglected for decades, it didn’t take long before the lionization of Reagan and nostalgia for the Reagan Era became standard GOP orthodoxy. Republican candidates began trying to outdo one another as “soldiers from the days of the Reagan Revolution,” or “torch-bearers of the legacy of Reagan,” and so on. In one Republican primary debate in 2008, Reagan was mentioned over 50 times. By the first 2012 Republican primary debate, Reagan was invoked over 100 times. And despite how … uh… different the 2016 GOP primaries were, the odes to Reagan remained. Ronald Reagan was the King of Conservative Rock and Roll, and everyone else could only aspire to imitate him.
There was just one problem with the GOP’s Reagan Renaissance. The attributes of the mythical conservative-legend Reagan and those of the real-life Reagan started diverging more and more as each year passed. Fifteen years after Reagan’s death, the 2019 version of the Republican Party now only bears a passing resemblance to the 1980s heyday of the Reagan administration. The modern Republican invocation of Reagan is like a music industry executive saying, “I guarantee you Elvis would have loved the new Nicki Minaj album, especially songs like ‘Barbie Tings,’ ‘Truffle Butter,’ and ‘Ganja Burn.’”
Much like his Republican predecessor, Reagan would be, at best, a fish out of water in today’s GOP, if not a pariah. At worst, if pneumonia hadn’t killed Reagan in 2004, the 2019 version of the political party he once led would be plotting to finish the job (or at least some faction would start “just raising the question” about whether his birth certificate was real, and so forth).
But all joking aside, try to imagine where Reagan would land in the modern political landscape.
Reagan on Illegal Immigration / Border Wall
It’s no stretch to say that Donald Trump’s number-one issue is immigration. If you’ve been even half paying attention to politics for the last three years, it’ll be obvious how wildly out of step Reagan’s track record on immigration is compared to the current hard-line approach from the current White House.
In a 1984 speech, Reagan called for amnesty for undocumented immigrants who had established themselves in the country: “I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally.”
This was no aberration. In a 1980 Republican primary debate with George H.W. Bush, Reagan supported expanded legal immigration from Mexico and opposing a border fence, stating: “Rather than … talking about putting up a fence, why don’t we … make it possible for [Mexicans] to come here legally with a work permit.”
This wasn’t just rhetoric. In 1986, Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (“IRCA”). This landmark bill granted a path to citizenship for more than 3 MILLION PEOPLE in the United States illegally. The IRCA affected the lives of millions of immigrants and their families and was a precursor to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policies implemented by the Obama administration and other modern attempts at immigration reform.
In his last speech as President, Reagan depicted a concept of American exceptionalism rooted in immigration: “We lead the world because unique among nations, we draw our people, our strength, from every country and every corner of the world.” (Seriously, if you skip everything else I have to say, watch this video.)
Fast-forward to 2019. Can you imagine the volume of the pre-dawn, typo-laden Presidential Twitter diatribes Reagan would be subject to for opposing a border wall, granting amnesty for millions of undocumented immigrants, and laying the groundwork for DACA?
For some reason the nostalgic callbacks to the Reagan Era never seem to bring up the IRCA (easily the most substantial immigration reform in a generation) or the compromises on both sides of the aisle it took to pass it.
Reagan on Free Trade
In contrast to the post-2016 revival of trade protectionism, highlighted by the Trumpian opposition to free trade agreements, Reagan laid the groundwork for the modern global trading landscape, including setting the stage for what would eventually turn into NAFTA.
In 1986, Reagan pushed forward multilateral trade negotiations which ultimately decreased tariffs globally, setting the stage for the eventual creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) — which President Trump has called the “worst deal ever made.”
In 1988, the Reagan administration secured the approval of the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement. When this agreement expanded to Mexico a few years later, it became the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) — which President Trump has (also) called the “worst deal ever made.”
Setting aside which of these deals is the actual “worst deal” in the eyes of today’s GOP, it’s safe to say the ghost of Reagan isn’t smiling down on the attempts to dismantle his major trade policy achievements.
Reagan on Homosexuality.
Let’s be crystal clear. Nobody would call Reagan a champion of LGBT rights. But his views going as far back as the late 1970s were surprisingly progressive for their time — and more leftward than those of a substantial swath of GOP voters today.
In an op-ed from 1978, Reagan stated:
“Whatever else it is homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles. Prevailing scientific opinion is that an individual’s sexuality is determined at a very early age and that a child’s teachers do not really influence this.”
In keeping with this, before entering the 1980 presidential race, he publicly opposed California’s Proposition 6, which would have prohibited anyone identifying as gay from teaching in a public school. Once again, a Republican presidential hopeful made this his public position forty years ago. John Lennon was still making music; John Wayne was still making movies; school desegregation was still in full swing; and the country was mourning the sudden death a certain fried-peanut-butter-and-banana-sandwich-eating King of Rock and Roll just a year earlier. (Sorry, had to.) If that was Reagan’s public position on homosexuality then, imagine where he’d fall with regard to Republican orthodoxy on LGBT issues today. My guess? Outside of it.
Reagan on Tax Increases and NATO Allies.
The list could go on. Reagan famously lowered federal taxes in the early 1980s, but then he (less famously, these days) changed course and raised taxes multiple times throughout the rest of his presidency. Passing tax increases in response to a soaring deficit for some reason never seems to make the cut when Republicans harken back to the Reagan of Legend. And, needless to say, Ronald “Cold War Winner” Reagan was doggedly devoted to NATO and defense of our NATO allies (which I raise for absolutely no reason).
At bottom, it’s no stretch to say that Reagan was the most successful Republican president in the last half century. But a decade and a half after his death, as the parties drift further from what they were in Reagan’s time, the Republican invocations of Reagan to bless the latest policy proposal look less like a tribute and more like a convenient rewrite of a complicated history.
As tempting as it is to put self-serving words into a famous dead person’s mouth, it’s time to give this one a rest. Elvis would totally agree with me on this — just saying.
