Reagan at 100: The tug-of-war over his legacy
Liberals and conservatives are battling over how to define Reagan.
“The political world as a whole” has awakened to “the greatness in Reagan,” said Byron York in WashingtonExaminer.com. As we approach the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth, Americans live in a nation and a world transformed by his “deep belief in liberty, free enterprise, and American exceptionalism.” Every potential GOP 2012 presidential candidate claims to be a “Reagan Republican,” and in a real sense they all are: Thirty years ago, he wrenched the party away from the “country club” moderates who sneered at true conservatives. Among Reagan’s unabashed admirers is a certain “Ivy League lawyer from Hawaii,” said Michael Scherer in Time. President Obama has studied Reagan’s presidency as a model of transformational leadership and political evolution; like Reagan, he has responded to a recession and a plunge in the polls with a strategic move to the middle.
The fond tributes to the Gipper are justified, said Ryan L. Cole in The American Spectator. But I take offense at seeing the Reagan legacy “appropriated” by the wrong people—like the current Democratic president. Liberals are suddenly keen to have us forget that they once heaped “histrionic levels of disgust” on Reagan, denigrating him as an “amiable dunce” fixated on free markets and anti-communism. We can’t let Democrats now smooth out Reagan’s “prickly partisan edges” in an effort to turn him into a “warm and cuddly” centrist. Sure, he made some compromises with the opposition; what president hasn’t? But “his triumphs were caused by his conservatism, not in spite of it.”
Maybe we liberals were “too harsh” about Reagan in the 1980s, said Walter Shapiro in PoliticsDaily.com. But it’s “21st-century conservatives” who have “airbrushed” the man’s record—his eight budget deficits, his “abject retreat” from Lebanon following the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks, his secret and illegal sale of arms to Iran’s mullahs. Most of all, conservatives would prefer to forget that after slashing tax rates in 1981, Reagan raised them twice. Were he on the scene today, Reagan’s “tax realism” alone would likely lead to his denunciation as “a RINO (Republican in Name Only).” Reagan was also far too “sunny” for today’s Tea Party absolutists, said Nick Ragone in the Newark, N.J., Star-Ledger. Sadly, his cheerful optimism—his willingness to take half a loaf rather than none—would feel out of place in the “vituperative” politics of our age.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
'A financial windfall for Iranian terrorism'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
Orangutan heals cut with medicinal plant
Speed Read A Sumatran orangutan in Indonesia has been self-medicating to heal a wound on his cheek
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Turkey halts trade with Israel in latest Gaza rift
Speed Read The country plans to join South Africa's genocide case against Israel
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Arizona court reinstates 1864 abortion ban
Speed Read The law makes all abortions illegal in the state except to save the mother's life
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Trump, billions richer, is selling Bibles
Speed Read The former president is hawking a $60 "God Bless the USA Bible"
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
The debate about Biden's age and mental fitness
In Depth Some critics argue Biden is too old to run again. Does the argument have merit?
By Grayson Quay Published
-
How would a second Trump presidency affect Britain?
Today's Big Question Re-election of Republican frontrunner could threaten UK security, warns former head of secret service
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
'Rwanda plan is less a deterrent and more a bluff'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By The Week UK Published
-
Henry Kissinger dies aged 100: a complicated legacy?
Talking Point Top US diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize winner remembered as both foreign policy genius and war criminal
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Last updated
-
Trump’s rhetoric: a shift to 'straight-up Nazi talk'
Why everyone's talking about Would-be president's sinister language is backed by an incendiary policy agenda, say commentators
By The Week UK Published
-
More covfefe: is the world ready for a second Donald Trump presidency?
Today's Big Question Republican's re-election would be a 'nightmare' scenario for Europe, Ukraine and the West
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published