Ronald Reagan is having a moment in both American and Canadian political circles, a debate that Ontario’s recent Reagan-centric ad campaign elbowed its way into. It’s not hard to understand why Premier Doug Ford chose to make the former Republican luminary the voice proclaiming the virtues of free trade to our American neighbours. For decades, Reaganism was synonymous with a strong, ascendant America atop the world hierarchy.
Last March, during both President Donald Trump’s Address to a joint session of Congress and in the Democratic Party’s response, Reagan was the only person singled out for praise by both parties. In her speech, Democratic Representative Elissa Slotkin stated:
“Reagan understood that true strength required America to combine our military and economic might with moral clarity.”
The myth and the man
Twenty years after his passing and 37 years after his last day in office, Reagan has come to occupy an almost mythical position. Yet cracks are beginning to show in the mantle of his legacy, as critics have recently gained traction contesting both the style and substance of his politics and policies; the GOP (and some conservative movements across the West more broadly) has strayed from the conservative and free market economic principles effused by Reagan. While in response to Trump’s tariff freelancing, some Democrats, cynically or not, are seeking to reinforce formerly bipartisan orthodoxies surrounding areas such as free trade, the value of allies, and personal liberty.
There’s a reason the larger-than-life president is still able to inspire so much debate. Yet despite his undeniable influence on cultural and political history in both America and beyond, Reagan himself remains somewhat of a mystery.
Why is Ronald Reagan's legacy still debated and invoked by modern leaders like Trump and Ford?
How does the article contrast Donald Trump's leadership style with Ronald Reagan's?
What does the article suggest about the effectiveness of leaders who rely on loyalty over competency in their staff?
On the surface, his apparent personal charm and affability were a key part of his public image. Yet there was an impenetrable core that only Nancy Reagan and one or two others may have been privy to. The myth of Reagan today parallels the movie characters he once portrayed on film: a polished but one-dimensional figure that provides no hint of the depth of the person behind the screen. Max Boot’s recent biography, Reagan, addresses this gap. A prominent national security analyst and columnist at the Washington Post, Boot spent over a decade drawing together an impressive depth and width of information to build a portrait of the man and his time. The biography is a large colourful mosaic of research that provides deep insight into the man’s life. Boot doesn’t shy away from exploring some of the more controversial parts of Reagan’s past, such as the deals he struck with the movie studios as the Screen Actors Guild president or his less-than-even record on race relations. What distinguishes Boot’s biography of Reagan is how he contextualizes these themes to provide a rich portrait of a figure as enigmatic as he was charismatic and consequential. The Trump contrast In assessing Reagan’s life, it is impossible not to draw contrasts to the present White House occupant. Boot spends a few pages in the concluding section highlighting some of the similarities and differences to Trump, but it’s fairly restrained overall. Reading through the work, it’s possible to discern more than a few similarities between the two men with respect to their politics and governance styles. Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign slogan was “Let’s make America great again,” which Trump has famously adopted. Yet Reagan came into office preaching a hopeful, upbeat vision of America that harkened back to its better days and promised greater things to come. While he often castigated political opponents, it was relatively limited in scope and was always woven into a broader theme of how American ingenuity and ardour had been limited by existing policies. In many respects, Trump’s approach is the inverse of Reagan’s: while ostensibly about a vision of recapturing American greatness, it is overwhelmingly about highlighting grievances—many personal in nature—to rally his base, often using social-media channels. Although polarization has altered how politics are conducted, the differing approaches explain their sustained (or not) popularity following their initial presidential win. Trump lost his first reelection bid and only won his second by 1.49 percent. Since then, he has watched his personal popularity decline to near-historic lows. Reagan, on the other hand, won his reelection and did so with an 18.2 percent margin to secure a crushing majority, winning 49 states and demonstrating his ability to extend beyond his electoral base. Both presidents’ approaches to governance bear superficial resemblance to each other’s—it’s easy to look at the policy missteps of the Reagan administration, like the Beirut bombing or Iran-Contra Affair, and see some similarities with the Trump administration’s own chaotic management style and lack of strategic coordination. Reagan was never into the details, unlike Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. His election platform in 1980 set out three broad policy goals—cut taxes, increase defence spending, and balance the budget—but not how he would achieve them. As an executive, he took a fairly hands-off approach, allowing his subordinates to develop their own policies so long as they fit within the broad ideological confines of his views. Reagan seemed to be more content to be the messenger-in-chief, communicating the decisions to the public and others. Several of his appointees, like Secretary of the Interior James Watt or National Security Advisor Bud McFarland, were abject disasters, yet Reagan often avoided dealing with such personnel issues until after much damage was already done. A feature of the Reagan administration was the significant policy factions that vied for control. He also faced an often hostile Congress that was either made up of fractious Republican elements or was in Democratic control altogether. This, however, as Boot highlights, set the stage for one of Reagan’s strongest political powers: his lifelong ability to compromise. He argues that this may have been the defining characteristic of the president’s professional life, allowing him to get many of his policies passed through stiff political circumstances. It’s apparent that President Trump’s governance approach suffers from the same issues, but they are only magnified by his inability to compromise. Furthermore, his staff and cabinet selections have shown a clear preference for individuals who serve to reinforce his personal preconceptions, rather than for their competency. They can be utterly ineffective managers as long as they serve as shield bearers for the commander-in-chief. Many of them come from less-than-qualified backgrounds, which would have ruled them out from being appointed to a much lesser post in a “normal” administration. Yet this only serves to ensure their loyalty, given that they owe the president their position. As they were selected for their ideological purity and are primarily there to parrot the president’s ever-changing policy positions, this creates immense organizational blind spots. In this way, one can see a sharp contrast between the two men. Reagan’s time in office made clear his limitations, but also his qualities and skills that allowed him to overcome them, such as compromise and graciousness. Trump’s path shows few of the same skills. It makes the dysfunction and ineffectiveness more understandable, but more serious and disappointing, too. As time progresses and distance gives us space to assess the legacy of Reagan’s time in office, many of the failings have faded from view. It has left a powerful myth, albeit one that is being newly contested in the highly polarized political environment that characterizes the United States today. Premier Ford should have understood this dynamic when crafting his ill-fated ad—his message of unity may have worked well in Reagan’s America, but it falls utterly flat in Trump’s.
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