The Least Reaganesque President in American History

All wrong. Jimmy Stewart for Governor, Reagan for best friend.

Film producer Jack Warner when he heard then-actor Ronald Reagan was running for governor of California

About four years ago I came across a gem of an article on the beloved satirical news site, The Onion, that gave a brief and bitingly hilarious summary of every American president. Jury is out on whether this was my blogging inspiration to attempt the same, but the section on Reagan has always stuck with me. The subtitle was “A Disgrace to Reagan’s Legacy” and I cannot help myself but reprint it in full here. Don’t call it plagiarism, consider it an homage.

“Fortieth president of the United States, who over two terms in office tripled the national debt, funded the group that would become al-Qaeda while trying to expel the Russian military from Afghanistan, and vastly expanded the federal government, making him the least Reaganesque president in history. Though the Illinois native set himself up to be the quintessential Reaganite president by promising in his 1981 inaugural speech to reduce the size of government and rein in spending, he actually built up an enormous peacetime military and drove the federal deficit to unprecedented levels, a decidedly un-Reaganesque move. Reagan went on to violate almost every tenet of traditional, small-government Reaganism by approving 61,000 new federal jobs, reneging on his pledge to cut taxes, and then increasing payroll and gasoline taxes. Even when Reagan was at his most Reaganesque—authorizing covert military operations against the communist Sandinista government—he only managed it by illegally trading arms to Iran to fund the Nicaraguan rebel Contras, who in turn trafficked narcotics to the United States, effectively negating his Reaganesque antidrug policies. Most historians agree that by balancing the federal budget and shrinking the the federal government by 373,000 workers, Bill Clinton was the most Reaganesque president of all time.”

Funny things is, all that stuff is true. In some ways, I think Ronald Reagan is the Republican version of JFK. He was beloved, worshipped really, for his charisma, his rhetoric and his persona. And just like JFK, behind that gleaming, manicured veneer was a devil of political double speak that would make Richard Nixon blush.

Reagan’s legacy is undeniably confusing. His splashiest moments are always championed by those who loved him. He fired all those bum air traffic controllers for striking! He tore down the Berlin Wall with his bare hands! He put Scalia on the Supreme Court! He was the Gipper! But, like most revered figures of history, the reality is a lot murkier.

First off, there is the political switcheroo. Reagan was a dyed in the wool Democrat when he was coming up in Hollywood. To wit, Dutch campaigned for Helen Gahagan Douglas, the Pink Lady herself, against Nixon in the 1950 California Senate race and her campaign team worried that Reagan was too liberal and might hurt their cause. Ronnie voted for FDR four times; the same Roosevelt who expanded the scope of the federal government more than any president in history. Truman got Reagan’s vote in ’48 too, but by 1952 the well-paid-actor-cum-politico had begun to hate high taxes so much that a new script, this time tinged Republican red, could now be found in his dressing room.

Despite his new found love of fiscal conservatism, Reagan would not live up to his Republican rhetoric once he was elected to run California as governor. In March 1967, Reagan requested a $946 million increase in taxes, the biggest tax hike yet sought by any governor of any state. It was four times the size of the last record tax hike, courtesy of then-Governor Pat Brown eight years prior, which was a major factoid Reagan used against Brown to beat him in their election battle. Dutch also raised taxes in 1971 and 1972 to fund property tax relief for home owners by increasing rates on corporations, banks and high earners. Not exactly a modern Republicans dream date.

And yet! And yet! Ronald Reagan is revered, raved about, redoubted and respected as the Father of Modern Conservatives. This is the same man who tried to dodge military service multiple times so he could keep the cushy actor gig. [Ed. note: Ultimately, he was drafted but his eyesight was so bad it kept him in San Francisco loading troop transports. He never left the US.] Though he gushed about morality, he thought men’s desire for women was “an instinct as much a part of him as hunger and thirst.” After his divorce from first-wife Jane Wyman, Reagan was known for running up huge nightclub tabs and entertaining an endless string of women afterwards. In his campaign for Governor, he wouldn’t even acknowledge his own children from his first marriage because his handlers thought the reminder of a failed marriage hurt his wholesome image.

When it came to race, Reagan stood up more against antisemitism than anti-racism. He hated Communists so much he did speaking engagements for the likes of the John Birch Society, the Church League of America and the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade, praising these anti-communist and states’ rights defenders while ignoring their glaring racism. He opposed the Civil Rights & Voting Rights Acts of 1965. In a campaign speech he once railed against a recent Supreme Court ruling that disallowed a California housing proposition that would have let homeowners refuse to sell their houses to black people. And I quote, “If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his home, he has the right to do so.” And he won this election in a landslide!

Colorado Congresswoman Pat Schroder once called Ronald Reagan “the Teflon president”; a reference to the non-stick wonder-product that was invented, serendipitously, just as the Gipper arrived in Hollywood. Racist remarks in the campaign speech? He’s just a believer in states’ rights! Raise taxes to unprecedented rates every time he held an office? Well if the Democrats hadn’t screwed everything up, he wouldn’t have to pay for it! Play fast and loose with morals whenever it was inconvenient? Aww shucks. Boys will be boys! Flash a smile and drop a few folk sayings. No need to soak this pan.

There are a lot of books about Ronald Reagan. Too many, I’d argue. I tried to read a lengthy one, but as you might guess from my diatribe, I couldn’t stomach it. My apologies, Iwan Morgan. It’s not you, it’s me. But hey, it was the same with JFK, so at least I’m bipartisan with my myth busting. Jacob Weisberg’s American Presidents Series entry got me through on this one, and I thank him for the effort. He wasn’t a Reagan-hater per se, but he didn’t seem to understand the hype. Maybe he thought everyone was confusing Dutch with Eisenhower.

There is a lot more to say about Ronald Reagan, but I’ll leave you with this: Don’t believe the hype.

Trivia

• Nicknamed Dutch because at birth his father called the chubby newborn “a little Dutchman”
• Crazy coincidence: While Reagan was playing Special Agent Brass Bancroft on the silver screen, a ten year old Jerry Parr got the itch to be a Secret Service agent. Parr not only became one, he helped save Reagan’s life during the assassination attempt.
• Speaking of the assassination attempt: despite PR spin that said he was fine, Reagan lost 12 lbs. in 12 days and half the blood in his body. The would-be assassin had bought the handgun at a Dallas pawn shop for $47.
• Was a snitch for the FBI in 1947 to inform on communist members in the Screen Actors Guild. During the war he had also supplied the government with names of those in the film business who were German sympathizers and anti-Semites. He did it so often he even had a code name (T-10)!
• Simpson-Mazzoli Act – gave legal status to three million undocumented workers and allowed cross-border seasonal movement to farm workers.
  • On immigration, knowing the migrant farm worker value said, “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.” in a 1984 debate with Mondale.
  • While I think this was a good thing, it still puts him curiously at odds with his own Republican framework.
• As Gov. of CA signed the Therapeutic Abortion Act of 1967, 6 years before Roe v Wade. It allowed legal abortion in the case of rape, incest or threat to life or health of the mother. (Are we seeing a contrary theme here?)
• Four major pillars of “Reaganomics”
  • reduce taxes (while he did simplify the tax brackets and lower high rates and add to Earned Income Credit revenues, it caused major shortfalls and did not pay for itself as pitched)
  • cut domestic spending (As president, total federal workforce grew around 5% over his term and the national debt rose from $998 billion to $2.857 Trillion)
  • deregulate (for example: Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act – let savings and loans take huge risks while remaining federally insured, much of which lead to the $130 bailout issued by George HW Bush a few years later.)
  • use monetary policy to combat inflation (here’s a view from when it was happening)
• Fell asleep while with the Pope (twice!) and at a dinner with Gorbachev in Moscow. 

Follow-up Reading

• Reagan: An American Journey by Bob Spitz
• When Character Was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan by Peggy Noonan
• Reagan: American Icon by Iwan Morgan (like I said, it’s not you, it’s me)