The Gipper, Liberal? Really? Don't Make Me Laugh
The Strange MAGA Fixation of Calling Reagan a Liberal
Back in 1976, Reagan was not the establishment of the GOP. He was an outsider seeking to displace a sitting “accidental” President in Gerald Ford.1 In the end, he wouldn’t win, but did capture 47% of the GOP Primary vote and a prime speaking spot at the ‘76 Party Convention. When he ran in 1980, he ran unapologetically from the far right of the party. He courted religious evangelicals from the growing Christian alliances the GOP was making. He bemoaned the Soviet Union as an evil nation, one that deserved more skepticism and to be treated more harshly as opposed to with an open hand and detente. He promoted deregulation and reducing taxation on Wall Street, to let the bull loose like it was back in the Lochner Era and the roaring ‘20s. In today’s parlance, he wasn’t just a disrupter, he was THE disrupter of the Republican Party.
It was such a divergence from the establishment GOP at the time that “liberal” Republican John Anderson, one of the first House Republicans who called on Nixon to resign, left the party to run for President as an Independent against him. He saw Reagan as dangerous to the party; as dangerous as many saw Barry Goldwater in 1964. To him, Reagan was not a practical politician who you could deal with, but an ideological zealot that would ruin the party for a generation and the country in the eyes of the world. However, not even a Third Paty spoiler candidate (who captured 7% of the vote) could stop the Reagan train.
Reagan won the 1980 election in a landslide, ushering in a change in how government is run not seen since FDR’s administration. Conservativism was on the rise and “liberal” was now a dirty word; so bad that liberal Walter Mondale could only win his own state of Minnesota and the city of Washington D.C. only four years later as Reagan and the Republicans won up and down the ticket all across the country. Reagan, with a Democratic Congress for most of his entire Presidency, was able to pass most of his agenda, and left office with extremely high approval ratings.
Which is why it is utterly confounding to me why today people on the right call Reagan a “liberal.”
It says to me one of two things: either 1) they are complete political idiots, or 2) the right of this country has gone so far out of the asylum that the most doctrinaire conservative elected President in the past 100 years isn’t conservative enough for today’s GOP.
But let’s take a closer look at Reagan’s record and assess.
Foreign Affairs
Reagan built up the military stockpile, expanded defense capabilities2 and dealt a hard line approach against American adversaries. He once quipped that we would "begin bombing" the Russians in minutes as a joke. He openly supported the Nicaraguan Contras and flat out invaded Grenada when communists took over. He supported Thatcher's fight in the Falklands and disdained Qaddaffi, Arafat and Middle Eastern Muslim figures he associated with terrorists. However, it was not a good look when it came out he was selling arms to Iran (for their costly war in Iraq, who we were also arming at the time) to free American hostages, with the proceeds going to fund the rebels in Nicaragua.3 But his biggest coup de grace came in Berlin, the biggest stage for the Cold War standoff, when he called on Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.4 When the Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed, he got much of the credit for his approaches. Throughout his term, Reagan's nationalism, military build up and flat out confrontation of our enemies seems to be much more conservative in nature than any other President since Truman, and he was a wartime President.
Financial Affairs
Reagan took the highest tax rates, some that would be seen as confiscatory today, and cut them in half. By doing so he began the biggest wealth inequality gap since the Gilded Age. He oversaw a deregulation of Wall Street and let Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand” take over. The “Greed is Good” era of Michael Milken, the Laffer Curve, leveraged buyouts, Milton Friedman and junk bonds exploded as banking became a premier sector to invest. The lack of regulation eventually led to the S & L collapse, and dot com boom and bust and eventually the Housing Bubble years later (Alan Greenspan, the Fed Chair who’s policies drove much of the 90s and 2000s economy, was a strong proponent of Reagan’s policies). All in all, barring a complete obliteration of financial law altogether, its hard to view anything more conservative than Reagan’s financial policies, especially when you consider where it was when he got into office and where it was when he left. Its one of the reasons Wall Street loves the guy so much.
Gun Control and Crime
Taken from the context of today, yes, Reagan was a little more liberal when it came to gun control. However, one has to look at the context at the time and the other factors that drive that perspective. The largest factor impacting gun policy today is the elevation of fringe activists within the NRA to the mainstream NRA position today and the insanely far right position that is historically speaking.
In the ‘80s, guns were looked at not as they are now as a liberty to be had, but as a contributor to crime. The seizure of guns and drugs were used as key indictors to how effective crime prevention policy was working. Drugs were a real problem in the ‘80s as cocaine from Central and South America became prevalent and gangs began openly confronting each other over territory, something that climaxed with the crack epidemic late in the decade.
Reagan portrayed himself as a “tough on crime” President. He went after guns in the same way he went after drugs, viewing them as one in the same context. Sure, he would take the occasional photo with a shotgun over his shoulder palling around with his old friend, former actor and NRA President Charlton Heston. However, Reagan also made a distinction between sport/hunting guns and handguns/assault rifles that proliferated crime, something the NRA of today makes no distinction on. Reagan’s position was the prevailing position on guns throughout the late ‘80s into the ‘90s, which included the passage of the Assault Weapons Ban and gun control bill in 1994.5
The defining moments of the modern “gun rights” movement happened at Ruby Ridge and Waco in the ealry ‘90s, long after Reagan left office. From that point on, the NRA pushed the idea that every person has the liberty to carry any kind of gun they choose. That idea persists today among the right wing. Its why gun shootings are rising, including at schools. Its why gun related crime is up. It’s why whenever there is a mass shooting there is a political paralysis to do anything about it. Yes, the current NRA position is more conservative than Reagan’s was, but one wishes to go back to the idea we had in Reagan’s day that guns are not good and often go hand in hand with crime.
Immigration
Reagan talking glowingly about his Irish heritage and how his family emigrated to the United States. The “shining city on a hill” was an apt metaphor he would go back to for why America was exceptional in the world. Eastern bloc immigrants risking life and limb to get to the west and America was an inspiration, one that he would often priase in speeches. Sympathy for people trying to leave authoritarian nations for democracy was a constant theme. They were to pitied and helped, not despised and torn apart.
Even so, he was no fan of letting in immigrants whole cloth or of illegal immigration. He wanted to crack down on illegal immigration and boost border security (see “crime” section above, particularly the part talking about drugs). Now, remember that he had to deal with a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate at the time. However, those bodies also had much more reasonable practical politicians in them as well. They crafted bipartisan legislation that 1) increased border security and funding, 2) cracked down on illegal immigration and 3) legalized illegal immigrants who were in the country for 5 years. This would provide a starting point toward fixing a long problematic immigration policy. Amnesty in this case, would provide the point of a reset for immigration policy. Reagan agreed and signed the bill. It wasn’t well liked by everyone, but it was a practical solution to a growing problem, and something needing to get done.
It wasn’t until 1992 when Pat Buchanan made immigration a cornerstone of his campaign against George HW Bush that the “amnesty” provided in the bill was an issue. This anti-immigration platform and a growing number of ultraconservative zealots within the GOP (Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, etc.) used it as a sledgehammer against Democratic opponents and pragmatic Republicans to be pushed out as RINOs. Today, its accepted within GOP orthodoxy that for a Republican to agree to amnesty in any form is to result in that officials primary loss next election. It is one of the reasons nothing can get done on immigration at all, since the GOP will never compromise on it.
Conclusion
Reagan was no liberal. He was as far right in his day as any Conservative of the time. Given that after four decades of the New Deal, Reagan had much further latitude to roll back many of its excesses and still enjoy popular support. Most any criticism today about Reagan not being conservative enough stems not from his policies or the context at the time, but from:
Practical dealmaking (compromising) and policy at the time that helped solve problems requiring government intervention;
The extreme rightward tilt of the party today, demanding an ultraconservative orthodoxy that is just at a purely insane level; and
A complete lack of common sense and knowledge among the mainstream Republican Party today.
PurpleAmerica’s Recommended Stories
On May 30, 1985, when I was 11 years old, Ronald Reagan came to my hometown. As a fifth grader at the time, from a school close to the airport, we were allowed to be on the tarmac waving to him as Air Force One landed and he got into the Presidential Limosuine. He stopped and paused for a photo op with the kids. I saw Sam Donaldson there that day.6 Someone from my class gave one of his handlers an “Oshkosh B'Gosh” engineer hat which Reagan waved and put on as he charmed the pre-adolescents there. I remember him saying something along the lines of "When I was a young man growing up all I had on was a pair of Oshkosh B'Gosh overalls, and now I'm going to see where they're made."7 He then drove to downtown Oshkosh and gave this speech about his tax plan that he unveiled a few nights before.
Talk to anyone from Oshkosh back then, they remember this day. It’s on par with when the Concorde first came to EAA8 or when Johnny Depp filmed "Public Enemies" there.
PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day
When Reagan was shot by David Hinckley a mere 69 days into his first term, he was taken to the hospital immediately to have the bullet removed. Before going under anesthesia, he asked the doctor “I hope you’re a good Republican.”
Reagan was only 3,761 votes from beating Mondale in Minnesota, which would have been the first time any President won all 50 states.
Reagan’s favorite food? Jelly Beans. He would have a dish of them on his desk every day. Aides said he would go through them so fast they had to keep refilling it multiple times a day.
PurpleAmerica Cultural Criticism Corner
Reagan had a good sense of humor and often was in on the joke when people poked fun at him. One of the best gags was in Back to the Future, when Doc Brown asked who was President in 1985 and Marty McFly responds “Ronald Reagan.”
According to his son, Ronald Reagan loved this scene.
Outstanding Tweet
Hard to hate the best who’s ever done it. And by that I mean the San Diego Chicken, the best mascot in sports ever. Nobody else comes close.
Footnotes and Parting Thoughts
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Gerald Ford is the only President in US history to hold the position without ever being on a national ticket up until that point. He did not run as Nixon’s VP in 1972, Spiro Agnew did. When Agnew resigned in disgrace, Ford was appointed and passed Senate confirmation, as the next Vice President. When Nixon resigned, Ford found himself in the position where he was now President, where not even a full term before he was just elected as a member of the House of Respresentatives.
The Space Defense Initiative (SDI) , mocked as “Star Wars” took the military into space on a more permanent basis; something Trump would eventually rename as “Space Force.”
All of which was pretty explicitly illegal, particularly the funding of the Contras which was forbidden under the Boland Amendment.
From my standpoint, this is often overstated in praise. It doesn’t take much for someone to stand with their fist in the air and shout at windmills. I mean, right now, I’m standing here doing it saying “Mr. Putin, Get the Hell Out of Ukraine.” When there is no consequence coming for the action, its kind of hard to praise it.
The Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Act was enacted as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. The prohibitions expired on September 13, 2004. The Act prohibited the manufacture, transfer, or possession of "semiautomatic assault weapons," as defined by the Act. Again, guns were seen as a legitimate target for crime prevention.
I have a great story about how when I lived in Washington DC working on Capitol Hill, Sam Donaldson once bought our table at Happy Hour a round of beer, but I’ll save that for another day.
Nevermind that Oshkosh B’Gosh no longer had a factory there and was headquartered elsewhere at that point.
If you’ve never heard of EAA, its the Experimental Aircraft Association Fly-In when people around the world travel to Oshkosh, WI. For one week every year, tiny Wittman Field Airport becomes the busiest airport in the world. https://www.eaa.org/airventure