The Left Starts to Rethink Reagan
Barack Obama's not the only one calling him a 'transformational' leader. So is Sean Wilentz.
The outcome of this November's election may hinge on a single question: which presidential candidate will prevail among the "Reagan Democrats"? Those traditionally Democratic voters made history—and a place in the political lexicon—in 1980 when they bolted their party's disarrayed ranks to swing the polls in Ronald Reagan's favor. Until recently, however, few liberal-leaning historians took a respectful look at the Reagan phenomenon. That's finally changing, with the publication of Sean Wilentz's new "The Age of Reagan," even as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama—and John McCain—seek the support of that crucial bloc. NEWSWEEK's Evan Thomas moderated a conversation about the Gipper between Wilentz, a professed liberal, and NEWSWEEK's George F. Will, a longtime Reagan admirer.
THOMAS: Sean, why have you taken a look at Reagan, and have other historians started to take another look at Reagan?
WILENTZ: It's interesting. It's no secret that intellectuals, generally being liberals, didn't think much of Ronald Reagan at the time. Unlike Roosevelt, who got covered right away—as soon as he died there were books out about [him]—it took people a long time to catch up with Ronald Reagan. But I think that now they can no longer ignore him. His impact on the world and country, whether you like it or not, was so important that to ignore him is to ignore an entirety of American politics.
THOMAS: And why did it take so long?
WILENTZ: People had to overcome their own passions, their own dislikes. Some people had to grow up. Some people, it was a matter of all their ideas ripening. Ronald Reagan was difficult to read. His own official biographer couldn't make head or tail out of Ronald Reagan, and he had more access than most. Look, he was a conservative in a conservative age. This is not, normally, what is the stuff of heroic history. It just doesn't fit the mold in the way that Andrew Jackson or Abraham Lincoln does. It's just different.
THOMAS: So, George, why do you think it took Sean so long to figure out Reagan was a great president?
WILENTZ: [Laughs]
WILL: Let me make [a couple of] points about what Sean just said. First, an intellectual is not a synonym for liberal. In fact, one of the differences Ronald Reagan made, and one of the differences that made Ronald Reagan, was there had emerged, particularly in the 1970s, a conservative intellectual movement—the think tanks and journals and all the rest. Secondly, what Sean is doing is what Murray Kempton did for Dwight Eisenhower. It took Murray Kempton to take a step back and say, "Wait a minute, this man, who did after all run the most complicated war alliance in history, who had dealt with de Gaulle, Churchill, Roosevelt and all the rest, was not a child. He was a subtle, devious, guileful man, difficult to read." That's the phrase Sean just used about Ronald Reagan—and Ronald Reagan was difficult to read. He had an actor's sense of the surface and the inner. Ronald Reagan's famous jokes were a way, I believe, to keep people at a distance. It was an armor of affability that he had, and [that] made him difficult to read, and I think he realized that would cost him among the historians for a while. My question is, Sean just said Reagan didn't fit the mold. I want to know what mold, and who made it?
WILENTZ: I think the liberal mold—not [made] by intellectuals, George. You're absolutely right: in the 1970s there was a great efflorescence of conservative intellectual life. I was thinking more of the academy. I think there is a mold which was thought [of] in the 1950s as the all-pervasive, consensus, liberal tradition in the American life. And the mold was a great leader who mobilizes a coalition, which manages to take on the interests, one way or another—whether it's the slave[-owning] power or the malefactors of great wealth. These are the characters we think of and who are usually liberals in one way or another. What Reagan did was something different—it was to lead with the same spirit and optimism and forward-looking hope that liberals had projected, but in the name of policies that were frankly conservative. And he managed to do that in a way that no previous president, and certainly no conservative president, had managed to do before.
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Member Comments
Posted By: Arturo55 @ 05/13/2008 11:21:54 PM
Comment: The fog of memory displayed by Sean Wilentz when he mentions Ronald Regan's "grave errors" is truly myopic. He mentions two, Iran Contra, and S&L while artfully skipping over the true passionate angst of democrats at the time. These stories dominated the news for many months and the hint of skulduggery regarding the timing of the Iranian hostage release with the election of 1980 has yet to be fully explored. Wilentz needs to be reminded that this was the source of the term "October Surprise" An artful example of the modern Republican party's dastardly penchant for stealing elections, neatly surrounded on either side by the cloddish Watergate burglars and the impudence of the Supreme Court in 2000.
Lost in the storm and fury of the time, Reagans disembowlment of his predecessors energy initiatives, is arguably the single most "grave" error, which has reached forward twenty eight years and is just now begining to bear full fruit, poisoned fruit. Carter was far ahead of his time on this issue and had the "smiling" Reagan relished the removal of the solar waterheaters from the White house roof signalling the end of the nacient alternative energy movement, dead practically at birth. Thoughtfullness mocked and jeered by the rigid rightwing. Thousands of small contractors thrown out of work overnight. On recollection a bit reminiscient of "Fulton's Folly". And now of course its all the rage. Even the bumbling dry hole oil boy president, certain to be the laughing stock of the future, provided the tears ever dry, has timidly jumped on board, lets hope that boat is not the Titanic. The real tragedy was the loss of thirty years of research and development backed by the full faith of a formerly forward thinking nation. We likely would have been enjoying sweet fruit of that effort, reaping the boundless quantity of energy that nature provides for free. Therein lies the key to the story. Sold, for Hollywood smiles, greedy bottom lines, and a pack of Limbaugh's lies, our future.
Posted By: bushwhacked @ 05/13/2008 2:00:07 PM
Comment: wilentz is wrong, reagan was not a great president. the fact is he started us down the road that gw and clinton amplified. when you put regulators in that are basically corporate hacks you get the enormous mess that is america today. here are problems that cannot be solved: our housing crisis, are enormous national debt, our extremely poor educational system, our idiotic health care system, our inability to make anything except weapons systems, the growing prison industrial complex, the disappearance of the middle class, jobs going to foreign countries, and on and on. now we, like others empires before us, are right on the verge of collapsing. rome went all over the ancient world colonizing everyone they could until the financial stress did them in. napoleon and hitler didn't learn from history. neither did britain. it's comical how mcdope thinks he will continue the tin man's empire building . a little clue for you john, russia and china both have about 1/2 trillion in us $ surplus. we have about 900 billion deficit. reagan, bush and mcwar democrats always whine about those tax and spend democrats. their bought and paid for media never mention that the republicans out tax the demos 5-1. they just call it defense and the war on terror. nothing could be farther from the truth, we are much weaker strategically because of our grave economic weakness. the europeans laugh at how stupid our policies are, i mean cmon they work half as hard as we do, have health care for everyone, have 6 weeks vacation a year, free higher deucation up to a phd. teamsters have always been for republicans as long as i can remember. what did it get you- $4 a gallon diesel fuel. so if you once had a30-40 dollar an hour job and now work at wallmart, cheer up, you deserve it. i have made boocoo bucks and am set for life, but if your middle class and voted for reagan, bush or clinton, your class is gonna disappear. be sure and put your dunce cap back on on your way out.
Posted By: The_epoch_point @ 05/12/2008 11:18:56 PM
Comment: It's about time the left takes another look at Ronald Reagan and all the other strident anti-communists of the 20th century like Barry Goldwater and Joseph R. McCarthy. After all it was a Marxist Lee Harvey Oswald and a communist Sirhan Sirhan who knocked off the Kennedy Brothers. Now check out my book at Amazon.com
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