It's become too glib to compare Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, but then the coincidences are unavoidable. Both burnished their political voice as TV personalities. Both were serial exaggerators and believers in the power of positive thinking. Both were masters at creating their own versions of reality and then converting millions to their worldview.
That said, Trump will gratefully be a one term (and hopefully only a one term) president and he doesn't have an ounce of the charisma Reagan had. And Reagan remains a figure of historic consequence for better or worse. Trump will too, but how much he permanently effected the landscape will have a lot to do with how much of his presidency Biden can undo.
We are now 40 years removed from Reagan's first presidential victory and we are still seeing him hyped relentlessly. Even though, Trump has stopped comparing himself to the Gipper, reaching back for Lincoln instead, as if Reagan being only recently deceased is more of a threat to his ego. So perhaps the star is fading a bit. Surely, the time is right to remove a little bit of the phony luster around him, which Showtime's terrific new documentary The Reagans aims to do.
It is as much about Nancy Reagan as it is Ronald -- and how much you enjoy it may depend on how you feel about the filmmakers casting the first lady as a bit of the arch villain of the piece. But if you're like me, you might think 'if the shoe fits.'
The Reagans does dissect both her and the former president's personalities, but it also brilliantly, profiles the sometimes shadowy forces and organizations that ushered them into power and who they in term owed fealty to. It wisely places race at the center of this narrative, where it belongs, since Reaganism is the zenith of coded racialized politics. Trump went even further and brought back old school 'it's not even a dog whistle' racism, but Reagan was the master of saying it without saying it -- and he was rewarded greatly with two landslide presidential victories which serve to overstate his popularity while in office.
The footage is so damning and the talking heads (which include Reagan allies too) so compelling that even the most ardent Reagan defenders would have a hard time defending some of this. Here is a bright, ambitious man but not a deep, introspective one,
This is a man who was a Democrat until he saw more profit in becoming a Republican and he spent the rest of his life exaggerating an imagined threat coming from left while peddling a phony idealized version or America for his fans on the right. There is no denying that Reagan's 'we're the best' ethos is an attractive, appealing one. And Reagan was an effortlessly likable guy. But that doesn't mean he wasn't wrong or also a monster.
I'm only two episodes into Showtime's daring new limited series, but they are already doing a deft job of both. They don't pussyfoot around the dirty side of Reagan's politics, while also heralding his tenacity and drive. You can see why he was such a star -- his aw shucks persona is refreshingly adorable. But it's time to be cynical about Reagan and Reaganism again, since we are now so much more aware of the collateral damage (the spread of AIDs, wealth inequality, the prison industrial complex, just to name a few). It might have been too taboo to take on even a decade ago, but now this feels like a chapter in our history that we really ought to examine now, because a more Reagan-like version of Trump may be on the way and that scares me.
Needless to say, I consider this essential viewing.
No comments:
Post a Comment