And then there were four.With the passing of Ronald Reagan, four ex-Presidents survive. Two, Presidents Ford and Carter, served before Reagan, and the other two, Bush and Clinton came after him. Looking at the issues these Presidents faced, we can see more clearly the legacy Ronald Reagan left.
Prior to the Reagan administration, we were caught up in the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate. Both Presidents Ford and Carter had to work very hard to gain the trust of the American people. They had to deal with the feeling that government, and indeed America itself, had passed its best years. President Reagan changed that. He brought a new spirit of optimism into Washington.
He maintained that optimism not by dealing with issues but by ignoring them. Nuclear proliferation is sweeping the world? Don't mention it. Deficits are getting out of hand? Forget you promised to balance the budget. High-ranking White House officials are trading arms for hostages and illegally funding the Contras? Claim responsibility with words, but avoid responsibility with actions.
In short, image is everything.
Yes, Ronald Reagan changed the debate in many ways. Federal taxes are lower, at least for the wealthiest among us. Government is not necessarily considered the answer to social problems. Maintaining a strong military (whatever that means) is an absolute, outside the scope of debate.
Lower taxes, less government interference, and a strong military are, in general, good ideas. The problem is that Ronald Reagan actually raised taxes on most Americans, especially the middle class. The problem is that, thanks to Ronald Reagan and his ideological successors, government is sticking its tendrils into more aspects of our daily lives. The problem is that our military is not stronger, but weaker.
The truth is that nobody else in the right-wing hierarchy truly believed what Ronald Reagan believed. Ronald Reagan not only didn't accomplish what he set out to accomplish, but didn't even know he failed. He never understood that he raised taxes for most Americans. He never understood that most of his military buildup was sheer waste.
He never understood that the people who really held the reins were more interested in their special interests than in the nation's interests. And the legacy of this gulf between good intentions and bad results is that we focus too much on the rhetoric and not enough on the facts.
Ronald Reagan had a good heart. He really wanted to lower taxes for all Americans, not just the richest. He really wanted a strong military, not so that we could use it, but so that we wouldn't have to use it. He really wanted to reduce the scope of government, not to make it easier for crooked CEOs to line their pockets with money cheated out of stockholders (as our current President did), but to make it easier for Americans to go about their lives.
It is truly sad that the legacy President Reagan would have left behind has not been realized. It is sad that the dreams he had for America have not come true.
Ronald Reagan never wanted to divide America; he wanted to unite us. But his actions as President, such as trying to put Robert Bork on the Supreme Court, drove a wedge through the middle of America. Ronald Reagan never wanted to burden our children and grandchildren with debt, but that's exactly what he did. Ronald Reagan never wanted to make America less safe, but but his failure to follow up in Afghanistan, his sale of chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein, his trading of arms for hostages, and his lack of understanding of events in Latin America and the Middle East have hurt the country he loved so much.
We will eventually learn to ignore words and focus on actions. We will eventually learn that speeches containing buzz-words aren't enough. We will eventually decide to force our politicians to support their claims with facts and not with dogma. And when we do, we will then be able to build the future Ronald Reagan envisioned for America.
And then, Ronald Reagan's legacy will be safe.
Copyright 2004, Dan Jacoby
For a PDF version of this document, click here.
To contact Dan Jacoby, click here.
Return to the Main Menu