LONG before there was a charmless Donald Trump with all his off-putting airs and general offensiveness when he’s so full of himself, and even before he turned out to be a quite conventional president-elect doing his best instead of his worst to unify the country, there was a Ronald Reagan.
It may be forgotten now—so many things are—but there was once a B-movie actor whom people dismissed as a wild card, too. And he put together a populist-right-wing coalition that proved nigh-unbeatable at home and even abroad. And everyone was invited to join it. His big tent was open to all. Big-business Republicans, discerning Democrats, independents, all. There was an echo of his appeal in Donald Trump’s saying the other day: “This is called the Republican Party, it’s not called the Conservative party.” The political question of the day in these times is whether the coming Trump administration can run up a record of substantial accomplishment that would compare to Ronald Reagan’s.
In the end what held the Reagan coalition together was a belief in small government as well as small business, an unabashed patriotism, supply-side economics, and a conviction that the world is a dangerous place that requires eternal vigilance if liberty is not just to survive but triumph. Which is what Ronald Reagan did. And so did America in his glorious day. It’s not too late, it is never too late, for America to have a new beginning again.