Donald Trump is Ronald Reagan

Back in 1980, Republicans nominated a television star with a limited understanding of federal government, zero foreign policy experience, and a platform of platitudes about reigning in a big government run amok.

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His main populist appeal was to middle class moderates and conservatives who were struggling both to keep their heads above water in a frightening economy and to understand the enormous changes that had democratized (and integrated) our society during the late 1960s and early 1970s.  

To reassure us he led with this – a new theory of “trickle down” economics.  It held that if the government made the rich richer through historic tax cuts for the wealthy, they would re-invest those dollars in jobs for everyone else, and we would all become wealthier for generations to come.

That didn't happen, but Ronald Reagan promised a new approach to governing, and a new way of life for the American people.

Today, Donald Trump is offering another helping of Reagan, with many of the same elements, from much of the same perspective.

Keep in mind that back in 1980 the mythology around Ronald Reagan – as the savior of the middle class and the protector of American society as we know it – had not yet been written.  To many, he was one part scary (not to be trusted with his finger on the nuclear button), one part naïve, and one part comedy. 

But to others, he represented a figure of hope.  He channeled their fears that the country was on a downward spiral, and gave them hope that he could turn that around through the force of his will.

Reagan never traded in his vision, even while his presidency was a mixed bag of achievement and failure. 

He was an astonishingly effective communicator, down-home and straightforward, and that meant a lot during times times of trauma and crisis. 

The economy improved, but the deficit grew because of his tax cuts.  Our budget wasn’t balanced again until after George H.W. Bush signed the largest tax increase in the history of the country at the time.

We strengthened our hand militarily, but the rebels in Afghanistan – whom we supported then – were probably as responsible as we were for the collapse of the Soviet empire.

Along with the deficits, the federal government grew bigger, not smaller.

Like Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan was given to an occasional outlandish (for lack of a better word) statement that implied a lack of intellectual curiosity.  Remember “trees cause more pollution than automobiles do”?

And his administration eventually got itself mired in a scandal (Iran-Contra) whose purpose seemed to be to build up revolutionary forces in the Middle East – just as its support of the Afghanistan rebels ultimately built up similar forces in that country.  We’ve paid a steep price for all that during the last two decades.

What mattered to me most – because I was a state legislator at the time – was what the Reagan Administration meant for health. I’d like a do-over for that.

Reagan ended categorical programs begun during the Kennedy Administration that helped people with mental illnesses and replaced them with block grants.  It wasn’t just him.  With the full complicity of the states, this helped cause much of chronic homelessness and mass incarceration of people with behavioral illnesses that persists today.

His major contribution to the War on Drugs – a war we lost – was a substance abuse prevention and treatment marketing campaign, with a catchy title but limited effectiveness.

And he literally ignored the AIDS crisis as if it would disappear on its own until almost the end of his Presidency.

Love him or hate him, Ronald Reagan had a profound effect on the Presidency and on our country.  His Presidency mattered.

And he was truly a unique political figure with a unique populist appeal – until Donald Trump came along.

For Democrats, who have emerged – as they did in 1980 – from a bruising primary season during which a visionary northeastern liberal Senator with an agenda that included universal access to education and health care challenged a moderate “DC insider” for the nomination – this could well be the do-over election for which they have longed for thirty-six years.  It is an opportunity for the party to recapture its base and lay claim to its own vision.

And for Republicans, this may just be the Reagan Revolution Redux.  It could, in the spirit of the historical Ronald Reagan, fundamentally re-make the party for the second time during the last half century. 

Those on either side who dismiss the meaning of Donald Trump do so at their own peril.