gracchusdixit

It may seem odd to talk of Ronald Reagan more than twenty years after he left office, at a time when our country confronts one of the most serious economic and social crises of modern times.  But there’s a good reason.  The reason is that Ronald Reagan—or rather, the myth of Ronald Reagan—is in no small measure responsible for the problems we face.   If we needed a reminder of this sad reality, we got one earlier this week in Iowa, when ten hopeful Republican nominees—some with obvious and embarrassing reluctance—raised their hands to pledge their opposition to even a penny of additional taxation on the richest Americans.

Ronald Reagan is often called “the great communicator,” and there is no denying that he had charm.  With a wink and the mischievous grin of a leprechaun, he disarmed his enemies and deflected their barbs.  We loved him for it; we still do.  But behind every wink, there was also deceit, for Ronald Reagan conned millions of Americans into believing fairy tales.  His charm was so great that we are still living under the spell of the fairy tales he told us and the fictions he sold us.

Ronald Reagan sold us the fiction of the market, of “trickle-down” economics, of the infamous “Lafler curve.”  According to this fairy tale, if we make the rich even richer than they already are, everyone will benefit.  Never mind that this tale bears no resemblance to reality.  Never mind the terrible realities of the Great Depression of 1929.  Never mind the historical truth that greed, when left to go its own way, inevitably produces collapse, leaving immeasurable human sorrow in its wake.  After the financial catastrophe of 2008, you would think that we might have learned enough to put this fairy tale behind us.  But Ronald Reagan’s lingering charm is so pervasive that we find ourselves living out the same old plot, dutifully playing our parts in a story-line written by corporate America.

Ronald Reagan sold us the fiction that business is good, unions are bad.  According to this fairy tale, unions  violate “the right to work” and the “right” of businesses to operate as they choose—which means, of course, paying substandard wages or shipping jobs overseas where workers have no rights.   It was Ronald Reagan who kicked out thousands of air traffic controllers when they struck for better wages and safer working conditions.  Never mind that they had tried for months to negotiate in good faith, that their complaints were real and completely justified.  Believing the fairy tale,  most Americans cheered “the Gipper,” not the air traffic controllers who lost their jobs.  And most Americans today, still believing the fairy tale, would rather be caught dead than be caught walking a picket line.

Worst of all, Ronald Reagan sold us the fiction that “government is the problem, not the solution.”  According to this fairy tale, only private enterprise can do things well, while government produces only inefficiency and waste.  Never mind that Medicare “wastes” less money than any private insurance company.  Never mind that most of the drugs that actually make us healthy and safe come from government-funded research by public institutions and universities.  Never mind that, without government, most Americans would be drinking tainted water, breathing poisoned air, and driving cars that get five miles to the gallon.  Never mind that government, not private enterprise, gave us the Interstate Highway System, the National Parks, and—whatever the limitations of our public schools—the only opportunity in our history for every citizen to get an education without regard to race, background, or wealth.

Let us not forget who Ronald Reagan really was.  Behind the winning smile and the elf-like optimism, there lurked another, altogether less charming Ronald Reagan.  The Reagan who, all the while he was president of the Screen Actor’s Guild, blithely betrayed to the FBI the names of fellow actors he judged to be “Communists.”  The Reagan who asserted that homeowners and renters had a right to discriminate against Negroes.  The Reagan who took money from the American Medical Association to say that Medicare would end freedom in America.  The Reagan who made a handsome living peddling the political agenda of GE.  Ronald Reagan may actually have believed in what he was doing when he did all these things.  But if that is true, he didn’t just con us—he conned himself.

When those ten Republican candidates raised their hands in Iowa, they were acting out one of Ronald Reagan’s many fairy tales.  Until we put aside his fictions—until we put the spell of Ronald Reagan behind us—we will never be able to reverse the disastrous legacy of the greatest con man in our history.