Ronald Reagan

Archive: Christian Fundamentalism • Archive: Richard Evans Lee • Archive: Wearisome Bedfellows

Ronald Reagan is dead. Now I wish I had something witty or insightful to say about the old guy. His presidency has receded too far into the background for me to feel any resentment. If I indeed I did. I suspect mostly I laughed. After Richard Nixon, Reagan and George Bush don't seem that horrifying. Though some might argue the latter's mess in Iraq is more hurtful than anything the other two Republican presidents did. The American invasion of Grenada was merely risible.

I haven't checked any of the online papers to mark what must be a mighty flood of hagiography. Pious praise of the Reagan Vision. Boneheaded bombast about his leadership.

I'll remember the Reagan presidency for two things. The first was condensed into a phrase by the astrologer loving Nancy Reagan: “Just say no.” My use of recreational drugs had ended long before Reagan entered the White House. The War on Drugs revived to send many harmless people to jail. To subject employees to the humiliation invasion of drug testing. My libertarian side says let people entertain and damn themselves according to their own wishes. And don't make crime so profitable.

Mostly I'll remember President Ron as the man who began the deepening of ties between American fundagelicals and the Republican Party. A boost in ignorant office holders who believe the Genesis account of the creation of life on earth. And political job seekers willing to cuddle up to them and the moral bigots.

This bedfellowship today gives us the Republicans enflaming and pandering to backwater Baptists with a talk of a constitutional amendment forbidding same-sex couples to celebrate their relationships as foolishly as heterosexuals.

That is my notion of the Reagan legacy.