As I watched the Reagan Funeral today, it seemed to me that we are
missing the real legacy of Ronald Reagan.
It's not tax cuts or tax increases. Or Anti-Communism and the Cold War, indeed, there are still plenty of Communist nations around, eg. China, North Korea and Cuba.
And, Communist China is the fastest growing economy in the world right now!
THE REAL REAGAN LEGACY WAS HIS RECOGNITION THAT ALL MODERN POLITICS
IS THEATER!
And, it's no coincidence the that it took a Hollywood actor to teach us this!
Consider:
The nature of the presidency changed repeatedly in the 20th Century.
With the advent of women's sufferage in 1920, our presidents suddenly
changed too, as you might expect, with a huge new voting bloc to swing the elections.
With women's sufferage, the REAL MAN president, morphed into what I
would call; the MAN-BOY president.
Suddenly, sex appeal mattered!
The first president elected by the female vote was Harding, a man-boy
if there ever was one, indeed, only Clinton was more so!
Other man-boy presidents were Coolidge, Kennedy, Carter, Nixon,
Clinton and yes, Reagan.
True, some of these "man-boys" were naughtier than others!
The other post-1920 archetype: I would call the kindly uncles or
grandfatherly types. Consider: Truman, Johnson, Roosevelt,
Eisenhower.
THE POINT IS THAT AFTER 1920, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE TO ELECT A LINCOLN, MCKINLEY, OR A TAFT. Particularly Taft!
IN SHORT, THE FEMALE VOTE CHANGED THE WAY WE ELECT PRESIDENTS!
Deny this if you will, but it's still true.
NOW COMES REAGAN;
With Reagan we get the very first MEDIA AGE PRESIDENT.
By the time Reagan was elected, the role of the media in shaping
our political reality was off and running.
So it was only a matter of time before we tapped an actor to play the
role of president in our new media age political theater.
Alas, Arnie in California is no accident either! More like a trend?
It is also no accident that, since Reagan, the only other two term
president was Clinton; who also understood that POLITICS IS
THEATER, and Clinton was the ultimate man-boy president.
INDEED, THIS NEW REALITY OF POLITICS AS THEATER MIGHT EXPLAIN THE CURRENT LIBERAL DILEMMA OF WHY THE WORKING CLASSES ALWAYS SEEM TO VOTE AGAINST THEIR OWN BEST INTERESTS. (See today's NYT for an op-ed to that effect.)
PERHAPS, THE WORKING CLASSES ARE BUYING INTO THE MESSENGER, AND NOT THE DEEPER MESSAGE? If so, this could be RATHER ominous.............
Consider:
In Nazi Germany, politics as theater was given it's first screen
test. And, it worked wonders! The Nazis became the masters of political theater! Until recently............
Unfortunately, we in the west were content merely to defeat fascism,
but Facism's evil methods and techniques were allowed to go underground, where they lay buried for a generation.
Now, with the renewal of the political right, and with dangerous
right-wing nationalist movements afoot in many nations, like in the US, Russia, Israel, and in the Muslim nations, to name only a few;
WE MUST BE VERY CAUTIOUS!
POLITICS IS ABOUT SOCIAL AND PUBLIC POLICY; IT IS NOT ABOUT
THEATRICS!
NOR, IS OUR ECONOMY ABOUT THEATER. THE ECONOMY IS ABOUT HOW PEOPLE
LIVE, AND WHAT THEY DO EACH AND EVERY DAY.
THE ECONOMY IS REALLY MUCH MORE "SOCIAL," THAN THE ECONOMISTS LEAD YOU TO THINK.
BECAUSE THE ECONOMY "KEEPS PEOPLE BUSY," AND A BUSY PEOPLE ARE A HAPPY PEOPLE.
Need more Proof? Just ask King Louis XIV of France in 1789!
Fortunately, the heirs of Ronald Reagan's riskly Political Theater are the Two Bushes. Poppy and Dubya. And, for that at least we can be happy.
LET'S HOPE THEY BOTH TURN OUT TO BE "ONE ACT PLAYS."
