Ronald Reagan’s enduring legacy

Historians and contemporaries measure his impact

Ronald Reagan, who would have turned 100 on Sunday, is remembered by many Americans for his sunny disposition and bold rhetoric. (Associated Press)

By Stephen Dinan

President Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan, with their dog Rex, wave to White House visitors on July 27, 1986. (Associated Press)

From the granite facade of Mount Rushmore to road signs and school buildings in communities across the country, the push is going strong to enshrine Ronald Reagan’s legacy in stone and steel — a fitting tribute, admirers say, to the man who ended communism in Europe and turned the political debate from Roosevelt’s New Deal to supply-side economics or, more simply, Reaganism.

More than two decades after he left office, the 40th president, whose 525 electoral votes in 1984 are an all-time record, is a hot topic for historians, who debate his place among the top chief executives of all time, and for lawmakers, who still spar over who best lays claim to his legacy.

“There is a growing sense that we need to reckon with Reagan, reckon with his legacy to understand the broad political culture over the past three decades,” said Matthew Dallek, a historian who has written about Reagan’s 1966 campaign for California governor. “His presidency and the movement he led and his ideas really matter.”

During Reagan’s eight years in office, inflation fell from its staggering late-1970s peak, relations with the Soviet Union thawed, the unemployment rate fell and incomes rose. But measured by other standards, income inequality grew and federal spending ballooned. Historians still debate how much credit Reagan should get for his management of foreign relations.

More than anything else, though, Reagan’s sunny disposition helped Americans recover from the cultural and economic shocks of the 1970s, and have made Reagan an icon for many.

“The last century, I believe, he would go down as the most effective president,” said former Rep. Matt Salmon, an Arizona Republican who in the 1990s sponsored legislation trying to get Reagan’s face carved onto Mount Rushmore beside those of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt. “He certainly goes down as [among] a handful of presidents who have shaped this nation’s future.”

Some presidents belong to the historians — the debates over John F. Kennedy, Harry S. Truman and Franklin D. Roosevelt have passed from the politicians to the academics — and others, such as Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, remain firmly rooted in the political zeitgeist, picked apart in Congress and on talk shows.

Reagan, however, is claimed by historians and present-day politicians alike — as the proliferation of biographies and the ongoing debates in political weeklies attests.

It’s one of the ironies that the historians tend to focus on Reagan’s shortcomings and failures to live up to his rhetoric, while average Americans instead remember the sunny outlook and the bold rhetoric.

“If you look at the specifics of his agenda — cutting federal spending — well, he didn’t. … He readjusted [taxes] somewhat, but total federal tax takes were the same when he left office as when he came in,” said Michael Schaller, a professor at the University of Arizona who has just published a book, “Ronald Reagan.” “Somehow those details are forgotten, and what we tend to remember is the ceremonial president who tends to evoke a sense of pride and can-do spirit.”

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