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Ronald Reagan: Presidential Transformer

Last year's presidential primary brought a flurry of debates about American political history. One stood out: it began with an off-hand remark that President Barack Obama made about Ronald Reagan. He called Reagan "transformational." He wasn't praising Reagan's policies, of course, but suggesting that the fortieth president had permanently transformed the American political landscape by cracking the New Deal coalition (drawing the votes of "Reagan Democrats") and building support for his antigovernment ideology. Bill Clinton pounced on the remark, as was his wont at the time, trying to build his own legacy and buffer his wife's candidacy. Obama retorted something to the effect that, well, yes, Bill Clinton was president for two terms but was neither profound nor transformational. I couldn't find a historian who didn't believe Obama had won the debate. What better way to understand Reagan's transformational presidency than by comparing him to his transformational predecessor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the president who permanently altered the political landscape by building America's welfare state and crafting a political coalition that lasted until recently. Most historians, after all, do recognize Reagan's indebtedness to FDR. There are stories about Reagan teaching himself how to speak like FDR, and most treatments of the fortieth president of the United States suggest that he honestly admired Roosevelt's political skills. As Reagan came of age during the 1930s and 1940s, he was a self-described FDR-liberal. There is, of course, the added irony that probably needs no restating: Reagan wanted to overturn many of FDR's signature policy accomplishments. Those interested in a full-fledged comparison of these two "transformative" presidents now have FDR and Reagan, written by the political scientist John W. Sloan. Anyone searching for new information or groundbreaking interpretation