Where's the Rest of Him?
Added 2021-08-30 21:34:18 +0000 UTCJoin Matt and Sam as they drink bourbon and talk about Ronald (and Nancy) Reagan. They begin with Matt's history as a young conservative who researched multiple books on Reagan and eventually get to the recent four-part Showtime documentary, The Reagans. Along the way they talk about Reagan's time as an actor, the importance of Nancy Reagan to his political project, and the consequences of a president consumed by fantasies.
Sources:
The Reagans, a four-part Showtime documentary, December 2020
Paul Kengor, God and Ronald Reagan: A Spiritual Life (HarperCollins, 2004)
The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism (Harper, 2006)
Lee Edwards, The Essential Ronald Reagan: A Profile in Courage, Justice, and Wisdom (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004)
Martin Amis, "Here's Ronnie: On the Road with Reagan," Sunday Telegraph, September 1979 (collected in The Moronic Inferno: And Other Visits to America)
Gore Vidal, "Ronnie and Nancy: A Life in Pictures," New York Review of Books, September 29, 1983 (collected in United States: Essays, 1952-1992)
John Patrick Diggins, Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History (Norton, 2007)
Garry Wills, Reagan's America: Innocents at Home (Doubleday, 1985)
Comments
Surprised I haven't found here a reference to Michael Rogin's book Ronald Reagan: The Movie, which is a fundamental text for understanding the spectacle of the Reagan presidency. Anyway, if y'all get a chance to read it, do so. Rogin is enjoying a resurgence among political theorists, and rightfully so.
Robert Geroux
2021-10-05 14:46:19 +0000 UTCI was a bit late in listening to this one, but the parallels between Reagan and Obama that Matt and Sam discuss near the end are interesting. Whether coincidence or not, it's also interesting that arguably the three greatest orators to hold the presidency since the invention of the microphone — FDR, Reagan and Obama — are all said to have had a certain vacuity to them.
David Anderson
2021-09-20 19:59:53 +0000 UTCI'm a bit older than Matt so I probably remember more of Reagan's presidency. Who's up for some fun Ronnie memories? I didn't see the famous clip aired of him being shot, but as I got older I came to realize that clip was the origin of the "Buckwheat has been shot" SNL bit that I loved so much (seen on Eddie Murphy compilation tapes). I can't gauge how accurate SNL's media criticism was, but in the bit they ask every passerby if they've seen the clip of Buckwheat being shot and then play it, even the doctor who is in the middle of operating on Buckwheat. As a fan of Star Wars I was all about some real-life space lasers that were about to blast the commie nukes out of the sky. Plenty of fancy media graphics on the news assured me that this was possible. However, the brilliant comic strip Bloom County hit it much closer to the mark when Opus the penguin received the fat government contract for SDI and started living high on the hog (he bought Bolivia). Then when Congress asked to see the finished product he unveiled his plan to simply stitch billions of US dollars into a planet-encircling net. Ronnie's medical troubles: a tumor on his nose, a tumor on his prostate. Copious media graphics. Everybody made fun of his hair for not moving in the wind, quite the contrast with Gorbachev's bald head with splotchy birthmark. If not the news media, at least the popular culture made fun of Reagan for being dumb or out of touch. The character Alf called him once because he was worried about nuclear war and he just seemed to not understand the situation. In the movie Airplane 2 you see him portrayed as clueless and bumbling. And in Genesis' music video "Land of Confusion" he accidentally nukes the world when he's trying to call his nurse and presses the wrong button. That one stuck in my mind because it seemed quite harsh. I mean, who didn't love Ronnie?
Mark K
2021-09-02 02:16:20 +0000 UTCI wonder whether there are clues to the Reagan "mystery" in his confrontation with the University of California in his early days as Governor. The vitriolic, thuggish cynicism concerning the demerits of abstraction and the idea of The University, any university, betrayed him as continuous with a rich tradition; Coughlin, McCarthy, Trump. The American Philistine.
Douglas Bell
2021-09-01 16:20:31 +0000 UTCI really enjoyed this episode. The last few eps hadn't been doing it for me, (nothing against you guys just not into the content) But this was a top shelf vintage KYE. If you haven't you should listen to The Dollop's podcast episodes on Reagan. Truly amazing work they did.
Garett Smith
2021-09-01 05:06:50 +0000 UTCA macro econ episode about Volker and Reagan would be amazing. I can’t wait.
Ben Gialenios
2021-09-01 03:20:24 +0000 UTCInteresting tidbit I found in the director Andre Gregory's (of My Dinner With Andre fame) memoir, after he had made a mess of a multicultural stage show sponsored by Gregory Peck: "My name was already mud in the theater. Without my permission the reporter did some nosing around. Here’s what he found: It happened that Peck was a very good friend of LBJ’s. The president often invited him to the White House and would pick him up in Air Force One. The reporter’s theory: Johnson wanted to run Peck for governor of California, but in order to do so, he would need support from the “minorities.” Hence, his leadership and the interracial board of the Inner City Cultural Center. It seems far-fetched, I know. But if it’s true, by crashing and burning in Watts, by destroying Peck’s theater, I ruined his chance of becoming governor. Reagan became the governor instead. Without Reagan we might have had no Bush, no war in Iraq, and no Trump. If this reporter’s theory is true—even a little true—I should rot in hell."
Mark K
2021-08-31 17:40:41 +0000 UTCGreat ep. the throw away comments at the end made me want an episode on “the conservative Obama”, both how he figures in the conservative imagination and how he advanced conservative policies (ACA of course began as a right wing think tank idea).
Tristan K. Husby
2021-08-31 13:14:04 +0000 UTCThis was excellent, as always. I only want to say yes yes yes please talk about the Volcker shock and the collective economic policy shift after stagflation.
Alex
2021-08-31 12:24:44 +0000 UTCYou should watch his last movie, The Killers (1964), where he plays the villain. Watch the 1946 version first though, because it is better (though the 1964 version isn't bad).
Ben
2021-08-31 03:06:40 +0000 UTCYeeeeessss thank you!!
Allen
2021-08-30 22:45:19 +0000 UTC
