We've been hearing a lot about "America's love affair with Ronald Reagan" since the 40th president passed away on Saturday. And even though the idea that Americans were united in their love for Reagan is a myth - his popularity ratings were rather mediocre - it is undeniable that among Republican, Reagan is just short of a god, a sentiment that will only be reinforced by the tributes now rolling out.
So it might be an opportune time for Democrats to ask themselves what it is about Reagan that inspires Republicans to such heights of adulation - and why none of their national leaders of late has managed the same.
There was nothing particularly revolutionary about Ronald Reagan's ideology; a variant of it had been presented to the country by Barry Goldwater, to little response. Indeed, the similarities between the two were substantial. Goldwater and Reagan were both "conviction" politicians. They were thought to be motivated by a well of belief that drove them forward, their quest for power not springing from mere ambition but an instrument for bringing about a particular vision of America.
Goldwater inspired loyalty among a certain circle, but that circle was limited to the right wing of the Republican party (including a fair number of John Birch Society wackos), those who thought Nelson Rockefeller was an unwitting agent of the worldwide communist conspiracy. It was Reagan's achievement to command that same loyalty not merely from the right but across the Republican spectrum.
What made this loyalty so remarkable was the willingness to ignore Reagan's history and record. Moderate Republicans didn't mind his hard-right ideology. Libertarian Republicans forgave the fact that the government grew bigger on his watch than under any other president since World War II. Religious Republicans had no problem with the fact that he almost never attended church. Family-values conservatives averted their eyes from the fact that he was divorced and estranged from his own children. Anti-tax Republicans forgot that he raised taxes.
So just what was it about Reagan that united a disparate coalition in their worship for him? Gadflyer contributing editor James Devitt argues that their affection for Reagan comes down to one thing: he's a winner, and Republicans love a winner. If he had lost his bid for re-election in 1984, he'd be another Gerald Ford or George H.W. Bush.
Perhaps. But there may be another source as well: for all their ideological rigidity and stated commitment to "ideas," conservatives need heroes to exalt as much as they need villains to rail against. And those heroes need, above all, to be masculine and strong, father figures who battle external threats and mete out tough love at home.
Plumbing individual psychology for the sources of political beliefs is always a tricky business, but plenty of academics and popular commentators have tried. One of the most noted efforts was The Authoritarian Personality, written in 1950 by Theodore Adorno and his colleagues, in part to explain how leaders like Hitler, Mussolini and Franco could have garnered such wide support. They argued that some individuals shared a series of personality traits and backgrounds that made them susceptible to fascist influence. Those who were raised with harsh discipline and a lack of parental affection tended to seek out strong authority figures and direct anger at outgroups, whether ethnic, religious, or national. Among other things, they also displayed a rigid adherence to traditional moral codes, and disdained introspection as a sign of weakness. More recently, psychologists Michael Milburn and Sheree Conrad aimed a similar analysis on American politics, arguing that a strict upbringing, particularly including the use of corporal punishment, is what produces conservative beliefs.
Before our conservative friends grow red in the face, I am not implying that Reagan loyalists are proto-fascists (or even crypto-fascists). And Adorno was concerned with a political phenomenon far different from that of contemporary American public opinion (though one can certainly hear echoes of the brownshirt mob in the hateful rantings of conservatives like Ann Coulter or Michael Savage).
But it is apparent that conservatives are simply more prone to hero-worship, finding leaders whom they can hail as near-saints. He may not be Reagan yet, but George W. Bush certainly commands a tremendous loyalty among partisans, even as he is deserted by all to the left half of the political divide. On the other hand, liberals inevitably view their leaders with reservations and disappointment. Although one can come up with liberal heroes like John and Robert Kennedy or Harry Truman, they are not venerated with the same kind of fervor as Reagan. One will hardly see thousands of Democrats naming their firstborns "Clinton." But in 2003, "Reagan" was the 202nd most popular name given to girls in the United States, according to the Social Security Administration. It's no Brittany or Ashley, but that's still a lot of little Reagans running around. (One Gadflyer editor named his son "Truman," but we can be fairly sure he'll be the only one in his class.)
So is the lack of true liberal heroes inevitable, or is it merely the function of a string of uninspiring leaders? There may have been some evidence last week at the "Take Back America" conference in Washington, a gathering of liberal activists. Many of the speakers talked about supporting John Kerry; these comments were greeted with heartfelt if not overwhelming applause. In this Kerry is not too different from those who preceded him; the typical Democrat's response to her party's presidential nominee is, "I guess I can live with this guy." Jim Hightower's comment - "There are those who say that John Kerry is not liberal enough. I don't care if John Kerry is a sack of cement, we're going to carry him to victory" - pretty much captured the mood.
But there was one speaker who made had the rafters rocking, whose arrival was greeted with an explosion of shouts and cheers, whose speech could barely be heard over the screaming: Howard Dean.
Granted, the crowd was hardly a representative sample of Americans or even of Democrats - these were the hard-core. But they weren't thinking of Dean's incremental plans for health care reform or his ideas about trade or education. They were responding to Dean's spirit, the fact that Dean sounded like a conviction politician, someone who ran for president because he just had to save America from the course it was on.
Howard Dean won't be the left's Ronald Reagan; like Goldwater, he lost. Neither, in all likelihood, will John Kerry. Though the left is more unified than ever, the man who brought them together is George W. Bush, and even if Kerry wins liberals will find a reason to grow displeased with him. It's going to be a while before liberals find someone to name their kids after.
Paul Waldman is the Editor-in-Chief of The Gadflyer. Formerly the associate director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, Waldman is the co-author of The Press Effect: Politicians, Journalists, and the Stories That Shape the Political World (Oxford University Press, 2002) and the co-editor of Electing the President 2000: The Insiders' View (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001). His writing has also been featured in the American Prospect and the Washington Post, Salon.com, as well as many scholarly journals. Waldman's latest book, Fraud: The Strategy Behind the Bush Lies and Why The Media Didn't Tell You, was released in early 2004.
