The Dead End of Reagan Idolatry

The weird idolatry around Reagan is so tiresome and boring.

For some reason, David French is lecturing other Republicans about foreign policy:

Whereas Reagan was a man of strength, confidence and clarity in the face of a daunting military threat, DeSantis and Trump represent weakness, insularity and moral ambiguity in the face of a weaker power.

French is one of the last committed defenders of the Iraq war, which he once risibly called just only a few years ago. It is partly because of ideologues like him that someone like Trump was able to break through and take control of the party. Trump and DeSantis will be only too happy to be attacked by someone whose foreign policy judgment is still so abysmal. The column would be an in-kind donation to DeSantis’ campaign if he had already declared he was running.

The weird idolatry around Reagan is so tiresome and boring. Reagan made some good foreign policy decisions as president, but his overall record was very mixed and not nearly as successful as his acolytes would have you believe. He correctly moved away from a bankrupt confrontational approach with the Soviets and ended up pursuing more détente with Moscow than the original supporters of détente dared to try. His arms control legacy was one of his great achievements, and it is one that his Republican inheritors mostly betrayed and destroyed. Most of the things that contemporary hawks praise him for were either unnecessary or genuinely harmful. The illegal war he and his administration ran in Nicaragua was shameful. The “Reagan Doctrine” of fueling civil wars in other countries is nothing to be proud of, much less being worthy of imitation.