How Reagan Accidentally Shaped My Politics

My first memory of having any interest in politics and/or political figures is seeing Ronald Reagan speak in 1984. Reagan was on the campaign trail, seeking reelection for a second term in office. I was in 5th grade, my first year in public school. We took a fieldtrip to hear the incumbent President speak, and I was blown away.

Like many others, I fell under the spell of the kindly Grandfather persona Reagan put forth, and swore I would be a Republican for life. I came home excited to tell my parents of my newfound love of Reagan and interest in politics.

My memory of seeing Reagan speak is today nothing more than a memory of being at a particular place while an event was occurring. I have no idea what he speak of, or any recollection of details of the day – the weather, the setting, and so on. But my memory of what happened in my home, with my father, is crystal clear.

My mom wasn’t home, so I figure I’d just tell my father my story first, and then repeat it later to my mother. This excited me, as I wanted to tell the story of my day of acquiring wisdom from the President as many times as possible.

I remember the transformation of the look on my father’s face as I progressed through my story. When I began speaking my father had an inquisitive, curious look, indicative of a genuine desire to understand what had made his 9 year-old son so excited. That look morphed to disappointment, anger, and finally downright horror as I went on and on about how amazing Reagan was and how I was only going to vote for people like him, Republicans, when I grew up. How could anyone with half a brain do otherwise?

Though I sensed feelings coming from my father that didn’t match the emotions I was feeling, I didn’t stop to ask about the source of his emotional cues. Maybe he was reacting to something else on his mind? Maybe I was just misreading his emotions. I became a lot smarter hearing Reagan speak, but I still had my limits. Whatever. I was filled with a sense of euphoria I had never felt and assumed his demeanor couldn’t possibly be related to my excitement. I mean, what else but pride and excitement could any parent feel as her/his child explained how they had just gained an understanding of what the world was all about? And this realization came from my exposure to a man who had, and was going to continue to, change the world and make it a better place for us Americans. And really, all I was doing was relaying facts – Ronald Reagan was as close to god as any human could hope to be and I was committed to advancing the cause of the Republican Party and from this day forward would dedicate my life to this end.

My father let me finish my story, exhibiting a patience I look back on with envy. I know I could not have sat through the entirety of such a terrifying tale. When I was finished, my father immediately stood up.

We were in my parents’ room, a space I seldom occupied. The only time I ever spent in this room was during early morning wakeups and for conversations about my latest behavior problems, the latter being much more frequent. Being in this space for this moment conveyed a sense of validation to me. I thought I had something important to talk about, something usually reserved only for grown-ups, and I was right. My dad said so.

I was sitting at the foot of my parents’ bed, on the corner closest to the desk chair where my father had sat and listened to my tale. We were only 3-4 feet away from each other, but that wasn’t close enough for the conversation that was about to transpire.

My father stood for a few seconds, perhaps trying to collect his thoughts, perhaps rethinking the whole public school thing; he took a couple steps in my direction as he moved forward and to his right. He left his chair, positioned so we sat in front of each other, on a bit of a diagonal, allowing us to look forward as we sat face-to-face. He swung around to the foot of the bed, choosing to sit directly next to me. Actually, next to me doesn’t describe the scene accurately.

In that moment my father came as close as possible to sitting on me, while still sitting next me. The large difference in our weights resulted in my sliding even closer than if we had been seated on a hard surface. His body acted likes a tractor beam I had seen on space ships in Star Wars movies. I was in his range and there was no escape.

We sat side-by-side, he to my left. He extended his right arm around me, placing it on my right shoulder. The tracking beam/arm combo had me trapped. He started by telling me he loved me. I have since learned the effectiveness of this rhetorical trick. This is a common and effective practice employed by parents when beginning a conversation with a child where you are about to explain to that child that the world is not what they think. It is admirable that they are thinking of such matters as a child, and it is because of this stated love that you feel compelled to drop this knowledge bomb.

My father started by telling me that we can’t believe everything politicians tell us. And, he said, this is true for all politicians. They have to get elected to get and/or keep their job, and in order to get elected they have to say things that people want to hear. So, sometimes they lie. And sometimes they don’t exactly lie, but they say things in a manner that sounds better than what they’re really saying. But more often than not they lie. And Reagan, it seemed to my dad, had a special way of doing this that not only made lies, no matter how much evidence of their falsehood, seem like they were the only possible truth. He then went on to more substantive issues, namely money, with a little bit of talk about race mixed in.

He explained to me that most Republicans care more about rich people than they do all people, and Reagan was the king of this kind of care. He said that one of the things that Presidents do is help to decide what kind of laws we have. And for the past four years, Reagan had made clear through the laws he championed and the rhetoric he espoused that if we take really good care of rich people, they’ll take really good care of the rest of us. If we just let rich people keep more of their money, they’ll spend it in ways that helps everyone. I’m not sure if you used the term “trickle down economics” or not, but the message was pretty clear with or without the name.

This sounded good to me. As a middle-class kid in 1980s America I was inundated with messages that being rich was what it was all about. But then my father explained to me that this philosophy, whether you think it sounds good or not, had not proven to match its stated aims when put into practice. Rich people were getting to keep more of their money, which meant they got even richer. But the benefits the rest of us were supposed to see had yet to materialize.

He then explained that even though this was the case, Reagan continued to make sure that the rich got to keep more of their money. Poor people got poorer, and folks like us stayed about the same. This didn’t make sense to me. How could such a benevolent man do such a thing?

My dad went on to explain in further detail how politicians say things over and over to people in hopes that this repetition will make people believe what the politicians are saying. Even if the things that happen in people’s lives tell them what they’re hearing is false, they believe it anyway. It’s a trick of sorts, but it works.

He went on to talk about more about issues related to poverty and how it didn’t seem like Reagan really cared much about poor people or poverty. He certainly wasn’t doing anything about it. One thing he was doing was convincing people that Black people on welfare wanted to be on welfare instead of working, and that most of them cheat welfare so they can get more money. He described to me what welfare was and how no one, Black, White, or otherwise, would want to be poor.

The conversation went on for a while. My father told me that we can’t judge a politician or make a decision on whether we like him or her just because of their party affiliation. We have to judge each person as an individual. This sounded reasonable. I said I guess that meant that he voted for some Republicans and some Democrats. He laughed and said that every once in a while that might happen, but not too often. While he does follow his own advice of looking at everyone individually, this usually produces the same result of voting for the person with a D next to their name.

There were other topics like the propping up of foreign regimes, not doing enough to make progress on issues of racism and sexism, and the demonizing of Jews that we discussed. But what resonated the loudest with me was the issue of money and class, and how a person could run a country with apparently little regard for the many and much for the few, all with a movie star smile on his face.

The picture my father painted was stark and real; it was not candy-coated. Some might think such a portrayal would make a child disillusioned, feeling helpless to make the world better. Instead of turning me off from politics, this stoked my interests and set me on a path of critical thinking. I never took things at face value, instead I was always questioning. This part caused some problems as a child, but I think in the end it was worth it.

When I tell this story, I sometimes jokingly say that this was the beginning of my indoctrination to the politics of the left. But there is some truth in that statement, and I don’t think it’s all that bad.

We constantly indoctrinate our children with our words and deeds, though not always in explicitly defined moments such as the one I describe with my father. But we enact a life that tells our children what is right in matters ranging from religion, to what we eat, to how we treat each other. Chief among these is what we teach about how we accept or do not accept our civic responsibilities to be informed, critical, and participatory members of our Democratic Republic.

I began indoctrinating my children in the gospel of the left from the moment they were born. I hope in doing so I don’t set them on a predictable path of rejection and rebellion, leading to them joining the Young Conservatives, or some other such group. I guess if I begin to see that happening I can always sit them down for some good old-fashioned purposeful indoctrination. Like father, like son.