GOP ‘24: Trump’s running against . . . Reagan?

Presumably, Donald Trump will nev𓆏er produce the dark secrets promised about Ron DeSantis’ ꦇpast.

But his team thinks it already has one — the Florida govern𓆏or once was a Reagan Republican.

“There’s a pre-Trump Ron and there’s a post-Trump Ron🐠,ꦍ” .

“He used to be a Reagan Republican. That’s where he comes from. He’s now awkwardly trying to square his views up with the populist ♛nationalist feeling of that pa🎃rty.”

In his CPAC speech doubling down on MAGA, T🅘rump said, “We are never going back to the par🍃ty of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove and Jeb Bush.”

He didn’t mention Ronald Reagan, b𒈔ut the inclusion of the Gipper in the hall of shame was heavily implied.

This way of thinking in a Republican primary is ꧑so🐈mething new.

Once, pretty much every Republican wanted to be a Reagan🎀 Republican.

If the Tr﷽ump camp gets its way, Reaganism will have gone from passé in 2016 to an affirma🅠tive vulnerability in 2024.

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There are layers to this i🙈ntra-Republican debate.

It is certainl🤡y true that conservatives became overly obsessed with identifying themselves with Ronald Reagan — and when something becomes an -ism, it is likely to be simplified and ossified. 

Then, there’s🌜 the sheer passage of time. Reagan left office 34 years 🌟ago.

As🍌 of 2𒉰020, more than half of Americans were under age 40, meaning they have no real memory of Reagan.

Neither the pro- or antiღ-Reagan side tends to do justice to the real,൩ historical political figure. 

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Reagan was a free mar𝄹keteer, but wasn’t doctrinaire.

He accepted the fact of the New Deal.

He was a free-trader, yet acted to protect American auto makers 🎶and Harley-Davidson from Japanese imports.

If he was hawkish on foreign policy, he was always prudent.🧔

He was cautious about deploying US troops overseas and contemplated eliminating nuclear weapons at a summit with Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik.

If Reagan eventually came to define conventional Republicanism, he took on his party’s liberal establishment and brought a populꦕist voice to issues like the Panama Canal and crime.

At the end of the day, Reagan’s achiev🐬ements are momentous and should be aౠcknowledged as such by all Republican factions.

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He set the predicate for winning the Cold War.

He slayed inflation. He ended the energy crisis.

He forced a turn to the center by the Democratic Party 𒀰under Bill Clinton.

He changed the mood of the country.

The thoughtless version of Reaganism doesn’t take sufficient account of how circumstances in the count🔴ry have changed the last 30 years.

Take taxes.

The bu🐭rden of federal income 🧜taxes isn’t nearly as heavy on middle-class families as it was in the 1970s and 1980s, when inflation pushed them into ever-higher tax brackets.

And ꧟Republicans have cut taxes so many times, any positive economic effect of further reductions is lim𓆉ited.

Nonetheless, for the longest time, the standard Republican approach to domesti🌸c 🥃policy, with some differences in emphasis, was to cut taxes and reduce the debt, with everything else fading to the background.

As♔ it happens, Trump also ran on these two priori𝕴ties in 2016, but also plowed new ground — as other Republicans should — on a host of issues. 

The example of Reagan, like that of all accomplished statesme♏n, offers broad lessons that can be continual🅠ly drawn on — about how to balance prudence and principle, how to affect a large-scale political vision, how to deplore what ails the country without giving in to despair and how to build coalitions.

The last may be most useful to Ron DeSantis once he enters the nomination battle.

To win, he is going to need to win over a segment of Trump populists at the same time he locks down Republican voters who li🔯k⛦e Reagan more than Trump. 

The Tr♛ump forces are going to try to make DeSantis’ roots in the party of Reagan disqualify🃏ing.

Instead, played correctly, it can be a strength.