Ron Reagan amazingly qualifies as an honest broker. I asked him if he was a mama’s boy and he said no, more of a papa’s boy. At the same time he was willing to say that his father had many shortcomings and needed to be held accountable. Eugene Jarecki Read Quote
Reagan is held up to us as an example of never raising taxes. Correction: Reagan raised taxes six of his eight years as president. Why? He was a pragmatist, not doctrinaire. He saw problems emerging, and when his policies faltered he changed his views. Flexibility, not rigidity. Eugene Jarecki Read Quote
He presented himself as the friend to Main Street America, and yet that aw-shucks persona ended up packaging policies and programs that were at times deeply injurious to the very people he swore to serve. After all, Reaganomics set in motion one of the largest wealth redistributions in American history, away from the poor and toward the rich. Eugene Jarecki Read Quote
You can call me an Eisenhower Republican. There is a gigantic gulf between an Eisenhower Republican and the kind of fringe brand of Republicanism that is being so vocally promoted today. Eugene Jarecki Read Quote
It is only education and understanding of the past that teaches us not to repeat history. Eugene Jarecki Read Quote
Elites are once again invoking Reagan, dropping their G’s and saying things in a folksy sort of way that’s meant to capture the hearts of people. And it’s all fraud; it’s all stagecraft. And people are falling for a great deal of elite behavior in this country packaged as if it’s proletariat behavior. Eugene Jarecki Read Quote
Reagan himself, for much of his life, was devoted against the elites. His antagonism to the Soviet Union is antagonism against oppression by the elites of the many. Eugene Jarecki Read Quote
The big lesson of Reagan is: To think that he was some sort of simple figurehead and didn’t do the thinking and simply read a script in front of him woefully underestimates him. Ronald Reagan was an extremely intelligent person with a real V8 engine under his hood. Eugene Jarecki Read Quote
The Tea Party is a group that rejects deep thinking, it rejects the very complex analysis that is involved in public policy, it rejects the kind of textured decision-making that Ronald Reagan prided himself on. Eugene Jarecki Read Quote
War is party-blind. It doesn’t care who is in the Oval Office. The forces that drive us to war don’t care whether it’s Republican, Democrat, or other. The fact is, these parties are prey to special interests. That is something Eisenhower was afraid of. Eugene Jarecki Read Quote
