Note: the thoughts below grew out of comments posted to Bob Johnson’s excellent diary “Ronald Reagan Returns From the Dead: Full Implosion Mode” and a spirited conversation within the comment of that diary with kossak rudewarrior.
This election has been about an entirely unconscious repudiation of the Reagan myth from the GOP grass roots.
Ultimately, the essence of the Reagan myth was “morning in America” — bland Chamber of Commerce optimism, the larval “greatest generation” image as promoted by 1950’s mainstream media (which was itself whitewashing history---especially the Great Depression and WWII). It worked as an enjoyable “rerun” during the 1980s, but it was too closely linked to the lead actor, to that one personality. And most importantly, it was based on the lie of trickle-down, which was bound to eventually reveal itself for what it was. And like all myths, it lost its ability to paper over contradictions and antagonisms as time went on.
In the Reagan coalition, the white working class were given nothing real----just promises and feel good symbolism, while their economic base was eroded with their own collaboration.
We know it was bullshit and that Reagan was a nasty, opportunistic cynic posing as an all-American grandad, but the point for the past three decades plus is that his persona and his strategy and his gospel were to be unquestioned within the GOP.
But Trump, with his pharaonic delusions of grandeur bows down to NO man, alive or dead (except maybe Putin!). Reagan to him was just another politician, not a God to be worshiped. And it showed. The Reagan myth lost big this election cycle and its going into the dustbin of history along with the coalition it held together for so many years.
Trump was the only one in the field of the usual Reagan wanna-bes who stood out. He destroyed the whole field by refusing to invoke Reagan in awed and hushed tones. He reached back behind Reagan to ‘68 Nixon and George Wallace and did an end-around the whole Reagan myth of “grandfatherly communicator” who made everyone smile, etc.
Trump is the 180 degree antithesis of Reagan when it comes to optimism. It’s midnight in America and the entire nation is a “disaster.” Optimism about the future is our biggest obstacle. According to Trump, we need to embrace fear, hatred, distrust, anger, extreme pessimism, and separatism.
So I read this as the repressed voice of repressed part of the Reagan coalition. They are finally speaking through Trump and they are----without admitting it or realizing it of course -— repudiating the Reagan myth to the core.
But since the GOP has not had a single new idea since the palmy days of Reagan, it is literally impossible to imagine the party in a truly post-Reagan period. What would it even look like? When will the party insiders fully realize that the Reagan-myth period is over. I see years in which the remaining Reagan-bots like Cruz and Rubio and Pence continue to try to make it work. When will they finally abandon it and will there even be a party left when they finally do?
Update:
As rudewarrior points out:
The GoP all loves to point out that Raygun was the antithesis of Carter. However, in so many words, you are pointing out they are embracing their projection of Carter’s so-called “malaise” speech.
To which I would add:
That’s right and Trump is taking Carter’s “malaise” speech to unfathomable depths. It is no longer a mere “slump” -— it’s the new permanent condition, the very definition of America.
Update 2:
My analysis needs to add that in addition to bland optimism, a key point of the Reagan myth was a certain relationship between the text of sunny, inclusive optimism and the subtext of white racism, In response to RETIII’s comment below:
My take is that the Reagan myth, which was built on Nixon and Wallace, depended upon a subtle interaction of text and subtext. The racism was implicit subtext, signaled by the “dog whistle” -— an improvement over George Wallace’s bullhorn for mainstream acceptance. I think there was a kind of pleasure in playing that text/subtext dog-whistle game. Who can hear the whistle?
But trump made the GOP choke on that dog whistle. The subtext has now become the text and Wallace’s bullhorn is back.