Where does Ronald Reagan stand in the long line of American history? He occupies the place in the second half of the 20th century that Franklin Roosevelt held in the first. Both were presidents who came to office facing daunting economic and foreign crises; both responded by adopting unorthodox policies that revived economic growth and by increasing American strength in the world. And they stand astride America's 20th century as the great restorers of American strength and confidence.
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The resemblance of Reagan to Roosevelt was no accident. Reagan voted for Roosevelt four times and admired him more than any other president in his lifetime. Much of his leadership style and some of his best lines were straight from FDR. "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" Reagan asked during his 1980 debate against Jimmy Carter, echoing almost the very question Roosevelt posed during his fireside chat before the 1934 election. As historian William Leuchtenberg discovered during a 1981 interview with all the living presidents, Reagan was FDR's most enthusiastic fan, even though he had switched parties years earlier and soured on many Roosevelt initiatives. Of course, the direction of their economic policies was different: Roosevelt expanded government, Reagan cut taxes. But the thrust of their foreign policies was the same.
Neither man would likely have been elected president in ordinary times. Roosevelt, many thought, would be barred from office because he was crippled by polio, and, indeed, Roosevelt's aides saw to it that he was rarely photographed in his wheelchair. Reagan, many thought, could never be elected president because he spent most of his adult life as a movie actor. But both men were elected and re-elected governor of the nation's largest state at the time—Roosevelt in New York, Reagan in California. And both performed well enough in those jobs to be plausible presidential candidates in times of emergency—Roosevelt in 1932, Reagan in 1980. Most important, both brought optimism to the presidency during grim times and an almost giddy confidence that turned out, in large part through their efforts, to be justified by events.
Though he first won office at 55, Reagan had long been interested in politics. Raised by Democratic parents in a Republican small town, he was an enthusiast for Roosevelt's New Deal, which provided his father with a job. At a time when liberals were referred to as bleeding hearts, Reagan said he was a political hemophiliac, and he is the only president ever to have headed a labor union, the Screen Actors' Guild. But his encounters with Communists in the labor movement strengthened his staunch opposition to the Soviet Union. Facing declining earnings as an actor, he especially resented the 91 percent income tax rate on the highest earners and the lack of income averaging. In the 1930s and 1940s, Democrats took on a populist style, very much in line with the Hollywood movies of the time. But in the 1950s, following the lead of Adlai Stevenson, some, at least, adopted an air of intellectual snobbery and disdain for ordinary folks that Reagan never shared. Meanwhile, conservative Republicans were shedding beliefs that Reagan found uncongenial—isolationism, protectionism, opposition to immigration. By the early 1960s, Reagan was a solid, and solidly conservative, Republican.
