1. Reagan did not trust authoritarian Great Powers except when the right thing was in the obvious best interests of those authoritarian Great Powers.
2. Reagan did not demonize or vilify his opponents. He might get something from them some day out of a shared interest on some issue, Politics was still give and take, and not simply an effort to shut out the Other Side. He could say a kind word, even if such was hypocritical. This said, hypocrisy is the norm even among good people. This said, the only people not hypocrites are either saints or people proud to be bad. Real saints are rare, and people proud of their own wickedness are more dangerous than crocodiles.
3. Reagan knew about politics as the President of the Screen Actor's Guild and as Governor of California. Before 2016 Donald Trump had no involvement in politics except to shoot off his mouth. This inadequacy by Donald Trump still shows.
4. Reagan had the appelation "The Great Communicator". OK, Clinton didn't fall short by much, and Obama is better. A second-tier screen actor of the late 1930s and early 1940s (which is a compliment when one considers such superstars as Jimmy Cagney, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, and Harry Morgan) that he could never displace as a star -- and he knew it, he could deliver a line well and make it meaningful and natural. I've seen Barack Obama do stand-up comedy at the White House Journalists' Dinner... and he was good at it. Really-good stand-up comedians often become good screen actors.
5. Reagan had to know that he was not a 'natural' success as an actor. Nobody is. All hone their craft or surely fail. Law, as both Clinton and Obama learned, is drama. Let's put it this way about Obama: had he gone the judicial route instead of through electoral politics, he'd be the last person you would want hounding you as a prosecutor. or watching your criminal case as a judge if you are a criminal. But know well: even if I see Obama as an intellectual Superman who could do just about anything that he committed himself to doing, I recognize that he knew enough to consult the experts in the field who knew a little something that he didn't.
6. Trump is unteachable. He acts as if he needs no coaching from anyone, and that he is perfect as he is. That happens when one's arrogance overpowers one's talent. Others might have to butter up his ego when he feels that he is simply unlucky and not simply incompetent or inadequate. What Donald Trump says is more like what a grade-school bully says toward someone helpless for the time. Trump has an arrogance that no President has had in a very long time. Arrogance is no substitute for competence.
2. Reagan did not demonize or vilify his opponents. He might get something from them some day out of a shared interest on some issue, Politics was still give and take, and not simply an effort to shut out the Other Side. He could say a kind word, even if such was hypocritical. This said, hypocrisy is the norm even among good people. This said, the only people not hypocrites are either saints or people proud to be bad. Real saints are rare, and people proud of their own wickedness are more dangerous than crocodiles.
3. Reagan knew about politics as the President of the Screen Actor's Guild and as Governor of California. Before 2016 Donald Trump had no involvement in politics except to shoot off his mouth. This inadequacy by Donald Trump still shows.
4. Reagan had the appelation "The Great Communicator". OK, Clinton didn't fall short by much, and Obama is better. A second-tier screen actor of the late 1930s and early 1940s (which is a compliment when one considers such superstars as Jimmy Cagney, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, and Harry Morgan) that he could never displace as a star -- and he knew it, he could deliver a line well and make it meaningful and natural. I've seen Barack Obama do stand-up comedy at the White House Journalists' Dinner... and he was good at it. Really-good stand-up comedians often become good screen actors.
5. Reagan had to know that he was not a 'natural' success as an actor. Nobody is. All hone their craft or surely fail. Law, as both Clinton and Obama learned, is drama. Let's put it this way about Obama: had he gone the judicial route instead of through electoral politics, he'd be the last person you would want hounding you as a prosecutor. or watching your criminal case as a judge if you are a criminal. But know well: even if I see Obama as an intellectual Superman who could do just about anything that he committed himself to doing, I recognize that he knew enough to consult the experts in the field who knew a little something that he didn't.
6. Trump is unteachable. He acts as if he needs no coaching from anyone, and that he is perfect as he is. That happens when one's arrogance overpowers one's talent. Others might have to butter up his ego when he feels that he is simply unlucky and not simply incompetent or inadequate. What Donald Trump says is more like what a grade-school bully says toward someone helpless for the time. Trump has an arrogance that no President has had in a very long time. Arrogance is no substitute for competence.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.