Opinion / Commentary
Reagan Would Never Vote for Trump
He also didn’t care much for Biden. Like me, he’d be looking for a strong third-party candidate to support.
By John Lehman
March 17, 2024 4:12 pm ET
 Ronald Reagan and House Speaker Tip O’Neill in 1982. Photo: Getty Images
As one of the last senior national-security officials of the Reagan administration still vertical, I must speak.
It was an honor to serve as Navy secretary. The lessons I learned from the Gipper are still my political North Star. He taught his staff that we must be clear-eyed about our enemies, and especially our friends. He showed us how to speak to what makes America great, as well as what needs improvement, but not to tear America down. Most of all, he implored us to remember that strong relationships across the political divide are a great asset. Americans may disagree, he believed, but the true enemy lies beyond our shores.
Reagan’s 11th Commandment was “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican,” but Donald Trump is no heir to Reagan’s legacy. He is an insult to it. The Reagan I knew would be appalled that someone as unfit as Mr. Trump had become the GOP’s standard-bearer. Reagan would also deeply oppose President Biden’s agenda, and he never trusted or cared much for then-Sen. Biden.
The most fundamental difference between Reagan and Mr. Trump is that Reagan knew America’s friends from its enemies. He would be horrified by the Republican Party’s abandonment of Ukraine at Mr. Trump’s behest. He would recognize Russia’s invasion for what it is: a brutal attempt to reassert its old Soviet dominance on a free people, no matter how many innocents die. Reagan would recognize that supporting Ukraine is both morally correct and good realpolitik, a chance to bog an adversary down. He would find Mr. Trump’s naked admiration of our enemies incomprehensible and dangerous. The man who told Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” wouldn’t understand how an American president could congratulate a Russian dictator for “winning” a sham election.
Further, Reagan wouldn’t be able to fathom a president going out of his way to insult the leaders of North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies by suggesting that Russia could have its way with them if they didn’t spend more on defense.
Reagan would consider Mr. Trump’s praise for Hezbollah—calling the terrorist organization “very smart” in the wake of Hamas’s massacre of innocent Israeli civilians—unforgivable. Hezbollah is responsible for the most murderous attack on our peacetime military, Oct. 23, 1983, when its jihadists blew up a Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers. Mr. Trump’s praise demonstrates that he has no idea with whom he is dealing, let alone the effect of his words.
Mr. Trump’s praise of adversaries is particularly egregious considering the insults he throws at his own country. In his 2017 inauguration speech Mr. Trump spoke of “American carnage.” It is hard to imagine a phrase more out of sync with Reagan’s “morning in America.” Mr. Trump has spent his entire political career deriding the nation he wants to lead. He called America a “Third World country” and a “laughingstock.” He declared that “the American dream is dead.”
Reagan’s optimism wasn’t merely stylistic. It was substantive. He recognized that a nation that had lost its confidence during the Carter administration needed to be reminded of its greatness. Mr. Trump, it seems, has no understanding of the importance of speaking to the better angels of our nature.
Nor does he understand the importance of speaking with the opposing party. He treats Democrats as villains to vanquish, not as countrymen to be persuaded or outvoted. Reagan’s ability to negotiate—and have genuinely close relationships—with leading Democrats was one of his most underappreciated skills. In partnership with House Speaker Tip O’Neill, Reagan negotiated excellent legislation that defined his administration’s domestic policy. The 1986 Tax Reform Act, the 1987 Surface Transportation and Uniform Relocation Assistance Act, and a Social Security compromise of 1983 are three examples among dozens.
Reagan and O’Neill genuinely liked each other. Reagan once thanked Tip for a Valentine’s Day card he’d received, telling him he knew it was from the speaker because “the heart was still bleeding.” On another occasion, when Tip publicly criticized Reagan for sleeping through the Achille Lauro hijacking, Reagan responded to the press that he would promise Tip he would make sure he was awakened immediately for any crisis in the future—“even if it was in the middle of a cabinet meeting.” It was only thanks to Reagan’s close relationship with O’Neill and other country-first Democrats like Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson that I could get the large, steady budgets that allowed America to build the vaunted 600-ship Navy that checkmated the Soviet Union and kept peace on the seas for a generation.
One doesn’t see Reagan’s—or Jackson’s, or O’Neill’s—approach in Mr. Trump or Mr. Biden. Neither man has demonstrated a commitment to peace through strength, as both submitted budgets and proposals that forced the military to disarm while America’s enemies built their capabilities. Nor does one see unity or bipartisanship in their approaches. Gen. Jim Mattis was right when he described Mr. Trump as “the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us.” Mr. Biden is the second such president.
I am a conservative, however, and the Republican Party has been my philosophical home. With Mr. Trump, it has suffered a break-in from a vandal who refuses to leave. And since Mr. Biden has turned his platform over to socialist Bernie Sanders, I am wrapped in the No Labels flag.
Mr. Lehman served as Navy secretary, 1981-87. He is an elector and delegate for No Labels and author of “Oceans Ventured: Winning the Cold War at Sea.”
wsj.com
|
