Ronald Reagan is a greater American than Franklin Delano Roosevelt or Thomas Jefferson. That is the implication of the final 5 names on this Greatest American show running on Discovery. FDR and Jefferson got voted out Sunday, along with 18 others, leaving just five people still singing: Reagan, King, Washington, Lincoln and Franklin.
With the exception of Reagan, it’s a solid list, almost as good as the one I produced last week (I had a Fab Four of King, Washington, Lincoln and FDR, and if someone had forced me I would have let Franklin play keyboards). The slight of FDR is appalling (and consternating, and causes my gorge to rise, and gets my dander up — all sorts of things that are physically uncomfortable). FDR got us out of the Depression, Reagan got us out of a very mild Jimmy Carter malaise. FDR overcame polio and paralysis, Reagan overcame a mediocre acting career. People say that Reagan won the Cold War, but dagnabbit, FDR won a hot one. (Was WW2 so long ago that people have forgotten? As Dick Durbin would say, that was the war that was a lot like Gitmo.)
They announce the winner on Sunday after each contestant sings one final song of his choosing. Obviously George Washington will win. Why? Because being first is his shtick. He was just that kind of guy. After that little disaster at Fort Necessity in 1754, he didn’t come in second to anyone. Look at the monument to him on the Mall and you’ll see how he’ll finish in this competition.
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The jury on Reagan is still out. There is no question but that he changed the course of American politics and thought, much as FDR did, albeit in a different direction. If that change has the staying power that the New Deal had, then Reagan’s greatness is confirmed. But if the American ship swings back in a direction that indicates Reagan conservatism was only a deviation, then his greatness would be in doubt. (The greatest threat to Reagan’s beliefs is, interstingly, our current Republican President, who recognizes no limits on government power and has no interest in balancing the budget.)
The claim of Reagan followers that he single handedly ended the Cold War is going to be tough for history to swallow. He gave the commies a shove that hastened their demise, but the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse anyway and wouldn’t have lasted more than a few years anyway. The whole country was ready to shrug and walk away from Communist ideology; Reagan deserves credit for encouraging and supporting that, but he didn’t create the urge.
Given even the rosiest view of Reagan’s legacy, it’s difficult to see how he outranks Thomas Jefferson. For all of Jefferson’s flaws, he gave voice to the democratic urge and collaborated in the creation of a Constitutional government that somehow managed to balance the will of the majority with the rights of the minority. His gift to this country was, in fact, a gift to the world: Modern democracy.
Reagan may have steared part of the world onto the Democratic trail, but that trail was blazed by Jefferson.