“[Reagan] had a strong set of core values and operated off of those,” GOP strategist and longtime Reagan ally Stuart Spencer told National Public Radio in 2011. “But when push came to shove, he did various things he didn’t like doing, because he knew it was in the best interests of the state or country at the time.”
Among the things Reagan didn’t like doing was raising taxes, which he did in 1982. Two years later, he won 525 electoral votes to Walter Mondale’s 13, the biggest electoral landslide ever by a presidential candidate since FDR defeated Alf Landon. Apparently, voters didn’t care much that Reagan got along with the Democratic speaker. The economy was strong, the country was at peace and Washington was functioning as it should.
So, the question is: Would the 2024 version of Reagan be seriously primaried today? Would he have even earn the Republican Party’s nomination? What would Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) Twitter account look like?
“We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government,” argued Greene in a recent tweet that went viral. “Everyone I talk to says this. From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done.”
Well, that answers that question.