WHY WE STILL LIVE IN Reagan's America

The 40th president’s optimistic faith—and lucky timing—help explain his enduring appeal

- H.W. BRANDS

RONALD REAGAN LIKED TO TELL STORIES. As president he told one to a convention of Protestant ministers, about a preacher and a politician who died on the same day and were greeted by St. Peter at the gates of heaven. Peter explained heaven’s rules and escorted the newcomers to the homes they would occupy for all eternity. The preacher’s proved to be a single room with a bed, table and chair. The politician’s was a huge mansion with handsome furnishings. The politician was grateful but puzzled. “How do I deserve this grand place while that good man of the cloth has to live in a single room?” he asked. Peter replied, “Here in heaven we have plenty of preachers. You’re the first politician to get in.”

The humor was vintage Reagan, not side-splitting but good for a chuckle. It flattered his listeners while deprecating himself, the only politician in the room. It caused people to think he was a friendly fellow, one they could get along with. People liked Reagan, even when they didn’t like his policies.

Humor and amiability weren’t the only reasons Reagan was the most successful president of the last half-century, in terms of putting his ideas into practice. His good timing helped, too. Reagan became president in 1981, when Americans had grown weary of a government that had been expanding incessantly since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s. Reagan announced, in his first inaugural address, that “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” and his words summarized what millions of Americans were thinking. They applauded his tax cuts and efforts at deregulation, and they reelected him overwhelmingly in 1984.