Despite their many differences, however, the only two presidents who have hosted a nationally televised show before taking office (General Electric Theater for Reagan, The Apprentice for Trump) also share some significant similarities. Reagan was a populist who reviled the government he led, even if he did not call it the “deep state,” and belittled expertise. He often quipped, “I’ve always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.” Reagan’s attacks on the federal government were wittier and tamer than Trump’s, but they intensified the anti-government mood that Trump has exploited in recent years. Reagan’s policies, tilted toward the wealthy, exacerbated income inequality, thus also contributing to the populist backlash that Trump now harnesses.
More similarities: Reagan was proud of his dealmaking skills (learned as a union negotiator, not a real-estate mogul), and he promised in his 1980 campaign to “make America great again.” He displayed an often-shocking ignorance of public policy, even if he knew far more, and read far more, than Trump. He often made false statements, even if he uttered fewer than Trump has, and he had a cavalier attitude toward fact-checking. Asked in 1965 by a graduate student about his oft-repeated and false claim that “no nation in history has ever survived a tax burden of one-third of our national income,” Reagan breezily replied, “I’m sorry … I just plain don’t have that source any longer,” and continued repeating it in his speeches. Reagan arguably inured Republicans to Trump’s far more pervasive falsehoods.
So, too, did Reagan’s campaign rhetoric sometimes contain the extremism espoused today by Trump. Early in his political career, Reagan regularly accused Democrats of plotting to turn America into a socialist and even communist country with their welfare programs, just as Trump later did. In his famous 1964 “Time for Choosing” speech, Reagan accused Democrats of “taking the party of Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland down the road under the banners of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin.” Reagan later moderated his rhetoric; Trump never has.
Perhaps the most disturbing Trump-Reagan parallels concern public health and race relations. Reagan mishandled the AIDS epidemic, just as Trump mishandled COVID-19, resulting in needless loss of life. Reagan did not make a speech on AIDS until 1987, six years after the first cases were reported, and did next to nothing to mobilize a federal response even as nearly 50,000 Americans died of the disease while he was in office.