Comfortably Aloof and Right (wing)
On the American right, Reagan has already acquired mythic status. “Reagan Republican” is the purest form of conservatism, especially in contrast to the two Bush presidencies. This book helps explain that myth—but also shows why I don’t share it.
Reagan, as Brands tells it, embodies most of what I don’t want in a president: aloof from detail, ideological rather than pragmatic, and firmly in the FDR/JFK lineage of style over substance. I don’t doubt his conviction or quarrel much with his broad aims. The problem is execution. Brands is at his best showing how the mantra of “cut taxes and cut spending” never really added up. Reagan pushed through large tax cuts and a major defense buildup, but serious, sustained spending cuts never followed; deficits and debt ballooned instead. This isn’t ideology, it’s just debt.
The same gap between rhetoric and results appears in foreign policy. Reagan shifted from détente to confrontation and back toward negotiation, ultimately signing important arms control agreements with the USSR, including the INF Treaty. But this biography didn’t persuade me that he advanced things far beyond what Carter and Ford had already opened up; the political energy that might have gone into structural progress often disappears into Star Wars and domestic campaign themes. It feels like a familiar pattern of presidential weak sauce: the hard, obvious move is there, the leverage is there, and the White House flinches—akin to the long drift in Vietnam or Afghanistan.
One of the most interesting threads here is Reagan’s union past. His years as president of the Screen Actors Guild—two long stretches between 1947–1952 and 1959–1960—give him an unusual apprenticeship in bargaining, coalition management, and media performance. You can see those habits all over his presidency, for better and worse. The myth that survives, though, is simpler: the idea that you can “ignore the details and right,” that instincts and timing matter more than specifics. Brands doesn’t fully endorse that view, but his portrait makes clear why Reagan still functions as its patron saint.