Ronald Reagan was a complex character, worthy of deeper research, not offhanded calumny. His complexity was so great that even his widely acclaimed biographer, Edmund Morris, chose to depict him with a historical-novel approach incorporating fictional elements. It’s sometimes hard to discern what is real and what is Reagan.

History has judged that Reagan — the man, not the myth — saved Social Security and helped to end the Cold War. He was the right man at the right time to prepare the United States geopolitically for its peace dividend and unipolar moment. In 2004, Ronald Reagan rode into the sunset but it was still “morning in America,” thanks to him.

National moods are subject to change. Shifting political tides can bring foul upwellings. The nation is now in a reflective, Afghan-loss, China-challenged, Ukraine war-induced and pandemic-polarized phase. At least one 2024 Republican presidential candidate says Reagan’s morning has turned to darkness. READ MORE

The last line of defense in checking President Donald Trump’s foreign-policy power is the old guard of the Republican Party, and those watchmen are about to go quietly into the night.

A 2018 Republican sweep would cripple two key Senate committees, moving them from painfully ineffective to plainly inconsequential. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee are supposed to oversee the foreign-policy and the national-security apparatus. Trump has brought them to heel.

He has belittled the outspoken Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, who became a lame duck by giving up a 2018 reelection bid (Disclosure: Corker held my presidential appointment from Senate confirmation in 2016). Sitting out alongside him is another committee member, Trump-critic Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, leaving a handful of cowed Republicans and the minority Democrats to try to counter Trump policy tweets and fight for a systematically well-formulated foreign agenda. READ MORE

Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment and the Trump Era’s Republicans

2018 could lock-in Trump privilege, power in foreign policy