A Day at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Some of the best fun at the archives can be had when hanging out with presidential tourists
Today is President’s Day! Because today usually features listicles about the best and worst presidents, I decided to offer you a piece I sketched out after a trip to one of my favorite presidential libraries. In retrospect, it has several themes that would come to haunt our political lives only five years later.
So if you know someone who might enjoy a puckish take on presidential history, please:
March 3, 2011. This morning, eating breakfast in Simi Valley, I was shamelessly eavesdropping on a group of men who, I came to understand, are local car dealers. I suspect they are also the kind of guys who meet once or twice a week for breakfast because they like each others' company. As I sat down at a nearby table, one held about hybrid and electric cars. "The part I don't get," he said to his friends, "is that the people who buy them are believing the horse pucky that electric vehicles are better for the environment than gas-powered vehicles."
"Yeah, well, just wait until someone gets stuck out in the desert in one," his friend said. They all contemplated that for a while.
"It's just like all the opposition to nuclear energy," another one of the guys volunteered. "More people get killed in Iraq in a month than have ever been killed by radiation." The others agreed, and another added: "Liberals spend too much time listening to conspiracy theories."
You cannot make this stuff up. You cannot. There was a Rotary Club luncheon in a few hours, and I wanted to return.
People are primary sources. While waiting for new archive boxes at the Reagan Library, I collected all kinds of data about what people who idolize the 40th president think. Let me say: you cannot do this if you are someone who runs up to other folks, smacks them with your Ph.D., and sets them straight. It isn’t even a good idea to reveal yourself as a historian in an uncontrolled setting. I used to tell strangers what I do for a living, but one too many moments in a bed and breakfast where someone perked up and said, "Really? I love history!" and then bubbled on about World War II or their Daughters of the Confederacy chapter cured me of that. So now I stuff a piece of toast in my mouth and respond, following Betty White, "BLAAAHRfingaahr!"
"Excuse me?" they ask.
"IRS," I say, swallowing the toast. "I work for the IRS."
But one day, I want to write an ethnography of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library (RRPL) because I have never met so many people in one place who are so drawn to the history of a president. The young man at the motel registration desk, who I will call Walt, is a perfect example. He has a BA in history from a Cal State school in the region and named about six history professors as wonderful and caring teachers. Like many people who live in Simi Valley, Walt volunteers on Saturdays at the RRPL after working a five-day week at the motel. He told me that his life's dream would be to get a job at the National Archives and work there full time. "That place," he said reverently, "is the jewel in our crown here in Simi Valley."
As far as I can tell, the RRPL counts on volunteers for a significant percentage of its staffing needs, although Walt is the youngest I have met. The docents who give tours to school children and the elderly are volunteers. They are mostly retired women, and every once in a while, I rush through my lunch to join one on her rounds. Yesterday, on a stop at a chunk of the Berlin Wall, one docent gave the Tea Party version of removing the wall. It fell, she declared, in a popular German uprising inspired by Ronald Reagan.
"When President Reagan ended communism," she explained to a group of children, "The bureaucrats talked and talked about how to take the Berlin Wall down and give the people back their freedoms. But they couldn't figure it out. So you know what? One day the people just went and got their little hammers, and they took it down themselves!"
They got their little hammers!
I say this in all seriousness: if you are too focused on your authority as a historian, you will learn nothing from the people who are out there practicing history in the wild. For example, I learn a great deal when I ask total strangers why they visit the RRPL and how often they come. Informal research suggests that a great many elderly California Republicans who are hoovering up social security (while voting down the taxes that might allow anyone else to retire) are frequent repeat visitors to the RRPL. I suspect one reason is the desserts at the cafe, which are outstanding. Ronald Reagan loved dessert, and so do I; therefore, I often assume that other people come to the RRPL for the dessert too.
While eating dessert or just hanging out in the sun, people tell me other things which suggest that worshipping Ronald Reagan is approaching a civil religion in this part of the world. "I just come to be close to him," one woman whispered as we stood in front of the presidential grave. As we looked out over the replica of the South Lawn donated by Merv Griffin, TV talk show host and closet queen, another commented: "I find this to be a very spiritual place." Of course, many non-Californians may visit for spiritual reasons, too, as the numerous mobile homes with plates from other states in the parking lot suggest. Or maybe they too come for the dessert.
Presidential libraries tend to reflect the presidency they memorialize. Thus, the beauty of the RRPL’s building and grounds, which look out over vineyards, mountains, and neatly kept subdivisions, simultaneously projects unimaginable wealth and the reassuring, modest, upper-class folksiness that was Reagan’s brand. Simultaneously ordinary and powerful, Reagan cultivated an image as a cultural bulwark between order and disorder, a comfort to those dismayed and frightened by the political visibility of gays, feminists, and people of color.
Strolling around the grounds as the sun was starting to set, I ended up back at the gravesite where four women were discussing whether the two spotlights on either side were cleverly disguised security cameras. I asked why they had made this pilgrimage, and one said cleverly turned the tables: "Hey -- why are you here?" she asked.
At last, I admitted that I was a historian working on a book. They wanted to know what it was about, so I told them: campaigns against pornography during the Reagan administration. They looked shocked, which people often are when you mention the p-word. "Well, I certainly hope you are writing about nabblah," one said.
"Excuse me?" I said, only belatedly realizing what she meant. "Do you mean NAMBLA? The North American Man-Boy Love Association?" Oh good Christ on a cracker, what had I done? Why didn't I say I was writing about the IRS? "Uh, no. I'm writing a book about the Justice Department and attempts by the federal government to control pornography."
"Government certainly didn't do a very good job, did it?" said another member of the party tartly.
"Well," the first woman continued, "You should write about NAMBLA because they are still responsible for most of the pornography in the United States. I have a friend who works for the FBI, and he goes undercover to investigate them and the way they bring children into homosexuality with pornography."
"Oh," I said brightly. "That's interesting. I'll have to think about that. But, um," I decided to take the plunge and be a historian. "You do know that most pornography is heterosexual?" I asked. "And that the majority of pornography is made and distributed by major media conglomerates, several which are in the Fortune 500?" They all looked at me blankly. No, they hadn't known that.
We said polite goodbyes, and I toddled off.
Short takes:
Via Max Greenwood at The Hill: former Democratic presidential candidate and Hawai’i Representative Tulsi Gabbard is on the speakers’ list for CPAC2022. It’s an unusual move on both sides. Gabbard is, admittedly, kind of a troll. It’s unclear why she imagines herself to be a Democrat in the first place. But on the CPAC side, it suggests that this conference—established decades ago by William F. Buckley to unite the GOP right—is now the home of conservatism’s most populist impulses. My question: are those forces now looking for alternatives to Trump? (February 21, 2022)
One reason to be President of the United States is the obscene amounts of money to be made from a post-presidency. Donald Trump has accelerated the trend by selling massive quantities of junk—hats, flags, cups, tee shirts, Christmas paper—items that are usually consigned to an active campaign. But as Nicholas Goldberg of the Los Angeles Times points out, Republican “Gerald Ford was among the first to take fees for speeches after leaving office,” and things only got worse after that. Between 2001 and 2015, Bill and Hillary Clinton hoovered in $153 million in speaking fees, including one $500,000 gulp by Bill from a bank in Moscow. They aren’t the only ones—this one is worth clicking on. (February 21, 2022)
The Former Guy is celebrating President’s Day by launching his “Truth Social” app at the Apple Store. So far, it’s the top free app of the day, but users are reportedly having trouble registering for an account once they have it. Reuters reports that potential users are being waitlisted, which means the app cannot yet absorb an indefinite number of users beyond those invited to be part of the test phase. Don’t hold your breath that Truth Social is happening: the funding is funky, and former California Congressman Devin Nunes, a dim bulb who has only ever run a dairy farm, is in charge. (February 21, 2022)
The Nixon library also attracts a lot of people who LOVE Nixon; I overheard a lot of these sorts of conversations in a week there. There's a slightly different feel to it also because there's a complex relationship between NARA and the foundation that controlled some of the materials in the museum and available in the collection but it's plain that lots of people visit thinking they're at a memorial for a martyr.
My cousin was the designer for the interior of the RR Library. If you really want a hoot visit the empty Clinton presidential Library.