Happy Birthday to Ronald Reagan, a hollywood liberal and union leader who sacrificed everything he believed in as a young man and becoming everything he had once opposed in order to obtain a larger than life persona propelling him to the presidency.

Reagan didn't actually believe in anything. Or rather, he took method acting to such an extreme that the role he agreed to play for the conservative movement and the Republican Party became entirely indistinguishable from the man. Even to himself.

Lots of people have compared to Trump to Nixon, but that is an unfair comparison. I suggest instead that the comparison is actually more apt between Trump and Reagan. Both met a political moment by playing a version of themselves that was far more fiction than underlying reality.

Reagan too liked to present himself as an all-American wartime president. Reagan could claim to have served, and he did wear the uniform, but he was never allowed to do more than make war films or training films for the US Army.

So much of what we casually, popularly believe about Ronald Reagan is marketing, even more than other presidents. Reagan wasn't even an A-lister at the time he considered a foray into politics--that is why he considered a foray into politics. He was an actor in need of a role.

Again, like Trump, who has waffled between liberalism and association with the Democratic party to independent to his presidency as a "conservative" Republican, a different set of circumstances could have had a still-Democratic Reagan.

After all, it was Reagan, a former *new-dealer* who said, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me." Which is actually bullshit. His father and brother benefited from the Works Progress Administration in order to put food on the table that Ronny ate.

What really happened is that there was an opening for a role--California needed a trusted, all-American face for their campaign to take back the Governorship. And Ronald Reagan desperately needed a role. So he auditioned and got the part.

If the political shoe had been on the other foot, and the Democrats been looking for the same thing, what we'd have instead is Ronald Reagan liberal lion. And I might well be in the camp lionising him, though I hope not. I hope I'd be as critical as I am of, say, the DLC.