On (Mis)Remembering Reagan: Crafting the Anti-Roosevelt in American Memory, 1989–2004

When Ronald Reagan left office in 1989, few expected one of the most significant political figures in modern U.S. history to fade into quiet retirement. That he did not, albeit less because of Reagan’s own work on his legacy’s behalf but more because of right-wing memorialists aiming to knock Franklin D. Roosevelt off his perch as one of the nation’s most well-regarded and beloved heads of state. This paper details the uncoordinated first days of Reagan remembrance, led in part by a combination of radio talk show hosts, supporters from his administration, ordinary voters, and conservative media scions. Starting first with the expected push for a Presidential Library in his name, then more broadly, with the unexpected memorialization of his presidency at various sites (from the metro D.C. area to the dimes in people’s pockets), fans of Reagan played up his conservative bonafides and recreated him in memory as a more consistent conservative executive than he actually was or could be in a divided 1980s America. When finally coordinating efforts in the late 1990s, they cast him as the anti-Nixon, anti-Ford, the anti-Hoover, and (most importantly) anti-Roosevelt and anti-Clinton, all as a memorial endeavor to legitimize the Republican Party and conservatism as finally “past” more disastrous episodes and offering a new cultural and moral order for Americans as much as a political or economic one. By the time Reagan passed away in 2004, after years of hampering by Alzheimer’s and unable to guide or correct his legacy, he had turned more comprehensively into a symbol of anti-liberalism itself in memory, misremembered as much as remembered and lionized as much as lambasted for a presidency that, at least in memory, only approximated his own.