President Donald Trump's "temper tantrum" over a Canadian ad using the actual words of Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs illustrates how "MAGA has turned away from Reagan’s once-mythic legacy," according to Salon's Heather Digby Parton.
When it comes to former President Reagan, some Americans still remain nostalgic, she writes — but only one particular group.
"For a certain swath of Americans old enough to remember his optimism and storytelling — and to ignore the extensive damage he did to the country — hearing his voice doubtless carries them back to a gentler time," she says.
But Trump, recognizing the ad's power, she writes, ranted against it on his Truth Social and "was so mad he slapped an additional 10 percent tariff on Canadian goods, which came on top of the 35 percent he had already imposed. He also declared the bilateral trade talks over."
Some small businesses retaliated to this in a lawsuit claiming by imposing these tariffs, "the president exceeded his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)," Digby Parton says.
In August, the administration lost the case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, but, she explains, "they temporarily stayed the decision pending the Supreme Court appeal, which was accepted by the justices with lightning speed."
"Trump’s notion that, without Ontario’s ad, the Supreme Court justices wouldn’t know about Reagan’s free trade philosophy is unintentionally hilarious," she says, noting that Justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito all worked in the Reagan administration.
Trump, notes Digby Parton, knows of the importance of Reagan's appeal to his base — or at least, his former appeal.
"Trump is well aware of how Reagan was long held up as something of a god among Republicans, and Trump himself went to great lengths to suck up to him when he was president, albeit to little avail," she writes, referring to a 2017GQ article titled "Donald Trump Loves Ronald Reagan, Even Though Reagan Never Liked Him Back."
And while the New York Times confirmed the accuracy of the Canadian ad and its use of Reagan's speech, the reaction to it by the Reagan Foundation, which oversees the former president’s library, following Trump's tantrum was, Digby Parton notes, "startling."
"You would think that they, of all people, would be so protective of Reagan’s legacy and insist upon his beliefs being portrayed truthfully," she writes.
"Instead the foundation raised a big stink, saying they hadn’t given permission to the admakers to use excerpts of the speech — which was in the public domain, so they had no say in the matter — and insisting that it misrepresented him," she explains.
That startling reaction is confounding and Digby Parton questions its origins.
"Either its board has gone so MAGA that they have been deluded into believing the man they purport to honor and defend was a big tariff-lover, or they are so terrified of Trump that they betrayed Reagan’s legacy in hopes of appeasing the president," she muses.
Whatever the reason may be, it appears that most of Trump's base has, along with their leader, abandoned Reagan.
"It now appears that most of Trump’s followers have left Ronald Reagan and what he stood for behind. They no longer have any interest in or loyalty to the conservative movement he helped create. Its remains are mere artifacts of what has come to seem like an ancient civilization," she writes.
After Reagan was gone, she writes, conservatives "worked to secure the movement’s enduring power by consciously turning Reagan into a mythic figure whose ideas would live on in perpetuity."
That perpetuity seems to have been canceled, she says, thanks to Trump.
"Now, less than a decade after Trump was first inaugurated president in 2017, most of it is lying in rubble," she writes. "Seeing a movement that was as vibrant as the conservative movement toppled so quickly by a shallow demagogue should give those who love democracy and human progress hope. If Ronald Reagan couldn’t go the distance, Donald Trump certainly can’t."