Is Donald Trump the "Duck Dynasty" Version of Ronald Reagan?

A hotel employee holds a bust of Ronald Reagan that was presented to Donald Trump for Statesman of the Year by the Sarasota Republican Party at the Ritz-Carlton in Sarasota, Fla., Aug. 26, 2012. (Todd Heisler / The New York Times)A hotel employee holds a bust of Ronald Reagan that was presented to Donald Trump for Statesman of the Year by the Sarasota Republican Party at the Ritz-Carlton in Sarasota, Florida, August 26, 2012. (Photo: Todd Heisler / The New York Times)

The most popular take on Donald Trump is that we’ve never seen anything like him before. But here’s the thing: We have seen something like Trump before — we saw it with Ronald Reagan.

Now, there are obviously some big surface-level differences between Reagan and Trump. Reagan’s public persona was cool, calm and collected; Trump’s is … well, the exact opposite. Reagan had years of political experience before he ran for president; Trump has none. Reagan also was also deeply religious, or at least “spiritual” (he didn’t go to church); Trump, I don’t think, has ever had a spiritual thought in his life.

But if you ignore those obvious differences and focus on how Trump is running and framing his campaign, you’ll see that he’s doing the exact same thing Reagan did, only in a style more appropriate for today. In 1980, Republican voters liked button-down politicians; today, they’re looking for something more “down-home” and unrefined. Trump, arguably, is the Duck Dynasty version of Reagan.

See more news and opinion from Thom Hartmann at Truthout here.

Like Reagan, he’s selling a mythology — the mythology of US greatness and American exceptionalism. Trump’s version of this mythology is a bit more macho than Reagan’s “shining city on a hill” sales pitch of American greatness, but that’s a difference of tone, not of content.

At its core, Trump’s campaign, like Reagan’s campaign, is selling voters the idea that the United States, although the “best damn country in the world,” has fallen on dark times and needs its greatness “restored.”

For Reagan, of course, all this mythology was just cover for what he and his far-right buddies really wanted to do: deregulate the economy, cut taxes for the rich and help the billionaire class regain control of…

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