What Would Reagan Really Do?

Grown men don’t tend to worship other grown men—unless, of course, they happen to be professional Republicans, in which case no bow is too deep, and no praise too fawning, for the 40th president of the United States: Saint Ronald Reagan.

His name is invoked by candidates for offices high and low, from aspiring state assemblyman Anthony Riley of Hesperia, Calif., who constantly referred to himself as a “Reagan Republican” before losing in the 59th district last month, to Danny Tarkanian of Nevada, who framed his failed 2010 primary run for the U.S. Senate as Reagan’s “last campaign” and frequently repeated what has to be one of the most tired lines in politics: “We’re going to win this one for the Gipper.”

For conservatives, Reagan is more than a president. He is a god of sorts: wise, just, omniscient, infallible. Being Republican has long meant being like Reagan—or at least saying you’re like Reagan. The writer Dinesh D’Souza neatly captured the conservative CW when he suggested that the right “simply need[s] to ask in every situation that arises: what would Reagan have done?” Period. Problem solved.