The eternal lameness of reading Reagan's mind: Column

Senator Marco Rubio does not respect his elders. Upon announcing his candidacy on Monday, the 43-year-old Florida senator mocked Hillary Clinton as "a leader from yesterday" who wants "to take us back to yesterday."

"Yesterday is over," Rubio said, correctly. "We are never going back." History, indeed, is a thing of the past.

To ram home his point, Rubio called for a fresh start, decried "leaders and ideas of the past" and argued, "Too many of our leaders and their ideas are stuck in the 20th century." This guy really hates stuff that has already happened.

Except when he doesn't. Last October, at age 43 and a half

, Rubio expressed not only deep reverence for a leader from the past but also his continued relevance. In an article for National Review Online, he urged Republicans to "do what Reagan did in 1964" — give a speech for Barry Goldwater.

"Republicans," Rubio wrote, "must apply the principles of Reagan's 'Time for Choosing' (speech) to today's challenges." How many principles? "Every single one of the principles," according to Rubio. They are "just as relevant today as in 1964."

Rubio's selective nostalgia is not unique. Republicans today idolize Reagan more than they do Abraham Lincoln, who founded their party, and Teddy Roosevelt, whose face adjoins Lincoln's on Mount Rushmore. To Reagan's 11th commandment — thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican — they have added a 12th: thou shalt not speak without speaking about Reagan.

The deification began even before Reagan left office. During a 1988 GOP primary debate between six Republican candidates, all but two of them promised to hang Reagan's portrait in the Oval Office.

Since then, the hero worship has only intensified. Governor Scott Walker told the New York Times that he remembers his wedding anniversary because it's the anniversary of Reagan's birth. He reportedly told Nancy Reagan that his 2012 electoral victory occurred on the anniversary of her husband's death, which must have delighted her. Walker is so enamored of Reagan that he serves jellybeans (Reagan's favorite candy) at annual dinners celebrating — yes, you guessed correctly — Ronald Reagan. Most confounding, however, is that Walker feels compelled to brag about this publicly.

For Republicans, the greatest achievement in life, short of injecting Reagan's DNA into their veins, is to be his transmigration, politically if not spiritually. He is, without a doubt, their favorite dead white male.

Last year Senator Ted Cruz said that on foreign policy he, unlike Senator Rand Paul, thinks "just as Ronald Reagan did." Paul responded with an op-ed titled "Stop Warping Reagan's Foreign Policy," in which he told Republicans to stop "latching onto Ronald Reagan's legacy" — before doing just that. In a subsequent op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Paul clarified his position in four words: "Like Reagan, I thought…" Which says it all, without saying anything: The politically correct way for Republicans to think is "like Reagan."

Whether these Reagan genuflections are sincere or merely opportunistic, they are certainly lame — and, in many cases, fallacious. Reagan's record, when reviewed soberly, doesn't seem so Reagan-esque. As governor, Reagan proposed what biographer Lou Cannon called "the largest tax hike ever proposed by any governor in the history of the United States." Under his presidency, federal spending rose and the federal debt tripled. Giving Reagan the biggest job in government didn't make the government any less big. Quite the opposite.

Reagan set out to abolish the Department of Education but instead increased its budget. In 1986, despite pledging "to get government out of farming," he bragged to Illinois farmers, "This year alone we'll spend more on farm support programs…than the total amount the last administration provided in all of its four years." He signed into law a series of tax increases, rebranding them "revenue enhancements." He granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants andsaid, in a 1984 debate with Walter Mondale, "I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and who have lived here even though sometime back they may have entered illegally."

By today's standards, Reagan committed blasphemy — against himself.

What Reagan idolatry boils down to, ultimately, is adoration of his success. He was — and remains — the most successful and popular president since FDR. That is why politicians constantly invoke his name. They want what he had: enduring popularity. His epigones adore his ideas and principles, yes, but what they adore most is that he was so adored.

Windsor Mann is the editor ofThe Quotable Hitchens: From Alcohol to Zionism.

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