As the last president to win successive landslide elections, Mr. Reagan offers many political lessons, but not the rigidly ideological ones that both his admirers and detractors are too often drawing. Returning to Reaganism might be a plausible path forward for the G.O.P., but only if Mr. Trump loses the election in November. In that case, the battle over what Mr. Reagan has to teach us today would truly heat up — and the combatants would do well to remember the very real qualities that made him a unifying force.

 

Conservatives Fighting Over Reagan’s Legacy Overlook What Made Him Successful

By Jacob Heilbrunn

Mr. Heilbrunn is the editor of The National Interest and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. He has written two books about the American political right.