Episode description

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We wanted to offer something of a palette cleanser for our subscribers, so we decided to watch the recent movie, Reagan, with our intrepid producer, Jesse Brenneman. Even better, it's based on the 2006 book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, by Paul Kengor—who just happens to have been Matt's close mentor as an undergraduate student. Reagan clocks in at over two hours and twenty minutes, and it's a wild, even fantastical ride that offers a revealing glimpse into the conservative psyche and a faithful rendition of the most hagiographic version of the Reagan mythology, especially his personal responsibility for ending the Cold War and finally putting the Soviet Union on the ash heap of history.

Sources:

Reagan (2024)

Paul Kengor, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism(2006)

— God and Ronald Reagan: A Spiritual Life(2004)

— A Pope and a President: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20th Century(2017)

Edmund Morris, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan (1999)