Patti Davis, speaking during a recent interview about the state of American politics and her new book, said that her father would object to much of the conduct coming from lawmakers and politicians. “I don’t see how he would want to be in it,” she said, referring to the GOP. “You know, it’s so diametrically opposed to what he believed and to the dignity that he felt that people in government should have.” Davis added, “But, so in a larger sense, I think that he would be heartbroken and horrified about where America is and how mired we are in anger, and violence, and disrespect for one another. I think he would be heartbroken, and I think he would be scared, and I think he would see that.” Reagan has long been considered a conservative icon, with his tenure in office marking a new chapter for both the Republican Party and for the U.S. But now a “majority of Republicans oppose many of the positions that defined the party as recently as a decade ago,” according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released last year, which has Democratic critics declaring ad nauseam in multiple op-eds that the GOP is no longer the party of Reagan. Overall, according to Davis, the entire political landscape has changed significantly over the years because powerful figures have successfully persuaded Americans to embrace fear rather than optimism. “You can do whatever you want as long as you keep the people frightened enough,” she said in reference to a purported quote from Nicolae Ceaușescu, the former communist President of Romania. “I think we’re kind of seeing that, you know. Listen, we’re scared to send our kids to school, right. Is that school going to be the next school shooting? There’s no such thing anymore as it can’t happen here,” she explained. “We’re scared to go into stores. We’re scared to go into churches. And fear is not sustainable. And fear morphs into anger, because we don’t want to be scared. We don’t mind so much being angry, anger feels kind of good. There’s an adrenaline rush to it, you know” she continued. “And there are people on the public stage and on the political front who understand that synergy between fear and anger and who are masterful at exploiting it.”The daughter of former President Ronald Reagan says that if he were alive, he would neither be accepted by nor want to be in today’s Republican Party.
