Tell the (Ugly) Truth
Unifying the nation demands an honest assessment of what ails it, today as in 1980
By Titus Techera
Americans have more need of unifying figures than any other free people, because there is so much change, so much growth in the country, so short a history, and so little stability outside the political institutions themselves. From the beginning, the president provided that reassurance. There are many impressive figures in American history, even beyond public life, but the country depends on a few great presidents among a larger number of mediocre ones who served dutifully in ordinary times, but failed in moments of crisis.
Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Reagan. These are our pride, from both parties, among the 45 men who served, since 1789, in the most impressive example of political continuity in modern times. They’re also among the major figures in American letters, remarkable for their ability to speak so persuasively that they forged and reforged the agreement between the American people and the impersonal institutions that define and limit government.
This used to be how we thought about ourselves. Now, we’ve lost sight of what makes America America. The lack of unifying figures is part of the problem, but part of it is the distractions of the media, as well as the increasing troubles in society, the economy, politics, and even religion. For the most part, the blame lies with elites that seem hellbent on ruining these very institutions that made them powerful, and who have lost public trust by every measure.
The unifying figure of our time is President Donald Trump. His mastery of social media as well as his dedication to hosting rallies shows it; from the most abstract to the most spontaneous ways of bringing people together, he has dedicated himself to it as surely as Franklin Roosevelt did to radio fireside chats or Reagan to TV. Although he has often been accused of demagogy by elites, he has typically lacked the most basic requirement of demagogy: a call for war. Instead, his primary message in the media, as in his rallies, is that America can again become governable, that the paralysis of our times can be overcome—that’s what it takes to achieve greatness.
The great political tumult of his career may make you skeptical of my claim—and if we had not talked and even litigated Trump’s character and personal history for eight years, I might expatiate on the matter, since he represents a remarkable change in the manners of our politicians. But then Lincoln’s election caused even more partisan sentiment, and it is because of, not despite, the Civil War that we know Lincoln to be the American. Like Lincoln and Reagan, Trump also took a bullet in his country’s service.
A crisis shy of Civil War is not unheard of either. Franklin Roosevelt was the president of the Great Depression. Similarly in the 1970s, America was a miserable place, governed by impotent elites and therefore ungovernable. Neither the presidents nor the Congresses who governed in those days, nor anyone else, could fix the major problems, from economics to war, while crime and inflation almost broke the confidence of the middle class. (Pew polling from the time shows the collapse of trust in government from 1964 to 1980, from 77% to 27%.) Moreover, American artists took the opportunity to revel in ugliness. (Think of the movie that made Scorsese a celebrity, Taxi Driver, a sordid story of an ungovernable New York City that plays around with a political assassination.)
That’s the context for Reagan’s narrow 1980 victory and ultimately the answer to why he has since come to be considered a providential figure, almost exactly to the degree to which he was contemned while in office. It takes a long time to recognize the remarkable virtues of a leader who rises against the will and tastes of the elites of the day; one of those virtues has to be the patriotism needed to bear this much malignancy without going mad.
Reagan’s First Inaugural Address says this much, but with that generosity and discretion that earned him praise as The Great Communicator, a very Trumpian title. Reading his words again in 2025 makes one guess the much younger Trump of 1981 must have recognized himself in Reagan’s tough talk, as much as his confidence of eventual success:
These United States are confronted with an economic affliction of great proportions. We suffer from the longest and one of the worst sustained inflations in our national history… For decades we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children’s future for the temporary convenience of the present. …In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
For all the differences of tone and rhetoric, the same themes emerge, with even greater emphasis, and demanding the same work from government in service of the American people, in Trump’s Second Inaugural Address:
As we gather today, our government confronts a crisis of trust. For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair.
We now have a government that cannot manage even a simple crisis at home while, at the same time, stumbling into a continuing catalogue of catastrophic events abroad.
It fails to protect our magnificent, law-abiding American citizens but provides sanctuary and protection for dangerous criminals that have illegally entered our country.
We have a public health system that does not deliver in times of disaster, yet more money is spent on it than any country anywhere in the world.
And we have an education system that teaches our children to be ashamed of themselves — in many cases, to hate our country despite the love that we try so desperately to provide to them. All of this will change starting today, and it will change very quickly.
Trump’s indictment of our elites is even harsher than Reagan’s, more urgent and more comprehensive, since it goes so far beyond economics and concerns things already come to pass rather than things feared. But Reagan himself was of a very similar mind. He was famously against Carter’s Department of Education giveaway to the NEA. He also confessed his greatest worry, in his Farewell Address, was that patriotism was weakening in America, which he felt he hadn’t been able to address.
Our patriotism, in general a great quality, does have one weakness—we tend to remember our presidents in sunshine rather than in shadow, and so forget the ugly truths that these national addresses insist on—the crises facing the nation. Telling the ugly truth with courage is a condition of unifying the country, perhaps the least likable one. Trump and Reagan are both fearless analysts of the corruption of government, free of the compromises, careerism, and self-delusions that make our elites, even when they are not contemptuous of the people, quite irresponsible. It resembles confession, penance, and atonement. It is necessary because it acknowledges common suffering, silent fears, and elite responsibility. In an inaugural address, speaking to the whole nation on the meaning of the national electoral decision and with a view to the work of government, it also asserts dedication to the common good, to do what all need but almost none can perform. It’s the most obvious sign of presidential conduct. Both Reagan and Trump talk about the need for prayer and God’s providence for America in their addresses.
These are important signs of seriousness which we misunderstand if we judge our presidents and their speeches by the somewhat deluded standards of our elites in media, academia, and the parties. They claim expert knowledge without bothering to ask how they’ve lost the consent of the governed—when every poll shows the American people no longer believe in their legitimacy, particularly in moments of crisis.
Crisis is more than just a word for things we don’t like or even fear. It demands different thoughts and responses than those that make sense in ordinary times, with which we’ve grown much accustomed. Public statements are for that reason necessary, so that we can all acknowledge the change and the need to act. Partisan interests, which are inevitable and built into our scheme of government, not to say our national character, also lead us to deceive ourselves at crucial times, and so the authoritative decisions of election are necessary. And then there are any number of passions that prevent us from acting together. For all these reasons, we need unifying figures, even without thinking about the difficulties that call forth leaders themselves.
And what Trump has done so far makes clear that he wants to drive this change, he has commenced his second term with the largest number of executive orders ever signed by a president, dealing with all the matters mentioned in the quote above, as well as others. He has assembled a far-from-traditional cabinet, one being confirmed quite quickly in the Senate. His popularity has never been greater—an unusual conflation of the two myths, “the presidential honeymoon” effect of support and the “100 days” of needed action. His supporters are stunned, as are his adversaries, that America is no longer inert. The words and the deeds agree, so we can already say that we should take some reassurance from the bold promises of his Second Inaugural.
In this way, too, Trump resembles Reagan, in promising America that the best days lie ahead, owing to American character. Moreover, Trump is supposed, by both supporters who hope and adversaries who fear it, to fulfill Reagan’s promise to curb government and prevent its despotic tendencies, by taking control of it and making it work. Like Reagan, Trump emphasized the heroic self-understanding of the American ideals of being “explorers, builders, innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers,” in order to live out “the spirit of the frontier” and “the call of adventure.”
Trump is best understood in comparison with Reagan—a man on a mission to make government work for Americans and therefore to restore public faith in institutions. We’ve forgotten that this is part of our politics and our character. As with Reagan, though many revile Trump, everyone follows him, not so much spellbound as rehearsing half-forgotten steps. Eventually, Reagan won over even his adversaries and his place in the national pantheon is unshakable. Trump is moving in the same direction. He’s the unifying figure of our time; he brings certainty about who we are and therefore what we have to do next. He’s making America America again.