Ronald Reagan wasonce a New Deal Democrat and remained a life-long admirer of FDR. He took his original political views from his Dad, an Irish-Catholic. A liberal Democrat in, say,1948, was a longway to the right of Henry Wallace, whose “progressive: views became dominant in the Democratic Party in 1972, and regnant after the election of 1974. Reagan spoke for a lot of people like me: I didn’t leave the party: it left me. In a way. Reagan was a paradox: he admired FDR and he admired Cal Coolidge. FDR for his leadership qualities, which reminds us of those of Andrew Jackson. Coolidge for his suspicion of “active” government. It is instructive that Coolidge found Hoover’s hyperactivity distasteful. Maybe we can say that Reagan combined FDR’s magnetism with Coolidge’s mildly progressive
(ala WH Taft’s) views.
Where'd you get that information? Just curious, as I've never heard it before.