Is Bernie Sanders the Democrats' Ronald Reagan?

Don't get your hopes up, progressives

Bernie Sanders, Ronald Reagan.
(Image credit: Images courtesy AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, Michael Evans/The White House/Getty Images)

With the ignominious collapse of the Republican effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, some observers are already talking about a crippled Trump administration. The health-care failure will force a far more modest approach to tax reform than originally planned, the thinking goes, and Trump's trillion-dollar infrastructure plan will collapse for similar reasons. With palpable glee, headlines are being written about a "fiery civil war" within the GOP.

In this context, let's dust off political scientist Corey Robin's influential essay articulating an extended analogy between the then-incoming Trump administration and the administration of Jimmy Carter.

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Noah Millman

Noah Millman is a screenwriter and filmmaker, a political columnist and a critic. From 2012 through 2017 he was a senior editor and featured blogger at The American Conservative. His work has also appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Politico, USA Today, The New Republic, The Weekly Standard, Foreign Policy, Modern Age, First Things, and the Jewish Review of Books, among other publications. Noah lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.