PZ Myers. 2004 Jun 29. Ron Reagan, Atheist. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/ron_reagan_atheist/>. Accessed 2008 Nov 20.
Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Ron Reagan, Atheist
Eva sent me this excerpt from an interview with Ron Reagan Jr. from the NY Times Magazine:
Now that the country is awash in Reagan nostalgia, some observers are predicting that you will enter politics. Would you like to be president of the United States?
I would be unelectable. I'm an atheist. As we all know, that is something people won't accept.
Earlier this week, my wife also caught his interview with Larry King, where he said the same thing.
KING: Do you ever think of running for office?
REAGAN: No...
KING: You've got a pretty good name going in.
REAGAN: It seems to work for some people.
KING: Wouldn't hurt you.
REAGAN: No, I'm not really cut out to be a politician. You know that I sometimes don't know when to shut up. That could be a drawback. I'm an atheist. So there you go right there. I can't be elected to anything because polls all say that people won't elect an atheist.
Depressing, isn't it? I think it's true that an atheist couldn't get elected president, but I think it misses the point. Lots of people couldn't possibly get elected—I recall that in high school I had one particularly subversive social studies teacher who turned the fable that "anyone could be president in this country!" around. He had an exercise where he'd go through the classroom and tell everyone why they'd never get elected (or at least, what kinds of things they'd have to give up in order to be electable; this was the 1970s, and really, just the haircuts most people had were enough to disqualify them). The funny thing is that I was the one person in all of his classes that he thought at least lacked any obvious flaws.
(That sorta tells you what I was like in high school, doesn't it? Inoffensive, conservatively dressed and coifed, with a clean record. And white and male. I didn't dash my fleeting moment of potential political glory by mentioning that I had one attribute that utterly destroyed my chances: even then I was an atheist.)
I honestly can't say that I feel particularly put upon because my lack of religion disqualifies me for virtually every political office in the country—I couldn't run for city council in my teeny tiny home town without hiding my beliefs, but 99% of all people couldn't get elected to the job, either.
What is odd is that atheism is one of several characteristics many people will be openly prejudiced against. They'll even be proud of so despising atheists that they'd never vote for them. They are perfectly willing to publicly declare that they wouldn't vote for someone because they are an atheist, in the same sense that they would feel no shame at refusing to elect a convicted embezzler to be city treasurer. I think a lot of these same people would discriminate against blacks running for office, for instance, but at least the majority now know enough to feel guilty about it and wouldn't admit that bigotry was behind their decision (at least, not in Minnesota. I can think of a few places where being a segregationist is considered a mark of honor.)
A presidential candidate who said, "No, I don't know that African-Americans should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots" would find himself instantly pilloried and unelectable...a David Duke who would be popular on the hateful fringe, but a pariah in the mainstream. One can say, "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots", and the press hardly notices. The only other group that comes close to being as acceptable a target of prejudice are homosexuals, I suspect.
Oh, well. At least we atheists get an open dismissal, rather than the sneaky, cowardly hatred that gets you beat up in dark alleys.
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"I honestly can't say that I feel particularly put upon because my lack of religion disqualifies me for virtually every political office in the country"
No, same here, that's not it - though a lot of theists like to claim that it is, that it's just whining and feeling "offended", but that's not the point at all. (I seem to have had this conversation with theists a lot lately.) No, it's a general point, not a personal one. It's a stupid criterion, for a start - especially when you look at the devout idiot who holds the office now. He can't talk or think and he doesn't know anything, but he believes in The Big Daddy in the sky, and his earthly daddy was president once, therefore he's qualified. Huh?
So what does that say about the US electorate's ability to consider relevant criteria, about its ability to think rationally at all? That's why the atheism disqualification gets me in such a rage.
Now. Why are people asking Reagan's son if he's planning to run for president? Have we now officially decided that it will be a good idea to have a pretend monarchy? To keep electing sons of former presidents, just because they are in fact the sons of former presidents and have no other (and no real) qualification whatsoever? Why would we do that? Let's not do that. Let's stop with the dynasty crap, and the driveling about the Kennedys crap, and the asking every male descendant of a former president if he's going to run for the office himself crap. Let's, as a matter of fact, grow up.#: Posted by Ophelia Benson on 06/29 at 06:53 PM -
Yes, it is bizarre. Why are journalists even mentioning this idea of a hereditary presidency? (although, really, Larry King? He's awful anyway, so it's no surprise he'd ask such a stupid question.)
At least Ron Jr gave a sensible answer. -
I don't think Ron Reagan is missing the point: he's pleasant, articulate, not bad-looking, pretty sharp if you've followed his answers in these recent interviews, and he IS the son of an enormously popular poiitician (like it or not, dynasticism IS a factor in American politics; Kennedy, anyone?). He's also a pretty well-off white guy. But for his atheism, I think Reagan II could easily be elected to office.
To be fair to Larry King, btw: he didn't suggest running for president; he just asked if the guy was interested in running for office.#: Posted by on 06/29 at 07:27 PM -
Shrubby has other things going for him besides earthly and divine parentage. For one, he's anti-intellectual. He doesn't think very hard and he's comfortable with that. That attitude appeals to a shocking number of voters. Those people would write off PZ (and most of the rest of us who write here) even if we were all devout evangelical Christians.
#: Posted by on 06/29 at 08:03 PM
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As a matter of fact, I believe Bush the Elder once made a comment denigrating atheists and suggesting that such folk were not really American. Anybody got the quote?
#: Posted by on 06/29 at 09:40 PM
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That was it at the end of my post: "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots."
That wasn't a hypothetical. -
I think it's totally possible for an atheist to be elected President. He/she just can't openly admit it. What qualifies someone as sufficiently 'religious' seems to be just a few token words and behaviors anyway. Closeted non-believers can very easily project the appearance of religious observance while having no actual 'faith' in big cloud man. Of course, what good is being an atheist President if you mask your atheism with politically expedient spiritual terminology and ceremony?
#: Posted by on 06/30 at 01:03 AM
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"The only other group that comes close to being as acceptable a target of prejudice are homosexuals, I suspect."
Beg to differ: It's extremely respectable to openly and casually badmouth convicted felons. If you're a politician, you can never be too tough on those bad, bad, not-quite-people in prisons. -
There's another group that seems to have trouble getting elected President.
Women.
(Admittedly, posting as I am from the UK, our record on that front has hardly been staggering, but at least when we had a woman as PM... she may have been horrible but she certainly was a succees on many of the metrics used to judge politicians.)#: Posted by on 06/30 at 02:53 AM - I must say, that's a pretty defeatist attitude. And did King actually rebut his point, or change the subject?
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I like the "It seems to work for some people" quote. Is he making a subtle dig at somebody there?
#: Posted by on 06/30 at 04:33 AM
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Dumas Malone's six-volume, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Thomas Jefferson notes how nasty politics can be. Alexander Hamilton put out surreptitious press notices in the elections of 1796 and 1800 to the effect that Thomas Jefferson was atheist. Jefferson, believing candidates shouldn't campaign, and that a man's beliefs were inappropriate topics for public conversation, refused to confirm or deny. Of course Adams won in 1796. After the disaster of the Adams administration, especially after Adams' assault on the Bill of Rights in order to protect America from spies and terrorists (the Alien and Sedition Acts, specifically), voters started paying closer attention.
According to Malone, fully half the American electorate was certain that Jefferson was atheist. Preachers in New England warned that if Jefferson was elected, he would send the army to seize family Bibles. Despite these scare tactics, Jefferson won the popular vote. Ironically, Hamilton had to intervene in the House of Representatives to get Jefferson elected over Jefferson's ticket-mate, Aaron Burr.
In 1846 while running for Congress, Abraham Lincoln distributed a flyer noting that he was not raised a Christian, was never Baptized a Christian, and held no Christian beliefs -- but as person he held no animosity toward Christians or other believers on account of religion. He won the election.
If anyone voted for Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan or George H. W. Bush for their religious beliefs, they were fools. An atheist can win election if the issue is good government and the atheist is the better candidate, and can get the message across.#: Posted by on 06/30 at 08:31 AM -
It's a ridiculous prejudice. What in the world does being an atheist have to do with political office? I'd consider it a disqualifier for somebody wanting to be a priest, though...
#: Posted by on 06/30 at 08:38 AM
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In re: convicted felons.
Chalk it up to the brainless bigotry of a former prosecutor, but I do think a large fraction of the people in prison actually deserve to be there.
Plenty of exceptions of course.#: Posted by on 06/30 at 12:34 PM -
"An atheist can win election if the issue is good government and the atheist is the better candidate, and can get the message across."
Er - in this country? The US, that is? Really? Are you sure?
(Of course, I suppose it depends what you mean by "and can get the message across". Arguably that last phrase makes your statement true by definition. The atheist can win if the atheist can win. I can agree with that...)
"Closeted non-believers can very easily project the appearance of religious observance while having no actual 'faith' in big cloud man. Of course, what good is being an atheist President if you mask your atheism with politically expedient spiritual terminology and ceremony?"
Well exactly. The effect is the same. I wouldn't be particularly relieved or pleased to learn that Bush is in fact an atheist and has been faking the fanaticism all this time. The appearance itself is damaging, as is the demand for the appearance - the whole endlessly reiterated message that atheism and atheists are Evull is damaging.#: Posted by Ophelia Benson on 06/30 at 04:01 PM - Imagine an atheist, college professor being elected!?
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An atheist, liberal college professor? Nah, that's such a stereotype.
It would be interesting to see how Fox News would handle it, though.