Reagan Insider Ingraham Shares Why Trump Reminds Her of GOP Legend
Laura Ingraham revved the CPAC crowd up on Friday morning with an upbeat address about why President Donald Trump is much like her old boss Ronald Reagan, noting that as a result, it is a “great time to be a conservative.”
The Fox News host first cautioned the audience, perhaps half of which were not alive during the Reagan years, not to look back too idealistically on the 1980s.
“(The left) resisted Ronald Reagan every step of the way,” said Ingraham, who was a speechwriter for an official in the Gipper’s administration, so it should be come as no surprise they’re doing the same to Trump now.
The conservative commentator joked, “Liberals are kind of like herpes, just when you think you have it beat, they come back in.”
Ingraham emphasized that just because the left is opposing Trump at every turn, it does not mean it is a bad time in America.
“These are the good old days,” she said. “This is the way it was in the 80s.”
“If you would have told me four years ago in the middle of the Obama administration that we would have the House and the Senate and a populous, conservative president, like Donald Trump holding China accountable, enforcing our borders, demanding that government is a servant of the people and not the other say around, I’d say that’s not possible,” Ingraham stated.
The conservative contended the reason the left is so virulent in opposing Trump is because he is so effective.
“They are not mad because they’re winning on the left,” she stated. “They’re infuriated because they’re losing.”
Ingraham predicted that in 25 years, people will likely look back at the Trump years in the same way many conservatives look back at Reagan’s time in office now.
The radio talk show host said one thing Reagan did that Trump is also doing is question authority, which liberals like to claim as their ground.
“This was part of Reagan’s intellectualism, that the left never really understood,” said Ingraham. “He combined Thomas Paine, Jefferson, Locke and later Alexander Solzhenitsyn. All those figures were threats to the established order.
“Three decades later, in his own way, Donald Trump is following in that modern American conservative tradition,” contended the commentator. “He questioning the authority of the administrative state. He’s a break to the established order.”
Ingraham closed by referencing Republican Frederick Douglass, whose 200th birthday was commemorated last week.
Douglass’ deathbed advice to a young man, Ingraham recounted, was to “agitate, agitate, agitate.”
“And to you, young conservatives, here today and listening across the country,” the firebrand said. “I say to you one piece of advice: smile, life is very good. It’s a great time to be an American. It’s a great time to be a conservative. Agitate, agitate, agitate.”
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