Immediately after President Obama delivered his speech at the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night, members of the news media compared him to one of the Republican Party’s most beloved figures: Ronald Reagan.
In Obama’s speech on Wednesday, he threw all of his support behind Hillary Clinton as the next president and painted her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, as an untested and unqualified candidate for the White House.
“What we heard in Cleveland last week wasn’t particularly Republican — and it sure wasn’t conservative,” Obama said, referring to the GOP’s convention. “What we heard was a deeply pessimistic vision of a country where we turn against each other, and turn away from the rest of the world. There were no serious solutions to pressing problems — just the fanning of resentment, and blame, and anger, and hate.”
“Ronald Reagan called America ‘a shining city on a hill.’ Donald Trump calls it ‘a divided crime scene’ that only he can fix,” he added.
On CNN, once the speech had concluded, anchor Anderson Cooper said it reminded him of Reagan.
“This was almost Reaganesque in the sense of optimism, the sense of vision for the future of America,” he said.
Radio host and conservative blogger Erick Erickson also referenced Reagan in a post on his website The Resurgent.
“Barack Obama offered optimism and ‘Morning in America’ to Trump’s ‘Midnight in America’ doom, gloom, and despair,” he wrote Thursday morning.
In Trump’s speech last week, he spoke of civil and economic unrest and attempted to sell himself as the candidate of “law and order.”
“Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities,” Trump said in his speech, which came after multiple mass shootings and cop killings. “Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims. “I have a message for all of you: The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th, 2017, safety will be restored.”
He said the country’s economy is crippled by regulation and tax burdens and that “failing schools” and foreign governments are putting the U.S. at a global disadvantage.
“One of the more amazing feats of this election season has been that the Democrats have become the party that believes in America, as Republicans have ceded this ground,” wrote conservative Daily Caller blogger and CNN contributor Matt Lewis on Thursday. “It’s amazing when the Democrats sound more like Reagan than the GOP.”
MSNBC host and former GOP congressman Joe Scarborough said he was more moved by the Obamas’ speeches than Trump’s.
“It’s Michelle Obama and Barack Obama that, for me, offered the most Reaganesque view of America,” he said on his show Thursday morning. “At least the America that I believe in.”
