The daughter of former president Ronald Reagan has hit out at contemporary White House politics, saying she thinks her late father would be “appalled” by the personal tenor of current political discourse.
“I think he’d be appalled … it was just more civilized,” Patti Davis told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “He didn’t understand lack of civility. He didn’t understand attacking another person. … He didn’t understand cruelty. And that’s what we’re dealing with now.
“I think he would be really scared for our democracy,” Davis added.
Davis, 71, supposed that her father – a former Republican California governor who served two terms as president beginning in 1980 and gained a reputation as “the great communicator” – would have sought to address voters rather than opposing candidates.
“I think he would address the American people at what has divided us,” Davis – the author of a new book, Dear Mom & Dad – told Meet the Press. She added that she thought Reagan would interpret contemporary political division as fear that had translated into anger.
“There are people on the public stage and on the political front who understand very well that synergy between fear and anger and who are masterful at exploiting it,” Davis remarked.
Reagan was 69 when he took office and 77 when he stepped down – four years younger than Democratic incumbent Joe Biden and the same age as the presumptive Republican nominee to challenge him, former president Donald Trump.
Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 1994 but may have been suffering from aspects of dementia during his second term.
Davis said that cognitive tests for presidential candidates was “probably” appropriate.
Her comment on cognitive tests came as the Biden White House continued to push back on a special counsel Robert Hur, who assessed the president to be a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” in a report declining to prosecute Biden over his retention of some classified documents before his presidency.
Trump, too, has faced questions about his mental acuity after, for instance, confusing Biden with Barack Obama as well as his fellow Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley with former Democratic US House speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Davis said: “We know about what age can do. It doesn’t always do that, but it would probably be a good idea.”
