When Reagan took his final bow in the White House, though, none of his failures mattered to Republicans, who gave him an approval rating in the eighties. Reagan’s performing talent had mitigated the scorn that greeted him when he entered politics, but that achievement was deceptive: the Ridicule stage was still in effect, ready to devour an unsuspecting victim. Eight years after the Gipper won the presidency, our perverse American experiment was about to pose a new question: What if a candidate had all of Reagan’s ignorance but none of his talent?
