When life gives you the Republican National Convention, you... attend an advance screening of the upcoming Reagan movie

A few reflections on one of the most surreal mornings I can remember

Top notes:

This is an essay about an advance movie screening I attended at the Republican National Convention. Since the film in question won’t be released until August 30th, this screening was explicitly marketed for non-media members (and more specifically, for convention delegates). Now, I do not have media credentials for the convention and am not “the media” in the traditional sense. I was fully honest about my affiliations when I registered for a ticket. What’s more, I didn’t have to sign any embargo form promising not to write about the film before a certain date (it’s also not really a spoilerable film; if you aren’t aware that former Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan was eventually elected President, then… oops! I’ve said to much!). With that said, I still feel like there’s a grey area here as to whether this essay constitutes media coverage or not. As such, I’m going to keep most of it paywalled for now (I’ll likely unpaywall it when the movie is released). If you really want to read it and you can’t afford a subsciption, let me know (garrett@barnraisersproject.org) and I’ll offer you a comp. I’m also totally cool with you forwarding it to pals who aren’t subscribers. Again, grey area! I know i’m biased, but I do think it’s a really good read (watching the movie in this specific setting was a pretty wild experience, and it was really helpful to process it out loud).

Also: Do you know anybody who needs a complimentary Reagan movie button and/or pen? I, um, know a guy who may have grabbed too many just because they were complimentary. That same guy’s wife may have said “NO! Why would I want a Reagan pen?” when he offered her one.

“So, who here learned something new about Ronald Reagan?”

The question took me by surprise. I had just spent two and a half hours in a heavily air conditioned hotel ballroom watching Dennis Quaid deliver a decidedly chin-forward performance as America’s 40th President. I wanted to help out the genial man running our viewing party— one of thirteen total advance screenings being offered for Republican National Convention attendees. He had been gracious to me when I arrived slightly late, complimenting my University of Montana shirt and ignoring my lack of official RNC credentials. He gave me free pens. So many free pens. The least I could do was answer his question.

I wasn’t here to trash the film or make a mockery of his screening. It’s not that I was expecting a full throated Ronald Reagan hagiography to whisk me away from my tortured life as an America-hating, commie wokester into the bright morning of free markets and gender binaries. But I came to this 9:00 AM showing out of genuine curiosity. I worship in the church of Didion’s White Album. “We tell ourselves stories to live,” etc. etc. And here was a chance to sit with a crowd of true believers and get at least a tiny glimpse as to why they needed to hear another iteration of a story that’s already deeply embedded in the red heart of American conservatism. Dutch. The Gipper. “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall, and fire the air traffic controllers while you’re at it.” The second-most deified conservative politician of my lifetime.

That question was a real stumper, though.

To be honest, I didn’t think we were supposed to have learned anything new from the feature length sizzle reel we had just watched, the thesis statement of which was “You know who was amazing and never made a mistake? Ronald Wilson Reagan.”