The one time we didn’t hate Reagan was, ironically, the moment of his juggernaut 1984 reelection — we were too shocked. For months we had handed out flyers, hoisted Mondale-Ferraro signs, and chanted “We want Fritz!” (on cue). We had been flattered that a European radio outlet interviewed us about our involvement. We had even known the precious gratification of wagging a placard in Reagan’s face — and of catching his startled reaction – when one time during the campaign he came through town. Then, on election night, a funny thing happened in a luxury hotel ballroom rented by the New York City Democratic Party. It wasn’t the red-state barrage projected aloft on oversized TV screens. Nor was it the consolation graphic of our solid blue Manhattan (which had voted 70% Democrat). It was après le déluge watching recognizable city councilmen and congressmen make the rounds with their entourages — flashing smiles, slapping backs, clinking glasses — the very definition of ambition. “Wait!” a voice in my head cried, “Reagan just wiped the mat with our guy. Something’s not right. Put away the TV screens. Take out the drawing boards. Now!” Shortly, the flutter of Sartrean nausea ceded to Machiavellian calculation: “They just got re-elected (or hadn’t even stood for election). Of course they’re celebrating.” It was a sober lesson on the distinction between movement politics and party politics — the emotional impulse to the former versus the mechanical operations of the latter — a lesson made possible by master politician Reagan. Because he had mastered it. (Last year, when President Obama nominated one of us to the Supreme Court, reports that Reagan’s 1980 triumph had driven her to a drunken fit I read with sympathy.)

From then on we hated Reagan viscerally, visually, volubly, tactilely, olfactorily, and matter-of-factly. We hated Reagan’s hefty hair, rugged wrinkles, jowly jaw line, and full-throated but still lathery voice. We hated his fluid alternations between bravado and modesty, sternness and joviality. Because many of us came from divorced, single-mother or (as Reagan did) even more imbalanced households, we hated — precisely when we ought to have appreciated — Reagan’s hard-earned, paternal authority. And we hated his perfect complement, Nancy, whose saucer-eyed smile beamed marital bliss and maternal vigilance.