The enduring legacy of President Ronald Reagan was on full display in his childhood home of Dixon, Illinois, last week where the town turned out for a parade ahead of the “midwest” premiere of Reagan, starring Dennis Quaid, Jon Voight, Penelope Ann Miller, Kevin Dillon, and Nick Searcy. Breitbart News was on the ground at the Young America’s Foundation-sponsored premiere, and caught up with Quaid, who stars as America’s 40th president in a biopic that dramatizes Reagan’s role in leading the revival of America out of economic malaise and the downfall of the Soviet Union that ended the Cold War.
“His legacy still reverberates today and it will a hundred years from now,” Quaid said on the red carpet.
The A-lister, known for his roles in films The Right Stuff, The Parent Trap, I Can Only Imagine, American Underdog and the The Longriders, also said there are “a lot of parallels” politically between the rise of Reagan to the White House, in 1979 and 1980, and today.
“We have hostages over in the Middle East just like then, but nobody talks about the ones now,” the actor explained. “We had 20 percent interest rates back then and we had inflation, you know, there was a lot going on that was very similar. And the country was kind of in a Malaise — Jimmy Carter in his own words said — and Reagan, you know it was a different kind of ‘woke,’ and he woke us all up and made us remember what a great nation this is and what a privilege it is to be a citizen.”
Warner Todd Huston / Breitbart News
The film premiere was sponsored by the Young America’s Foundation, which owns and operates the Ronald Reagan childhood home near Dixon’s downtown.
The town of Dixon is nestled among the rolling hills of the beautiful Rock River in the Sauk Valley area and is one of the towns in which Reagan’s father, Jack, a traveling salesman, and mother, Nelle, stayed the longest as they moved in and out of many of the towns in the northern Illinois area through the 1920s and 30s.
Quaid signed dozens of autographs and posed for selfies with local fans before giving press interviews on the red carpet outside the Dixon Theater.
Ronald Reagan’s childhood home near downtown Dixon, Illinois. (Warner Todd Huston/Breitbart News)
A parade was held ahead of the premiere of “Reagan” in his childhood home of Dixon, Illinois. (Warner Todd Huston/Breitbart News)
Actor Dennis Quaid signs autographs ahead of the premiere of “Reagan” in Dixon, Illinois. (Warner Todd Huston/Breitbart News)
Asked if Reagan was a passion project for him, Quaid said he had “a lot of passion” for the film and said that Reagan is his favorite president.
“He sure affected so many people, that’s for sure,” Quaid continued, “He still reverberates today, and will 100 years from now, too.”
Breitbart News also caught up with former Republican Governor of Wisconsin, and Young America’s Foundation president, Scott Walker who attended the premiere.
Walker said he grew up while Reagan was in office and noted that the president’s optimism rubbed off on him and was a model for his style of politics. Like Trump, Walker said, Reagan brought moderate Democrats to his side.
“What we’ve seen the last few years, particularly with President Trump, is something that started with Reagan. We used to call it Reagan Democrats, that’s just the term what was first used on my turf on the Southside of Milwaukee where a whole bunch of what we used to call ‘Reagan Democrats,’ Southside, working class, typically union members, but who had strong conservative beliefs, they were strong with family, they typically pro-life and pro-gun, they wanted people to have to work had for those who are able.
Those people over the years have transferred into being, not Republican so much as conservatives, who we saw in my race for governor three times in the state of Wisconsin, it took people like that voting for me as it did when Donald Trump successfully carried the state back in 2016. It was that same brand of Reagan Democrats. Now, not every Republican is like that. They don’t have that populist feel based on strong conservative principles, and I think that’s something that continues to grow as we speak.
Another featured guest was former Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy, who was a member of the team protecting Ronald Reagan during the assassination attempt on his life.
McCarthy noted that even though the effort to prevent the president from being shot in 1981 was a failure — like the thwarted attempt on Donald Trump’s life last month — the Secret Service had nearly 50 years of success at preventing other attempts.
“It was one of those things that you think is never going to happen to you,” McCarthy said of the assassination attempt that occurred on March 30, 1981.
“You train for it. You actually practice in the training. You are equipped for it, briefed up on it, but you never think it’s going to happen to you,” he continued. “And then when it does, obviously, when you have one of those critical incidents, you never know if you’re going to react based upon your training… I wouldn’t want to be tested again, to tell you the truth.”
“Albeit, it was a failure because he was shot, to be honest about it,” McCarthy added.
“Frankly, it’s been almost 50 years since the historic assassin — the lone gunman — has made an attempt on the president,” McCarthy noted. “Ronald Reagan was the last one until Donald Trump, just a couple of weeks ago, now, a month ago. So, it’s been almost a half a decade without an attempt, and sadly this one happened.”
The night’s festivities were capped off by a screening of Reagan.
A sellout crowd at the Dixon Theatre attends a screening of “Reagan.” (Warner Todd Huston/ Breitbart News)
Residents were thrilled to see their town featured so prominently in the film and they rose to their feet for a standing ovation at its conclusion.
Quaid gave remarks to the audience filled with town residents, saying so many Americans alive today were not around to personally witness the greatness of Ronald Reagan. But this film, he said, should help to reveal just what a giant among men the 40th president was.
Reagan opens nationwide on August 30.
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