Iran-Contra Paved the Way for Trump to Defy Democratic Norms
A new book argues that Ronald Reagan’s signature scandal foreshadowed today’s sidelining of Congress by the executive branch.
Illustration: Hokyoung Kim for Bloomberg
Iran-Contra has never quite lived up to its potential as a political scandal. Watergate fires on all cylinders: a villainous president, a Constitutional Crisis™, a smoking gun, a resignation. You can make a pretty good movie about Watergate. But Iran-Contra?
All of those hearings and court cases, all those thousands of pages of testimony and diaries and internal documents have never coalesced into a memorable political fable. Sure, some rogue spies and security state officials were so committed to fighting baddies that they sold a few weapons and supported a few freedom fighters in ways that may technically have violated some statutes. But what was the harm? It certainly did no lasting damage to Ronald Reagan’s reputation. The only people who still care about Iran-Contra are history buffs and the civics-obsessed.