Was Ronald Reagan racist?

It’s so much worse.

Ronald Reagan opposed all civil rights legislation, even the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But somehow, through a series of folksy stories, one-liners, smiles, and a general aura of patrician calm, he kept the idea going of being anti-racist. His parents were anti-racist, he emphasized, and in college, and throughout adulthood, he had black friends.

But this week there was a puncture in the polished armor. A historian disclosed a 1971 recording where President Nixon chats with Reagan, then the California governor, about China…