Making Sense By Michael Reagan

Volodynyr Zelenskyy has made quite a quick and dramatic transition.

In less than six years he’s gone from a comedian and TV actor to politician to president of Ukraine to global hero.

Zelenskyy has become Ukraine’s voice of resistance – the brave leader who refuses to surrender or flee in the face of the brutal and massive invasion of his country by Vladimir Putin’s military machine.

While Putin has become the free world’s Great Satan, people everywhere are praising Zelenskyy and even comparing him to historic war-time leaders like Winston Churchill and Benjamin Franklin.

Not to diminish Zelenskyy’s personal courage or the moral power of his calls for military help from NATO and the United States, but when it comes to great leaders in the world today, there isn’t much competition.

Joe Biden? Boris Johnson? Emmanuel Macron of France?

Not exactly modern day Reagans, Thatchers and Pope John Pauls, are they?

To defend his country Zelenskyy needs some deadly stuff – modern jet planes and lots more advanced shoulder-fired Javelin anti-tank and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.

While he’s waiting to see what weapons he’ll get, he’s just received a freedom award from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute.

The Ronald Reagan Freedom Award won’t do much against a Russian tank.

But when Zelenskyy officially gets his honor on Monday for his “courageous fight against tyranny” it might lift his spirits a little.

It’s a fitting award to give to Zelenskyy for standing up to the Russians.

It’s been given in the past to the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, Colin Powell, Poland’s Lech Walesa and a fellow comedian/actor, Bob Hope, aka, America’s ambassador of “Goodwill.”

The award represents the values and principles of freedom that Ronald Reagan fought for all his life and is considered the “highest civilian honor” bestowed by the Reagan foundation.

In a way, what Zelenskyy’s doing reminds me of what my father did on a much smaller scale in Hollywood in the late 1940s.

My father, then a liberal Democrat, was in his first presidency – as president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG).

It was a violent time when the Communist Party was trying to take control of the movie industry’s unions.

The unions were fighting each other and strikebreakers outside studio gates and the movie moguls were hiring gangsters to intimidate and undermine the unions.

Working to keep SAG and other Hollywood unions free of communist influence, my father was not afraid to fight for what he thought was right – and do it publicly.

He stuck to his democratic principles and was a tough negotiator who forced the studio bosses to provide better pay and benefits for the actors who had elected him over and over again.

At one point he even put his life on the line.

In 1946, he got anonymous death threats and a warning from police that he was in danger from the members of a new left-leaning union that was trying to replace SAG.

He not only started packing a gun, he slept with it under his pillow, which scared the heck out of my mother Jane Wyman.

In 1960, SAG brought him back as union president and he led a major strike by actors that shut down the movie industry.

He ultimately forced the studios and producers to create a residual payment system for the first time that continues to this day and has paid out billions to actors.

My father was a natural leader and anti-communist long before he became president of the United States and orchestrated the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Obviously, Ronald Reagan never had to risk his life to defend his homeland against a Russian invasion the way Zelenskyy is today.

But just as some people are calling Zelenskyy the Reagan of Ukraine, I like to think of my father as the Zelenskyy of Hollywood.

I hope Zelenskyy wins for freedom the way my father did.

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Copyright 2022 Michael Reagan, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Michael Reagan, the son of President Ronald Reagan, is an author, speaker and president of the Reagan Legacy Foundation. Send comments to [email protected] and follow @reaganworld on Twitter.