Was John Lennon A Reagan Revolutionary?
Maybe he just liked being rich.
Was John Lennon a closet Republican? A former personal assistant says Lennon liked Reagan better than Carter, and was against a lot of leftists in his time. Considering that Lennon and Yoko Ono owned a herd of prize cattle and worked hard to diversify their holdings, it is not unlikely that John Lennon may have abandoned the "imagine no possessions" part of his famous song. However, there are many "Reagan Democrats" around that time who were not exactly rabid right-wingers but who understood that the Democratic party sometimes is too far to the left for its own good. And John Lennon, to his credit, may have remained open minded enough to consider all sides of the topic, so liking Reagan may not have been the same as going over to the side of Republicanism. Few people remember that James Brown supported Richard Nixon,so the endorsement of a different candidate does not have to be too much of a surprise here. Furthermore, Lennon liked to stir things up and provoke people, which isn't hard to do with radicals on either side of the aisle. Lennon's assistant notes that he got into arguments with famous leftists and supporters of communism, and since Lennon liked to wind people up it may not mean that he was ready to switch to the red-state crowd at that point in his career. Finally, Lennon may have understood the fiscal conservative appeal without being concerned about social conservatism. Many people who liked Reagan's economic policies were appaled at his social and political concerns, such as Ed Meese and ignoring the AIDS crisis, but unfortunately all these things happened in the era after Lennon's untimely death, so it is not fair to speculate on how he would react to such events, or whether he could have lent his voice to causes that might have bridged a gap between the opposite poles of left and right.
Notes and Special Information
Special note: Just because you support a few arguments does not make you an instant ideologue for the other side. If you like Highways, Volkswagen Buses, and Vegetarianism, that does not automatically turn you into a Grateful Dead fan or supporter of German dictators.