McIntyre: Reagan’s back, in 3D, at Simi Valley presidential library

Heeeeeeeee’s back!

Just in time for Halloween, guaranteed to frighten any Democrat, it’s Hologram Reagan!

Thanks to 3D technology, America’s 40th president has climbed out of his crypt and is ready to quip again! The Great Communicator has been digitally remastered and ready to master the great issues of our day.

“Mr. Mexico, build that wall!” says Reagan 2.0.

Not really, but who knows where this technology will take us?

Last Thursday, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley rolled out its latest attraction, three hologram speeches representing different aspects of the Gipper’s life; rancher, stump speaker and Oval Office occupant. Can the campaign trail be far behind?

Let’s face it, the living, breathing candidates offered up recently by the Republicans and Democrats haven’t exactly set the world on fire: Bobby Jindal and George Pataki? Martin O’Malley and Lincoln Chafee? Believe it or not, all four of these nonentities were candidates for the nation’s highest office in 2016. And pundits still wonder how we ended up with Trump? But thanks to amazing advances in technology, the past may indeed be prologue.

Since every Republican running for anything invokes the sainted name of Ronald Wilson Reagan, why not cut out the middleman and run the real thing? Or the closest thing to the real thing, a hologram of Ronald Reagan? If a dead Tupac Shakur can headline at Coachella, why can’t a dead Ronald Reagan headline the country?

Sure, there will be objections; lawsuits galore, furrowed brows on MSNBC, and undoubtedly, George Soros-funded mobs. Still, strict constructionists, originalists if you prefer, will be quick to point out Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution lists only three qualifications for an American president: “No person except a natural born citizen shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.”

Not one word about having a pulse.

Hologram Reagan checks all the boxes. Born in Dixon, Illinois, in 1911, he was reborn in a post-production house in Hollywood in 2018. At 107, he’s nearly as old as the Constitution itself, and since his death in 2004, Reagan has literally been “within” the United States for the past 14 years. Six feet within. Throw in name recognition and experience, and Ronald Reagan is a natural for 2020. Or even 2220.

However, before you Republicans get too excited, I must remind everyone that in politics, as in physics, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. With all their showbiz connections, the Democrats will have nothing to fear but fear itself. If the GOP turns to Hologram Ronnie, what’s to stop the Democrats from rolling out Hologram FDR? That right, happy days would indeed be here again, which was 1932’s version of “Make America Great Again”, only too big to fit on a hat.

Unless the hat was Abe Lincoln’s stovepipe.

And speaking of ol’ Abe, as long as we’re grave-robbing candidates, why stop at Reagan and FDR? We could nominate Mount Rushmore itself; can you imagine George Washington versus Thomas Jefferson? How could America lose? What about our two youngest presidents squaring off, Theodore Roosevelt vs. John F. Kennedy? This country could use some new blood, even if its old blood. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower versus Gen. Andrew Jackson, or maybe Gen. Ulysses S. Grant if you prefer? Talk about making America great again. We have history, let’s use it!

Hologram technology could solve all our political problems. Dead presidents are less likely to be involved in sex scandals, unless someone comes up with a hologram of Marilyn Monroe or Sally Hemmings. Still, it’s not likely a dead president will collude with Russia, or anyone for that matter. Martin Van Buren never heard of Kanye West, so we don’t have to worry about a second White House invite. Our dead presidents will never say anything off the cuff that will tank the markets because everything they’ll ever say they’ve already said. And consider this: The dead can’t tweet.

There’s no reason to stop with the presidency.

Tired of hacks like Mitch McConnell and Charles Schumer? Let’s exhume giants of the Senate like Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. After the nightmare confirmation processes that elevated Brett “I like beer” Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court, we could confirm holograms of our greatest legal minds, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Thurgood Marshall and the guy who made the Supreme Court supreme, John Marshall! Let’s see DiFi try and dig up an accuser from 200 years ago.

Granted, nearly all the great leaders from our past are not only old white men, but old deceased white men. This may pose a problem in the age of inclusion, diversity and respiration. Still, hologram technology is in its infancy. Give it time. Eventually, we could have hybrid holograms, let’s say half James Madison and half Martin Luther King, or a pinch of Rutherford B. Hayes with a dash of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who I’m not convinced isn’t already a hologram.

Technology has always promised us a brighter tomorrow. When it comes to finding better leaders, our brighter tomorrow might come from a brighter yesterday.

Doug McIntyre’s column appears Sundays. Hear him weekdays, 5-10, on AM 790 KABC. He can be reached at: Doug@KABC.com.