On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Wilson Reagan gave a speech to the National Conference of the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, at the Washington Hilton Hotel on the corner of T Street and Connecticut Avenue. He started by mentioning that he was the first U.S. president to hold a lifetime membership in an AFL-CIO-affiliated union. He spoke about individual freedom and ingenuity. He spoke about the government deficit. He spoke about a letter he’d received from an unemployed factory worker from Peoria, Illinois, who said that while cuts to government spending might personally hurt his family, he still had faith in America. Reagan said that people like this unemployed factory worker could build a new America, if only the government would get out the way and let them do it. He said that he would cut nearly fifty billion dollars from the federal budget, cut 10 percent from the tax rate across the board and eliminate excessive government regulations. He told the story of a neighbor in California who was trying to build his own house. In the end, this neighbor got so sick of all the government forms involved that he pasted them all together into a strip of paperwork 250 feet long, pitched it over some poles, and slept in it like a tent. Reagan said that the one area of government he wouldn’t cut was national defense. He spoke about the military buildup in the Soviet Union and the plight of workers in Poland. He saluted American workers for their family values, their religious faith and their strong patriotism. He promised to make America great again. The speech lasted 24 minutes and was well received. Reagan stood for the individual. Everyone should aspire to stand apart from the world. Everyone should aspire to be special. Afterwards, he left the hotel, and as he was walking back to his presidential limousine, John Hinckley—who was, in a way, a very obedient Reaganite—shot him in the chest.
It worked. Any talentless nobody really could break out of the world and live forever inside the screen. The way to do it was through spectacular acts of violence.
John Hinckley spent the next 35 years in a secure psychiatric ward, but he was not anonymous anymore. Millions of people read his poetry; billions of people learned his name. The world couldn’t think about Jodie Foster without thinking about him. He was famous. It’s been nearly fifty years, and people are still talking about him. I’m one of them.