Recently, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library launched “Time for Choosing,” a lecture series named to echo the famous 1964 speech that launched Reagan’s political career and put him on a path to the White House.

The concept — marquee names, history-rich backdrop — is a throwback to a time when politics involved ideas and philosophies and wasn’t just about riling “the base” or “owning” the opposition.

The program also gives Republicans a chance to paint their visions while wrapping themselves in the mantle of one of the GOP’s most beloved and sainted figures.

But the title is something of a misnomer. Many Republicans have already chosen: It’s Donald Trump.

Stuart Spencer has already seen enough.

In November, he voted for Joe Biden for president: the first Democrat he’s supported since Harry Truman in 1948. “I was in the Navy, on the way to invade Japan, when he stopped the war,” Spencer said, then laughed heartily. “I figured I owed him one.”

Apart from Nancy Reagan, there may be no one more responsible for Reagan’s political success than Spencer, who spent decades as a campaign strategist helping steer the former B-movie actor and long shot to the California governorship and then two terms as president.

Funny, profane and irrepressibly blunt, Spencer was more than a hired hand. He was someone Nancy Reagan and others turned to when Reagan needed prodding or a little straightening-out behind the scenes, and Spencer repaid that intimacy with a code of honor he’s kept ever since. He’s one of the few people close to Reagan who never cashed in by writing an insider account; tell-alls, Spencer said, aren’t his style.

But he doesn’t hold back when it comes to Trump, whom Spencer denounced as “a demagogue and opportunist” utterly lacking in core values or convictions. “He sees an issue,” Spencer said, “and no matter what he believes, he goes where it gets him the most votes.”

“I just don’t feel good about it,” Spencer said of the direction the GOP has taken under Trump’s sway. “I feel like I wasted a lot of years.

Mark Z. Barabak is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, focusing on politics in California and the West.