Reaganism: Reports of Its Demise Are Premature

Those who frequently read my posts know that I am profoundly interested in the great debate going on over the current state of the Republican Party and the future of conservatism itself.

Naturally, Sunday's Week in Review piece in The New York Times by John Harwood, titled "Republicans Rethinking the Reagan Mystique," piqued my interest. Essentially, the piece argued that the GOP must move beyond Ronald Reagan, the only truly conservative president elected in my lifetime (and the most successful president in a generation), in order to stay relevant. To make this case, Harwood supplemented his own voice with that of several young conservatives who are in a page-turning frame of mind.

However, as Mr. Harwood notes, President Obama has been heaping praise on the legacy of President Reagan. It occurs to me that Mr. Obama has better political instincts than the Millennial Generation conservatives who are urging us to turn away from the Reagan magic. In fact, Obama was so enamored of its power that he was criticized during the primary campaign by his Democratic opponents for praising The Gipper. Yet Republicans want to cast Reagan aside?

Here's Harwood:

What's needed instead, said Reihan Salam, co-author of "Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream," is "something new -- the anti-Obama, anti-Reagan." Mr. Salam, whose co-author is Ross Douthat, an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, was born in 1979 -- a year before Mr. Reagan was elected to his first term. Mr. Salam said he favored a new prototype of Republican leadership that projected humility rather than grandeur, understated competence rather than soaring rhetoric and vision.

John Harwood is an able reporter, but he neglects to interview a single person who takes a contrary position and defends Mr. Reagan and his tried-and-true brand of conservatism. Yes, I understand that the Cold War is over, but a quote from someone pointing out that George W. Bush's foreign policy was Reaganesque only in its rhetoric – and not in its impracticality or ineffectiveness -- would have been nice. So would a quote from some ex-Reaganite (and they are easy to find) about how the Republican Party's recent spending policies were profoundly un-conservative, not to mention un-Reagan-like. And what about a quote from a movement conservative pointing out that when the GOP has sought to moderate in the post-Reagan era (see Bob Dole in 1996, George H.W. Bush in '92, and John McCain), it almost always loses.

Salam and David Frum – whom Harwood also quotes – have made a cottage industry out of urging conservatives to abandon conservatism in order to survive in the new mosaic that is 21st-century America. They cite demographic shifts and public opinion polls to support their positions, as does Harwood. These numbers cannot be ignored, but neither should Reagan or Reaganism be frozen in time. The most ominous demographic shift in 2008 wasn't Republican losses among racial minorities. It was the hemorrhaging of support among under-30 voters of all races and creeds. Yet Ronald Reagan was the first candidate for national office in modern politics to wrest young people away from their parents. Perhaps what we need are candidates who are more like Reagan circa 1980.

What is more, a recent Gallup poll demonstrated that about 40 percent of Americans define themselves as "conservative." That's double the number who call themselves "liberal" -- and implies to me that while the Republican Party has problems, conservatism is alive and well. Abandoning conservatism would be a disaster for a political party seeking to gain -- not lose -- members.

To me, conservative critics of Reagan's legacy reveal more about themselves than about Reaganism. Harwood quotes Frum as noting, "The most dangerous legacy Reagan bequeathed his party was his legacy of cheerful indifference to detail." That "amiable dunce" characterization of Reagan was wrong when it was initially made (by a Democratic political operative), and it's been proven wrong time and time again in recent scholarship ranging from Reagan's own diaries to the excellent work of Martin and Annelise Anderson. The president who played such a crucial role in ending the Cold War and restoring optimism in America was actually a detail man with a firm grasp of where his policies would lead and how his spoken words helped rally Americans behind those policies.

Later this evening, barring some "breaking news," I'm slated to appear opposite Mr. Salam on CNN with Lou Dobbs. Give CNN credit for inviting someone with an opposing viewpoint on to participate in this important discussion.

Some in the media have sought to portray this debate as old (Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, et al.) versus young turk (Salam, Douthat, Frum, et al.) paradigm, and I understand the shorthand. But make no mistake: The vast majority of bloggers in their 20s and 30s who blog for mainstream conservative sites such as RedState, Townhall, and American Spectator would resent any implication that loyalty to Reagan has done anything but inspire and uplift. The schism might better be understood as between grassroots conservative bloggers and establishment conservatives who write for the MSM (The Atlantic, The New York Times, etc.).

Incidentally, there is one area where I think we all agree. While Republicans should not moderate their positions as part of a fruitless effort to win more votes, Republican politicians, especially, do need to moderate (or temper) their rhetoric. Where would that inspiration come from? Where else? It's the author of the so-called 11th Commandment. (Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.) Yes, Ronald Reagan popularized that dictum. It's a hard one to live up to – I certainly can't to do it myself. But sunny, can-do, pro-American optimism ... well, that has never gone out of style.