Listen to any speech by just about any Republican politician and you will probably notice a trend: invoking the name Ronald Reagan is a pretty popular talking point with the party base. Twenty years after his leaving office, the ripple effect of Reagan’s presidency remains evident within the Republican Party, and it is a significant component of its message. Candidates espouse conservative values and consistently claim that they are going to govern the way President Reagan governed. However, is another Ronald Reagan really what the American people need or want right now?I, like most Republicans and many Democrats alike, hold Reagan in the highest esteem. I believe that he represented the very best of America and that he was one of the most effective presidents in recent history. He built the foundations of a broad political coalition that brought about real change in this country, and to say that he was beloved would be an immense understatement. But to say that his method of governance could succeed in today’s political climate would be rather naive.
The political philosophy and ideals of Reagan are not ones that can be consistently relied upon and invoked with great success. They were largely manifested and mandated by the political landscape of the time. Reagan’s conservative ideals, inspired by like-minded thinkers such as William F. Buckley, developed as a direct response to the widespread liberalism of the sixties and seventies. They represented change, and they identified with a growing public sentiment that society was losing its core identity.
Our current political landscape is in some ways similar, but in others it is completely different. As was the case in the late seventies, we are torn apart by partisanship and general disdain for the government. Maybe even more so than back then. However, the causes of disdain are not the same. We are not experiencing a time of true social upheaval, but we are instead subjects of a government that is just simply out of touch.
If Reagan developed the image of government as a country’s parent, then our current public seems as eager to rebel against that parental influence as a stubborn teenager. And the Republican Party has itself largely to blame for that fact.
To be a conservative means a lot of different things. But, it is safe to say that its generally accepted that one of the key attributes of a conservative political philosophy is to promote a government that doesn’t interfere with the lives of individuals. So then, why is the current conservative base so obsessed with doing just the opposite? To tell women what to do when they are pregnant. To tell homosexuals how they can or cannot live their lives. To dictate what should or should not be taught in schools.
Nowadays it seems that being a conservative means that you think government should have a role in every aspect of our lives.
Sure, Reagan used this fatherly, tell-you-what-you-should-do approach and it worked. People were tired of the widespread use of drugs, so he waged a war on narcotics. People saw employing illegal immigrants as unfair, so he signed into effect the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). And people wanted to promote hard word and sacrifice, so he asserted himself as a certified union buster by strictly enforcing the Taft-Hartley Act. All in all, he told people, employers, and workers what was acceptable and what wasn’t.
But, as any over-bearing parent is likely to find out in due time, it can only work for so long before the kid is going to act out. So maybe our party shouldn’t be so obsessed with bringing back Ronald Reagan after all. Or at least not for the time being. Maybe we should step out of peoples’ lives a little bit, let the kids have a little room to grow up and learn on their own.
What the country needs now is an even hand. It needs something more moderate and in between the two extremes. The country, and the Republican Party, doesn’t need a return to what it used to be. Instead, it needs to address the problems of today and develop a government that addresses those problems appropriately.
That’s what Reagan would do.
