The Courage to Change Premises

It Requires A Rare Man in a Common Age

by Patrick J. Shanahan
06/16/04

When Ronald Wilson Reagan shed his earthly coil, with him went the last piece of the 20th Century. The 20th Century will be remembered as a bloody and barbaric one, a time when radical ideologies vied for control of the earth with moderate democracies. It turned out to have a happy ending. And Ronald Reagan was the primary reason why.

There were other players, of course. Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, even MikaelGorbachev deserves some credit (but not nearly as much as is usually granted). But it was Reagan who turned the tide in so many important ways. He ended the Cold War - over the fervid opposition of many. He restored the American economy and started a boom that lasted through the millennium by pursuing supply-side economic policies - against the fervid opposition of many. He restored the faith and confidence of the American people in themselves - against the fervid opposition and, dare I say it, the wishes of many. He was a man in full among midgets. He ended the 20th Century in style, creating such a positive environment that not even eight years of Bill Clinton could wreck it.

But why was he such a giant? This is perplexing many, and the answers are mostly missing the mark.

The liberal media would love to have you believe that the Gipper’s personality was the reason. He was “The Great Communicator” and a nice guy. That was it. That made people like him despite his policies. That is what they would like you to believe. It is interesting to note that many of these same people were deriding President Reagan as a dolt and a simpleton, a mere actor, when he was President. An “amiable dunce,” as Clark Clifford put it. It is undeniably true that Reagan’s greatness was enhanced by his skill as a communicator. Rarely if ever has a President done a better job of going directly to the American people to make his case. But if his ideas were worthless, this would not have mattered. Being The Great Communicator did not make him great.

The conservative punditocracy would have us believe that it was his ideas that drove his success. And what wonderful ideas he had. Reagan was as close to a “true” conservative as is ever likely to grace the White House. But other true conservatives before him (one thinks in particular of Robert Taft and Barry Goldwater) foundered on the shoals of electoral politics. No, although the American people are not hostile to conservatism per se, it is not enough on its own terms to get a person elected (never mind to make him great).

There can be no doubt that Ronald Reagan was a conservative ideologue. This is not a bad thing. He possessed a coherent set of ideas that helped inform his thinking about politics, economics and society. Most of the people who take politics seriously are ideologues. If you are a liberal ideologue in public life, things are pretty easy. You can just coast along and act naturally. Because the dominant culture shares your ideology, you never have to challenge the status quo, and can count on being heaped with praise for just following your instincts.

The conservative ideologue, on the other hand, faces a media and cultural that are actively hostile to his ideas. Negotiating this hostility is terribly difficult, and is the primary reason it is so difficult for conservatives to gain the highest levels of government.

Some conservatives - like Barry Goldwater and Newt Gingrich - prefer a “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” approach, conducting a frontal assault on the premises of liberalism. This is pretty much a no-win situation, as the monopoly dominance of liberalism in the culture almost guarantees that the antagonistic conservative will go down in flames.

Other conservatives - such as our current President - seek to co-opt the premises of liberalism, almost, it seems, to disguise the premises of conservatism as something else. The very phrase “compassionate conservatism” is a perfect illustration of this technique. “See, we’re the real compassionate ones.” The problem with this approach is that it inevitably waters down the essence of conservative principles as the proponent strives to maintain the illusion that they are different things than they are. Politics has been described as “the art of the possible,” but there is a huge difference between gaining power on your own terms and then compromising as necessary to achieve specific ends, and compromising your principles before you even start. President Bush has had electoral success with his approach, but ultimately has led the country nowhere (with the notable exception of the War on Terror).

Ronald Reagan took a different approach. He did not seek to take on the liberal establishment, or to co-opt it. He simply went right past it. And he did so with a glint in his eye and a jest in his heart. He had the confidence in his ideas and the personal courage to simply go about changing the premises of American political life without so much as a “by your leave” to the liberal establishment. He just did it. And oh, what a uproar he created when he did. The establishment was beside itself!

In foreign policy, détente and defensive diplomacy were instantly replaced by assertive anti-communism. The weak-kneed moral relativism of the establishment was replaced by a view of Soviet communism as an “Evil Empire” headed for the “dustbin of history.” And so it happened, despite the jeers and howls and protest marches of the left.

At the end of the 60s, Richard Nixon declared “We are all Keynesians now.” The tax and spend and regulate establishment culture had degraded both the performance and spirit of the economy. President Carter blamed the American people for this malaise. President Reagan cleared the table the instant he entered office, slashing taxes and lifting the American people through a rough recession and out the other side to a glorious economy unmatched in recent history. It transformed the economy and prepared it for the information age. The uproar within and outside his party was tremendous. This was Voodoo Economics! It was an assault on the poor! It was insensitive! Deficits suddenly mattered! Blah, blah, blah. Reagan ignored the noise and went about his business. And we can still feel the positive economic energy today.

The American soul had grown quite cynical by the late 70s. Establishment wisdom blamed this on Vietnam and Watergate. I blame it on the baby boom generation. As the baby boomers came of age, the chaos they created and the damage they did to our culture had begun to wear terribly. At all levels of the establishment, to be American was no longer a glorious thing. It was kinda crappy. We were down, dispirited and uncertain. Ronald Reagan brought with him a corny, happy, pure love for his country that swept through the country like a breath of spring air pushing out the fetid stench of a culture that had given up on itself. This reinvigorating of the American soul, this “City on a Hill,” this “Morning in America” wasn’t a political slogan, it was a living concept in the soul of Ronald Reagan. Concepts he shared and spread, going right past the media and the liberal establishment. “Simplistic,” they cried. “Out of touch,” they editorialized. And Reagan smiled as he went right to the American people and told them it was okay to be proud Americans.

The media has been rather puzzled by the unexpected mass outpouring of emotion for President Reagan. Having lived in their own echo chamber for the past 25 years, they have no clue how much he touched, and changed, American life, simply by having the courage to change the premises.

And we, in our own way, are making darned sure that we don’t miss the chance to say a final Thank You to the man who breathed new life into our national soul..