Some thoughts occasioned by the birthday of the 40th president (1911–2004)
Politics means a lot more when you’re young than it does when you’re older. Everything is so interesting and exciting then. I mean, if you’re a political junkie. (And heaven help you if you are.) Maybe I should speak for myself? Okay.
I remember hearing the word “Watergate,” and thinking that it must have something to do with water. I remember the 1976 presidential campaign — I listened to some of the Republican convention from Kansas City on the radio. But the first presidency I truly followed was that of Jimmy Carter. This was especially true when the Iranian hostage crisis began.
There are two presidents whose birthday I know: Carter (October 1) and Ronald Reagan (February 6). I think a lot of George W. Bush — and his father, too. I don’t know when their birthdays are. I am aware that Washington’s birthday and Lincoln’s birthday are in February (giving us Presidents’ Day, I think). But I’m a little hazy on the dates.
Yesterday, I tweeted, “Happy Reagan’s birthday to all who celebrate. #ZombieNation.” Soldiers of the “New Right” deride people like me as “zombie Reaganites.” We are also called “dinosaurs” — which I’m used to, I must say. I’ve been called a dinosaur since I was about five.
(I once wrote an article headed “Dinos, Unite!”)
The phrase “New Right” makes me smile. Because, once upon a time, Jack Kemp and other free-marketeers were dubbed “the New Right.” And now the term is meant to refer to people who are antagonistic to the old New Right (if you will).
From the New Right — I mean, the present one — you can hear sneers about people who have Reagan’s picture on their wall. I think of my late friend and colleague Mike Potemra, who had such a picture on his office wall. (He also had one of Pope John Paul I.)
I sure as hell prefer the Gipper to the pin-ups of the New Right: Trump, Orbán, Bolsonaro, and worse.
As I have explained a thousand times in a thousand pieces — well, let me quote from one:
I always said that the best thing Ronald Reagan ever did for me was give me something to call myself: a “Reaganite.” This is more specific than “conservative,” a term that should not be monopolized. I am a free-marketeer, a hawk, and a social conservative — all tempered with prudence, of course (that outstanding conservative quality).
The problem with “Reaganite,” however, is that Reagan and his era grow ever more distant, and people understandably forget, or never knew, what it all meant.
Yeah, that’s true.
Actually, let’s go back to the middle of the 19th century. If I could pick a political appellation for myself, I would be called what Rich Lowry called me, when he inscribed his book Lincoln Unbound to me: a “Lincoln man.”
Daniel Hannan, the British writer and politician, describes himself as an “old Whig.”
One day, I asked Robert Conquest what he “was” — how he would describe himself, politically. He said “Burkean conservative” would do. He also said that Orwell had spoken of “the law-and-liberty lands.” So he, Conquest, would be pleased to be known as a “law-and-liberty man.”
Me too.
I came of age, not with Orwell or with Pitt the Elder or with Lincoln, but with Reagan. I was 17 when he was sworn in for his first term as president. I was not an admirer of his at first, but I soon became one. (I’ve written about this elsewhere — here, for example — and need not wax more autobiographical than I already have.) “Children of Reagan.” That’s a term that Marco Rubio used, in the bad old days, before he got religion, in the form of nationalism and populism. He meant it positively: “we children of Reagan.”
Well, I was one. Am one.
The two strongest influences on me, when it came to political thinking, were William F. Buckley Jr. and Norman Podhoretz. But in the realm of practicing politicians: Reagan.
Incidentally, I have always used a line, when stating what I have just stated about Bill and Norman: “Yes, my two biggest influences. But, as authors say in the acknowledgements sections of their books, any errors are mine alone.” Bill got a kick out of that, and I believe Norman does, too.
But back to Reagan. I know people who named their kids after Reagan — who gave them “Reagan” as a first name or as a middle name. People named their kids after FDR, too. When I was young, I knew two men — black men, born in the 1930s — named “Rosie,” for “Roosevelt.”
Are people now naming their kids “Donald” or “Trump”? I suppose they are. À chacun son goût, as they say at CPAC.
I often quote Jimmy Carter, quoting Miss Julia — Miss Julia Coleman, one of his schoolteachers, in Plains. He quoted her as a candidate; he quoted her while president; and he quoted her afterward. I’ve always loved it: “We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.”
Yes, times change. Nobody wants to be a zombie. No one wants to be a stick-in-the-mud. New days bring new challenges, and those challenges require fresh approaches. Get with it, Daddy-o!
But, you know? There’s hardly anything new under the sun. Something tells me I’m not the first to observe that. (See what I mean?) Young people always say, “It’s different now.” When you get older — and especially when you study history — you realize: It’s never different. There are just present manifestations of age-old phenomena.
What is Reaganism? Well, many books have been written about that, and many more articles. I’ve contributed too many myself (but mainly in the ’90s and ’00s). I think of a phrase: “the theme is freedom.” That was the title given by John Dos Passos to a collection of his in 1956. (I wrote about this collection in 2016 — in a five-part series, whose links are as follows: I, II, III, IV, and V.)
Free markets, free trade, free enterprise. Free people. A strong military, to safeguard that freedom. The rule of law, to do the same. Limited government. Personal responsibility. U.S. leadership in the world. Civil society, or little platoons. Patriotism — the genuine kind, not jingoism or boobery. Pluralism. Colorblindness. Toleration. E pluribus unum. Betsy Ross. All that good stuff.
Also, Reagan was open to immigration, and friendly to immigrants. He did not believe in lawless immigration, of course. But he held immigration to be a boon, both to immigrants themselves and to American society as a whole. He devoted his last speech as president to the subject. And when you’re giving your last speech — you choose your topic and your words extra-carefully.
Reagan said,
Other countries may seek to compete with us, but in one vital area, as a beacon of freedom and opportunity that draws the people of the world, no country on earth comes close. This, I believe, is one of the most important sources of America’s greatness. We lead the world because, unique among nations, we draw our people, our strength, from every country and every corner of the world, and by doing so, we continuously renew and enrich our nation.
He continued,
While other countries cling to the stale past, here in America we breathe life into dreams, we create the future, and the world follows us into tomorrow.
A little bit more:
Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we’re a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier.
This quality is vital to our future as a nation. If we ever close the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.
That would be fine with some — with many, in fact. But it would not be fine with all. And it would be bad for America and the world too, I believe.
(I quoted Reagan’s final speech — and Arturo Toscanini, to boot — in a 2019 post: “Thoughts on America.”)
In the bad old days, we talked a lot about character. “Character is destiny” and all that. We blasted Bill Clinton to kingdom come for what we perceived as his deficient character. In 1999, Bill Buckley gave a speech that he then published as “When Character Counted: The importance of Ronald Reagan.” Two years later, Peggy Noonan published a book called “When Character Was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan.”
(Note how the ear loves alliteration: “character” and “counted”; “character” and “king.”)
I could go on, but these conversations — these themes — are endless. Reagan meant a lot not only to us Americans, some of us, but to people around the world. When I tweeted yesterday about Reagan’s birthday, I got a response from Ivana Stradner — who is a Jeane Kirkpatrick fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Talk about words to make the “New Right” gag! “Jeane Kirkpatrick,” “American Enterprise Institute.”
(Buckley said of Kirkpatrick, “She ought to be woven into the flag as the 51st star.” The first time I met her, I brought this up with Jeane, and she said, “That’s the nicest thing anyone ever said about me.” I said, “That’s the nicest thing anyone ever said about anyone.”)
Anyway, Ivana Stradner, who comes from the former Yugoslavia, tweeted, “Ronald Reagan is my hero and one of the most important reasons to move and live in the U.S. My family adores Reagan and Thatcher.”
To which I can only say: Say it loud, say it proud, and be not ashamed.
For the last several years, we have seen a great deal of body-snatching and shape-shifting. Evolution, if you will. People are shedding their old beliefs and values, and donning new ones. Hawks have become neo-isolationist. Internationalists have become America Firsters. Free-marketeers have become neo-protectionist. Limited-government men have become big-government paternalists. People who preached character now accuse others of “moral preening.” And so on and so forth.
David French says he has been a Reagan conservative since he was 14. I have been one since I was about 19, 20. Is there something wrong with us? Are we immune to change, immune to evolution? No. I have changed my mind, or evolved, on some things, and so has David. But an enduring set of beliefs and values seems right to us. If those things ever seem wrong to me, I will discard them. But until then . . . you know?
I think of a modern saying: “Sorry, not sorry.”