President Reagan and the Triumph of the Conservative Movement
In 1947, the liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. proclaimed: "There seems no inherent obstacle to the gradual advance of socialism in the United States through a series of New Deals." There is no doubt that champions of big, activist government dominated the first half of the twentieth century. But historians like Schlesinger are better at looking back than predicting the future. The pendulum had indeed swung far to the left but, imperceptibly at first, it had begun to turn by the century’s midpoint.
In 1952, Dwight Eisenhower was so accepting of New Deal principles that both parties sought to make this celebrated war hero their nominee. When he ultimately decided to seek the Republican nomination, he easily beat a conservative challenge from the highly respected Senator Robert Taft. Nevertheless, the relatively serene Eisenhower years were a time when conservative thinkers like Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley, and Milton Friedman were laying the intellectual foundation for a new conservative movement that would be built with the timbers of a renewed commitment to small government, individual liberty, faith, family, and economic opportunity.
The Kennedy-Johnson years were a triumph of big government liberalism with greatly expanded roles for the federal government. The so called “war on poverty” began with $3 billion and spawned numerous new agencies such as the Office of Economic Opportunity, the Jobs Corps, Neighborhood Youth Corps, Model Cities Program, Upward Bound, and many others. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Higher Education Act of 1965, and the National Teachers Corps marked a new and constitutionally questionable role for the federal government in education. Medicare and Medicaid were established, along with the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. There were greatly expanded roles for the federal government in public broadcasting, consumer protection, environmental protection, transportation, and civil rights, with scores of new departments and agencies serving various targeted constituencies.
Finally, many in America, later known as “the silent majority,” had had enough. In 1964, they flocked to the candidacy of libertarian Barry Goldwater. But a nation so recently rocked by the Kennedy assassination was in no mood for a second change in Presidents in little more than a year. Goldwater strategist John Sears observed, however, that Goldwater “changed the rhetoric of politics” by challenging the principles of the New Deal, “something no Democrat or Republican before him had dared to do.”
Although Goldwater lost in a landslide, his bold philosophies inspired a new grassroots conservative movement that produced the entry of thousands of young people in American politics and policymaking. Goldwater’s campaign also spawned a new political star, Ronald Reagan, whose clarity of principle and persuasive speaking captured attention when, late in the campaign, Reagan delivered a speech entitled “A Time for Choosing.” That speech contains the essence of Ronald Reagan – a hopeful, optimistic vision of a better, free and prosperous America, where the foundational principles of our republic and its founding fathers guide America’s ship of state to its “rendezvous with destiny.” The memory of that powerful speech helped him two years later to defeat the incumbent Governor of California by one million votes.
In the fourteen years between Ronald Reagan’s election as Governor of California and as President of the United States, there was little philosophically that separated Democrat and Republican presidents. Federal spending continued to grow at record rates, inflation was frequently out of control, and a Republican president went so far as to impose wage and price controls. By the end of the Carter administration, with unrelenting inflation, soaring interest rates, fuel shortages, and the humiliation of the Iranian hostage crisis, Americans were finally ready to break with the political culture of nearly a half century.
President Reagan acted quickly and boldly to cut income taxes 25%. He reduced the top income tax rate from 70% to 50% and indexed all rates to blunt inflation’s hidden impact on those rates. These measures resulted in 60 straight months of growth, the longest uninterrupted period of expansion since government began keeping statistics in 1854. There were 15 million new jobs created and just under $20 trillion worth of goods and services. Policies belittled then and now as “Reaganomics” fired America’s economic engine in ways unseen before or since, and led to the defeat without even firing a shot of one of the most dangerous regimes the world has known.
Great as America’s economic renewal was under President Reagan, his buoyant, optimistic belief in the power of freedom, individual initiative, America’s Constitution, free-market principles, and the idea that America’s greatest days lay ahead, provided spiritual renewal to an America beaten down by twenty years of political assassinations, scandals, advancing socialism, inflation, war and defeat.
The name Ronald Reagan has become the gold standard for conservatives -- his name still is invoked in every debate -- and yet the great movement that he ultimately led to victory now seems fractured and leaderless compared to the conservative movement that emerged as a result of his efforts.
In the past decade, the size of the federal government has exploded, our economy is in extreme distress, and the federal budget deficit has soared to record levels. Yet many in their desperation look for still more government to solve problems that all too often are the result of already too much government.
It has been said that Franklin D. Roosevelt turned to government to solve the problems of the people, while President Reagan turned to the people to solve the problems of government. Perhaps that is the key to what it really means to be a conservative -- an abiding belief in the dignity and power of free individuals, unshackled from government interference to create lives for themselves, their families, and their communities.
Concluding his first Inaugural Address, President Reagan told the story of Martin Treptow who gave his life for our country in the First World War. The President concluded by saying:
In 1952, Dwight Eisenhower was so accepting of New Deal principles that both parties sought to make this celebrated war hero their nominee. When he ultimately decided to seek the Republican nomination, he easily beat a conservative challenge from the highly respected Senator Robert Taft. Nevertheless, the relatively serene Eisenhower years were a time when conservative thinkers like Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley, and Milton Friedman were laying the intellectual foundation for a new conservative movement that would be built with the timbers of a renewed commitment to small government, individual liberty, faith, family, and economic opportunity.
The Kennedy-Johnson years were a triumph of big government liberalism with greatly expanded roles for the federal government. The so called “war on poverty” began with $3 billion and spawned numerous new agencies such as the Office of Economic Opportunity, the Jobs Corps, Neighborhood Youth Corps, Model Cities Program, Upward Bound, and many others. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Higher Education Act of 1965, and the National Teachers Corps marked a new and constitutionally questionable role for the federal government in education. Medicare and Medicaid were established, along with the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. There were greatly expanded roles for the federal government in public broadcasting, consumer protection, environmental protection, transportation, and civil rights, with scores of new departments and agencies serving various targeted constituencies.
Finally, many in America, later known as “the silent majority,” had had enough. In 1964, they flocked to the candidacy of libertarian Barry Goldwater. But a nation so recently rocked by the Kennedy assassination was in no mood for a second change in Presidents in little more than a year. Goldwater strategist John Sears observed, however, that Goldwater “changed the rhetoric of politics” by challenging the principles of the New Deal, “something no Democrat or Republican before him had dared to do.”
Although Goldwater lost in a landslide, his bold philosophies inspired a new grassroots conservative movement that produced the entry of thousands of young people in American politics and policymaking. Goldwater’s campaign also spawned a new political star, Ronald Reagan, whose clarity of principle and persuasive speaking captured attention when, late in the campaign, Reagan delivered a speech entitled “A Time for Choosing.” That speech contains the essence of Ronald Reagan – a hopeful, optimistic vision of a better, free and prosperous America, where the foundational principles of our republic and its founding fathers guide America’s ship of state to its “rendezvous with destiny.” The memory of that powerful speech helped him two years later to defeat the incumbent Governor of California by one million votes.
In the fourteen years between Ronald Reagan’s election as Governor of California and as President of the United States, there was little philosophically that separated Democrat and Republican presidents. Federal spending continued to grow at record rates, inflation was frequently out of control, and a Republican president went so far as to impose wage and price controls. By the end of the Carter administration, with unrelenting inflation, soaring interest rates, fuel shortages, and the humiliation of the Iranian hostage crisis, Americans were finally ready to break with the political culture of nearly a half century.
President Reagan acted quickly and boldly to cut income taxes 25%. He reduced the top income tax rate from 70% to 50% and indexed all rates to blunt inflation’s hidden impact on those rates. These measures resulted in 60 straight months of growth, the longest uninterrupted period of expansion since government began keeping statistics in 1854. There were 15 million new jobs created and just under $20 trillion worth of goods and services. Policies belittled then and now as “Reaganomics” fired America’s economic engine in ways unseen before or since, and led to the defeat without even firing a shot of one of the most dangerous regimes the world has known.
Great as America’s economic renewal was under President Reagan, his buoyant, optimistic belief in the power of freedom, individual initiative, America’s Constitution, free-market principles, and the idea that America’s greatest days lay ahead, provided spiritual renewal to an America beaten down by twenty years of political assassinations, scandals, advancing socialism, inflation, war and defeat.
The name Ronald Reagan has become the gold standard for conservatives -- his name still is invoked in every debate -- and yet the great movement that he ultimately led to victory now seems fractured and leaderless compared to the conservative movement that emerged as a result of his efforts.
In the past decade, the size of the federal government has exploded, our economy is in extreme distress, and the federal budget deficit has soared to record levels. Yet many in their desperation look for still more government to solve problems that all too often are the result of already too much government.
It has been said that Franklin D. Roosevelt turned to government to solve the problems of the people, while President Reagan turned to the people to solve the problems of government. Perhaps that is the key to what it really means to be a conservative -- an abiding belief in the dignity and power of free individuals, unshackled from government interference to create lives for themselves, their families, and their communities.
Concluding his first Inaugural Address, President Reagan told the story of Martin Treptow who gave his life for our country in the First World War. The President concluded by saying:
“The crisis we are facing today does not require of us the kind of sacrifice that Martin Treptow and so many thousands of others were called upon to make. It does require, however, our best effort, and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds; to believe that together, with God's help, we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us.
And, after all, why shouldn't we believe that? We are Americans.”
Reagan’s words were so true then. They are so true still.
(This is the fifth and concluding installment in a series on What Does It Mean To Be A "Conservative?”)
(This is the fifth and concluding installment in a series on What Does It Mean To Be A "Conservative?”)
4 comments:
I hope that we as a Nation have not strayed so far away that we can't get back.
conservatism still works, why have the republicans wandered away from it?
Conservatism works.
Conservatism rocks. Big Government doesn't. I find it hard to believe a candidate that is for redistribution of wealth considerations and against individual sovereignty might be the next president - for an added bonus, that comes with a side of Pelosi and Reid, two more advocates of big government. Most certain, a new deal version 2.0 will be in the works if the gang of 3 have control of Washington. A certain flip-flopping, fellow soldier sellout, ketchup heir has brought the idea up recently.
General, thank you so much for this reminder of the awesome power of conservatism, and thank you for pointing out the harm of big government forced initiatives. You have never wrote an unimportant blog - as most of your readers like to say in the comments, "they tell it like it is".
Post a Comment