Reagan's Shining City on a Hill has gone dark
As Trump embraces autocrats, democracies no longer consider the US the leader of the free world.
I detested Ronald Reagan and the Republicans back in the 1980s. I thought their stereotyping of poor people and criminals was racist. I believed their support of violent right-wing dictatorships and paramilitary organizations in Central America was immoral. I thought their build up of military strength was both wasteful and dangerous. I believed their economic policy benefited the rich at the expense of the rest of us. I thought their patriotism was over-the-top and performative, but I never doubted they were sincere in their belief that what they were doing was best for America.
Reagan’s rhetoric was wrapped in the flag, espousing the most idealist version of our country and history. He was pro-freedom and pro-democracy. His most withering criticism of the Soviet Union and communism concerned the treatment of the people behind the Iron Curtain. He believed in the sanctity of individual liberty and that all people should be free.
Reagan’s party was based on principles of Constitutional conservatism, small government, free markets, democracy, and individual freedom. He wanted the federal government constrained by the Constitution to allow individuals, not the state, to flourish. He believed that freedom and democracy were interdependent, that one required the other. He was willing to use military force on countries to impose democracy with the belief that it would lead to more freedom. He generally opposed autocrats and authoritarians, though he supported them in opposition to communism. He believed that America was the leader of the free world. His philosophy was idealistic and patriotic, though sometimes naive and contradictory.
I was wrong in some of my assessments of Reagan and right in others. I probably agree more with his vision of a muscular foreign policy and, while I don’t believe we should try to impose democracy on other countries, I do believe we should support existing and emerging ones. We need to use our power to constrain authoritarianism, not empower it.
While some social welfare efforts needed to be pared down, as they were from Reagan through the Clinton years, the political will to do so was often based in racism. From the Reagan’s welfare queen to George H. W. Bush’s Willie Horton ad, conservatives exploited prejudice to build broad support among white voters to reduce programs. That embrace of racial stereotypes to divide the electorate in order to achieve political goals provided the seeds of Trumpism.
Today, those seeds have matured into the Republican Party of Donald Trump, rejecting almost all that Reagan held sacred. Trump is ignoring Constitutional restraints. He’s building a powerful executive branch that’s usurping the legislative powers of Congress and threatening states if they don’t comply with his will. He’s empowering the most autocratic, antidemocratic despots in the world. He appears to be aligning with Putin while damaging relations with the mostly democratic nations in the European Union. Instead of supporting a democratic Ukraine, he’s demanding half of their minerals as payment for continued support. He’s replaced Reagan’s emphasis on freedom, democracy, and liberty with opportunism, power, and profit—cynicism for idealism.
It’s hard to reconcile the patriotic conservatism of Reagan with the bullying populism of Donald Trump. Most of the architects of the Reagan Revolution who are still living have left the Republican Party. I cannot stop wondering what happened to the Republican operatives and politicians who have stayed, those who once considered Reagan their guiding light and now bow to Donald Trump. Were they ever sincere in their convictions or did they abandon them for fealty to a would-be authoritarian in exchange for lower taxes, less regulations, and Elon Musk?
Regardless, today’s Republican Party has left Ronald Reagan’s Shining City on a Hill in a pall of darkness. Trump is relinquishing the mantle “leader of the free world” to join a cabal of autocrats and authoritarians. Democracies around the world will no longer look to us for guidance and support. We’ve lost the trust of our allies.
Ten years ago, I could not have imagined a Republican President of the United States supporting authoritarian superpowers over democratic ones. Of course, I could not have imagined pining for Ronald Reagan, either.
The most insidious thing about Trump is that he’s rehabilitated guys like GW Bush and Ronald Reagan. These were not good people, though in Reagan’s case I suspect he believed he was doing good — to the degree he was still capable of that level of cognition. But the fact is that the Reagan Revolution was begat by Nixon’s Southern Strategy, and both had their roots in the writings of Russel Kirk (still cited by guys like “Morning” Joe Scarborough today). Eisenhower recognized them for what they were before he left office, but dismissed them as a small, stupid minority.
Kirk’s philosophy was born out of that of Edmund Burke, whose belief that if the middle class got too comfortable, it would mean the end of the Empire. KIrk reprised this in his writings in the 1950s, and was largely ignored until the post-war boom really caught fire and the middle class mushroomed into something unprecedented in global history. America — nay, the world — had never seen a middle class so vast or so prosperous, and suddenly Kirk seemed not addled, but prescient. And once Nixon was enthroned, he began the work of dismantling that social dynamic, aided by— albeit unwittingly — by the anti-war movement and the rise of social justice for women and minorities. It was a simple matter to convince old white men to vote against their own interest, once they were convinced they were voting against the interest of the young, the non-white and the non-men. But the goal was (and is) always the same: to keep the working class in their place, and not let them start getting to comfortable, lest they demand a seat at the table.
This, in no small way, explains the howling from the obscenely rich during the Biden administration when unemployment dropped to its lowest level in 50 years, and real wage growth actually outpaced inflation for the first time since LBJ. There was at least one such oligarch crying for a RISE in unemployment — because the labor market no longer belonged to the employer.
Reagan was no more or less than Trump with a veneer of class and a gift for storytelling. Tax cuts for the rich, and deregulation for the corporate, and the rest of us be damned. He just hid it better.
Thomas Mills - My name is Joh Galles. I like your newsletter and want to learn more about you. Would you mind giving me a call? My number is 704-576-0477. I would like to chat about NC political strategy.
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