Paltry Pretenders Not In Same League
Normally, political movements don’t indulge in orgies of nostalgia until shortly before their demise. Not so with contemporary American conservatism. Right wingers, just entering their moment in history, have almost nothing good to say about each other, so they’ve bucked up their spirits by penning odes to Ronald Reagan.
Long hosannas have appeared in such places as Forbes, National Review and The Weekly Standard. Bored columnists have repeated the mantra. The gist is that Reagan made possible everything good and decent in America today, from the strength of the economy to the outbreak of relative peace around the globe, and that his successors got lucky because they were able to travel in his wake.
To his credit, Reagan never made such boasts. I know for a fact that he let others take the bows for speeches made great only through his editing skill, and he was content throughout his public life to let minions race to the microphones and claim they were responsible for achievements that rightfully were his.
A little dollop of kindness goes a long way in this affection-starved town, and Reagan’s public selflessness helped him unite the three unhappy factions of the GOP - economic conservatives, religious activists and patrician snobs. He tamped down their enmities by presenting an agenda that was practical and popular: cut taxes, restrain government growth and beat the commies.
These promises provided the skeleton of a discernible agenda. One could predict in advance what Reagan would do on any given issue: no focus groups, no poll-driven shifts, no triangulation.
Ironically, agenda-free right wingers now want to cash in on Reagan’s legacy. There’s a tremendous squabble on the right to claim Reagan as a forefather. It consumes everybody from Christine Todd Whitman to Pat Buchanan. Yet, as if to expose the folly of the exercise, someone recently released a video of the ex-president making his way into the office. The tape exposes the inheritance feud as not merely unlovely but cruel.
Time and Alzheimer’s have erased the old Reagan. Only a shadow remains. The ex-president’s hair has greyed. He has added a few pounds. He shuffles when he walks, stooping forward.
The video depicts a man oblivious to the attention around him, who moves not out of purpose but trust. Friends doubt he remembers he once was president or that he presided over the conquest of communism. These days, he goes where he is told, sweetly clutching the hands of those who lead him.
Talk about a ghastly basis for comparison! Today’s inert right wingers have more in common with today’s Reagan than yesterday’s. If they want to make an imprint, they ought to stop squabbling over patrimony and study his record instead.
Reagan bridged the chasm between social conservatives and libertarians by constructing a hierarchy of values with freedom at the pinnacle.
These days, Republicans bicker about “culture” and “values,” as if either were a fit subject for government action. But no sane society would let lawmakers define and enforce virtue. That chore is more properly reserved for the public, which in its daily affairs is far more likely to produce a sensible and nuanced definition of “goodness.”
Reagan also trusted people like no other president this century. He made that clear in his final public address: “My fellow citizens … I want you to know that I have always had the highest respect for you, for your common sense and intelligence, and for your decency. … I hope (history) will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears, to your confidence rather than your doubts.”
Unlike the growing band of conservatives who see the path to national greatness as paved with high moral sentence and taxpayer money, Reagan refused to preach. He knew there is nothing more dangerous than a self-styled holy man with an army at his disposal. Any zeal-filled president - conservative or liberal - has the potential to become an ayatollah. A government devoted to freedom thus must stick with mundane stuff - from building roads to preserving peace - and leave the moralizing to you and me.
As for the use of power, the Gipper avoided most of its corrupting tendencies, including the temptation to hog the limelight. These days, conservative pundits vie for attention by slaughtering their foes in order to amuse their enemies - particularly big media bosses. Surveying the carnage, an old Reagan pal sighs: “It’s the TV mentality. They’ve got to be stars.”
But Reagan showed that real stardom comes not to those who assassinate their patrons. The secret of success is to tend to the most important chore in our government of ideals: restoring power to the people - rather than grabbing it up for yourself.
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