I was reading this piece on young conservatives worshipping at the altar of Ronald Reagan and it led me to think about how the “heroes” on both sides of the aisle have become a part of the mainstream, and particularly how conservatives continually try to jam liberal leaders of historical import into their ideology.
Starting with Reagan, I think it’s safe to say that the former president was widely admired. The national outporing over his death makes that clear. But you don’t really ever hear Democratic pols invoking his name as someone they’d like to follow in the footsteps of. At best Democrats talk about his ability to have support from the left and right during his tenure, but most often this is made to contrast with President Bush’s failure to do the same.
But then you’ve got a whole litany of liberal heroes who conservatives try to appropriate as their own. Easily the most ludicrous is Franklin Roosevelt. Conservatives wish to act as if they love the heck out of President Roosevelt because he was the leader most responsible for Allied victory in WWII. But FDR is probably the most liberal president we’ve ever had. For all of his necessary work in inventing the U.S. defense infrastructure, he was elected to undo the neglect of one our most conservative presidents, Hoover, that helped bring about the Great Depression. FDR was the man behind a huge growth in the size and responsibility of the government, as well as the social program conservatives have tried numerous times to kill: social security.
Conservatives also try to say that JFK was one of them, neglecting that he faced considerable conservative opposition - often from within the Democratic party - when he began moving down the road of racial equality. And of course the worst element of conservative appropriation is over Martin Luther King. As has been previously noted, conservative publications like The National Review opposed Dr. King as a rabble rouser, and while King was a clergyman, he was in favor of social and economic equality with the federal intervention of the government to be used to bring about those goals. I understand the impetus to have King, one of the most revered figures in American history, seen as an apolitical bipartisan leader - for conservatives it’s worth it to think of Dr. King in that way so he can be “one of them”. But the historical evidence presents a mountain of data that King was a liberal through and through.
Contrast this with liberals and conservative leaders. As Howard Dean once said, you may have to go back as far as Lincoln to find the last good Republican president, but even if you go into the modern era, the only two who get kudos are Eisenhower and at least in part, Bush Sr. But the funny thing is, the sort of Rockefeller Republicanism practiced by them is dead within the GOP, the moderate wing of the party mostly abandoned to be independents and Democrats as their club is an expressly “very conservative” only one.
I wonder if 20 years from now I’ll be arguing with some young conservative over how silly they sound holding up Bill and Hillary Clinton as “true conservatives” to be emulated.
Ike was a good guy. He had the top marginal income tax rate at 92%, and presided over the massive postwar economic boom. Now if a liberal proposes raising that rate from 28 to 34%, the conservatives all scream “SOCIALISM!!!” and bring out their disproven Laffer curves. Ike understood something about the common good — all conservatives care about today is the top 1%.
To this day I do not understand the reverence for the moronic Reagan. He ran for governor when I was 20, and I was already aware that there was nothing of substance inside the suit. Subsequent events proved my youthful judgment was correct, when he was responsible for the treason of Iran-Contra. One would think that treason on the part of the president would be an impeachable offense.
Yet actual adults, with far more experience than I had, voted for him. Several times. Someone please explain.
There’s something to be said about a pol who makes you feel good. Sure, you can go down the checklist of issues and balance out candidates, but if you ignore the gut, you’re doomed to failure. I’m not on a high horse here, because I think that Bill Clinton has much the same effect on me that Reagan had on a lot of conservatives. Clinton had the advantage of being on my side of an issue 95% of the time, but simply because of his communications ability I would have to say that he made that 5% palatable. There’s a reason why Clinton and Reagan had such widespread support and other presidencies like Bush don’t.
Reagan wasn’t terribly popular when his term ended, and stayed that way well into the 1990s (he was voted worst living President in 1992). Part of Reagan’s resurgence is due to his charisma, sure, and part of it is due to Reagan not having much to say about anything. Unlike, say, Nixon, Bush Sr. or Clinton, he didn’t discuss issues, and wasn’t someone to whom the media would ask for his opinion post-Presidency. He’s a bit of Chauncey Gardener — anyone could paint most anything on him.
- Repack asks, “Yet actual adults, with far more experience than I had, voted for him. Several times. Someone please explain.”
Glad to oblige, Repack. Reagan won in 1980 because people had concluded that Carter was not up to the job. This was primarily because inflation reached 14%! that year, though the Iranian hostage crises and the feeling that ‘the Russians were on the march’ (remember they had invaded Afganistan in 1979) also played significant parts. By 1984, inflation was down to 4%. For 4 straight Presidents (Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter) inflation had been rising till it reached almost crises proportions, and yet by the end of Reagan’s first term, it was clearly on the way out. If you want to say that Reagan shouldn’t get any credit, it should go to the Fed or somewhere else, you can make that argument, but surely you understand that most Americans blame or credit the President for the economy. Also, while Reagan may have talked tough in foreign affairs, he managed to avoid any serious wars. Peace and prosperity tends to make a President popular.
And I don’t really have to mention the end of the Cold War do I? Again, if you don’t want to give Reagan any credit, that is fine, but also again you understand that most voters will. So here we have a guy who comes in when inflation is tearing the economy apart and the Soviet empire seems to be growing and when he leaves office both of these huge problems are solved. Explaining why he might be popular is not all that hard. Napolean once said he would rather have generals who were lucky rather than good. I think the Reagan presidency might show that the same principle applies to Presidents.
Michael Moore already calls Bill Clinton the, ‘best Republican president we’ve ever had’ so it is no stretch to think in 20 years Clinton will be regarded as a conservative by Republicans.
Reagan won in 1980 because people had concluded that Carter was not up to the job.
Carter, moral, intelligent, a former nuclear submarine commander, and the factors you cite (inflation, hostages, Afghanistan) were none his fault.
Reagan spoke in bumper stickers (”It’s morning in America!”) and couldn’t follow a complicated policy analysis.
Reagan, amoral, stupid, no leadership capability, and not responsible for the internal factors that caused the collapse of the Soviet Union. Presided over a treasonous action known as Iran-Contra, traded arms for hostages with the same Iranis who held hostages during Carter’s administration, and violated multiple provisions of the Constitution by raising a proxy army with private funds. Added more to the national debt than all previous presidents, which put the inflation bills on our children. Still holds the record for most administration officials convicted of federal crimes.
So you are saying perceptions were more important than reality, which pretty much agrees with my point. Why ISN’T reality important?
Carter was and is a real person who made and understood his own decisions and took responsibility for them. Reagan was an actor reading a script, but had nothing to do with writing that script, and when asked about his responsibility, set a record for not remembering unmatched until the arrival of Alberto Gonzales.
Reagan’s primary characteristic was his willingness to act as a tool for the people who put him in office, which was obvious to me at the age of 20, but as you point out, not so obvious to a majority of Americans, and I want to know WHY.
Did I mention the atrocity known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, which drains billions of dollars each year for a useless project? Maybe I should have.
The reason conservatives steal liberal heroes is that history leaves the conservative heroes in the dustbin. It are the liberals who are ahead of the curve. Who do you celebrate, the first person who thought women should have the vote, or the last person to fight against it.
- “So you are saying perceptions were more important than reality, which pretty much agrees with my point. Why ISN’T reality important?”
Repack, I would say it in a slightly different way. Reality matters, and the reality of history is that the years 1981-1988 were better for the U.S. than 1976-80. This may not be ‘fair’, but politics is not fair. For all of Carter’s good points (which you mention), the economic and international situation grew worse while he was President (inflation, Iranian revolution and hostage crises, Russian invasion of Afganhistan). What do you expect to happen to a President’s popularity when things go bad?
And the reality is that most of these problems were signficantly better when Reagan left office. Again, what do you expect to happen to a President’s popularity when good things happen to the economy and in international affairs? I realize you think this isn’t fair because Carter was the better man so things should have worked better when he was President, but the sad reality is that they did not.
In any case, you wanted an explanation for why Reagan was/is popular and I have given you mine. I can’t help that it may be annoying.
I like Carter, but I think he might simply have not been the right man for that job at any time…which in some ways says more about the inadequacies of that job than it does about the inadequacies of Jimmy Carter. There’s a reason his life and career have been profoundly more rewarding and produced greater dividends since he left office.
In fact, I think if Carter were offered the presidency again (a screaming unlikelihood, I am aware), he would probably turn the job down…much the way Gore, who would be immediately competitive, refuses to run for office in 2008. The office grants one incredible power, yes. I sense that Carter has, over time, realized that first of all, power isn’t always enough to accomplish what you want, and secondly, it comes with costs and shackles (such as making sure every other politician is being kept happy) that limit your abilities to wield it.
This tends to sail over the heads of many pols these days–that simply having the office is not its own reward. The office is a tool, not a goal.
Anybody want to guess what George W. Bush will be doing after he leaves office? I give him three years before the emptiness of his life outside of being “commander guy” sets in and he starts filling it with alcohol again.
Anybody want to guess what George W. Bush will be doing after he leaves office?
Creating new business “opportunities” for his father’s well-connected friends?
And the reality is that most of these problems were signficantly better when Reagan left office. Again, what do you expect to happen to a President’s popularity when good things happen to the economy and in international affairs?
Economy better? Let me borrow a few hundred billion of your children’s money, and I can make the place look pretty good, as long as you don’t mind tripling your debt.
International affairs? Iran-contra? Arms for hostages? Bitburg? Grenada? 251 dead Marines in Lebanon?
I must have missed all that good stuff. Why is it that there are people who think borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from China to prop up a sagging economy is sound policy?
- “I must have missed all that good stuff.”
Repack, you really missed both the fall of inflation from 13.5% in 1980 to 2% by 1986 and the end of the Soviet Empire and the Cold War?! ‘Tis a pity, they were in all the papers back then. Or maybe you mean that they do not meet your standard to be considered ‘good stuff’. If that is the case, I am impressed. Your standards are certainly higher than mine … or pretty much anyone else’s I have ever met.