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Reaganism Is Dead
President Reagan’s final resting place at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, CA. CrackerClips Stock Media / Shutterstock.com
A longtime Republican conservative emailed me after Trump’s Tuesday night romp through the “Acela corridor.” “Is the GOP now the anti-trade, anti-immigrant party?”
I don’t think so, but take no comfort in the reason — Republicans haven’t signed on to protectionism and nativism (or at least, only a minority has), but they seem to have lost all philosophical coherence.
The lesson of the Ted Cruz campaign is that the party faithful are not nearly as conservative as some had thought. Even among “very conservative” voters in New York, Cruz carried only 27 percent of them. Were Empire State voters were still smarting from Cruz’s “New York values” snipe? Maybe, but Cruz won only 29 percent of “very conservatives” in Alabama, 31 percent in Virginia, and 41 percent in Pennsylvania. Cruz has worked assiduously to showcase his conservative bona fides, and while purists might raise an eyebrow at some of his foreign policy stands and his flip-flopping on trade, he passes every other conservative litmus test with deep dye. Yet even among very conservative voters, he failed to close the deal.
A lot of ink has been spilled analyzing why Trump was able to run away with Cruz’s “evangelical” voters, but less to the vertigo-inducing reality that people who call themselves conservative, even “very” conservative, can vote for someone like Trump – a liberal-leaning, Planned Parenthood-defending, Code Pink-echoing, flamboyantly ignorant swindler.
Anger about immigration isn’t it. I’ve always been a mushy moderate on immigration. At least with regard to Mexico, it’s a problem on the way to solving itself. The “wall” would be the greatest waste of money since the feds created the Department of Education – and threatening to dun Mexico for the cost is sheer flim-flammery. Still, I was willing to entertain the idea that voters were really exercised about it as an explanation for the Trump rise – until I looked at exit polls.
Since Iowa, voters have been asked to rank issues by importance. In New Hampshire, only 15 percent of voters put immigration at the top of their list of concerns. Fifty-six percent favored a path to legalization for illegals living and working here. In South Carolina, even fewer (10 percent) ranked immigration first among issues of concern and 53 percent favored that path to legalization. These results were replicated in the nearly every state that has held a primary so far. Among Republicans in Pennsylvania, for example, fewer than 40 percent favored deportation of illegal immigrants, yet Trump won nearly 57 percent of the vote.
The exception to this rule is the large number of voters who approve of Trump’s proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from the US – a very new wrinkle on the old immigration issue.
Trade has loomed large in a few states, like Michigan and Pennsylvania, but has been more mixed elsewhere, with voters divided on whether it helps or hurts the economy.
So the answer to my friend is that Republicans are not voting on issues, they are voting on personality and attitude, and thus revealing themselves to have fallen for one of the worst errors of the left – the progressive belief that all will be well provided the “right” people, the “best people” if you will, are running the government.
“This is the end of Reaganism,” former Senator Tom Coburn, a conservative hero, told me. The three-legged stool of strong defense, small government, and conservatism on social issues has been smashed. Republicans, or at least a plurality of Republican primary voters, no longer distrust government per se, they simply distrust this government. They dislike Obama and the Republican leadership. But they’re ready to believe that an outsider will be able to bring his annealing touch to the economy, to the culture, and to national greatness. If a Republican politician today were to tell the joke about “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you” – a reliable punch line in the Reagan repertoire – he or she would be greeted by incomprehension. This is a signal victory for the left: The triumph of faith in the state. Trumpites are reprising Obama’s “Yes We Can” with a new lead.
Republican politicians cannot rely on the healthy skepticism about government that was once woven into the fabric of the party. People used to know that bigger government enables more corruption, that the mediating institutions of society like family, church, and community organizations are better at nearly every task than bureaucracies, and that government undermines these institutions when it expands too much.
“All kings is mostly rapscallions as fur as I can make out” explained Huck Finn, a good American constitutionalist. It’s a lesson the Republican Party will have to relearn when this season passes.
Published in General
I’m not trying to be difficult, but if you inform me that my beliefs are wrong according to your definitions, then I’m to consider myself duly warned? It’s good to be the king, no? Just kidding…
I am just trying to convince myself that talking with people irrational enough to support a buffoon can be addressed in some fashion that is constructive, but perhaps there is no hope.
Wow. I can’t even respond to that level of arrogance without earning a much-deserved flag. Maybe you’ll earn one, tho. Bye.
Wasn’t it Jeb Bush who said, as quoted in a Washington Times article from 2008, that the GOP needs to move beyond Reagan? In fact wasn’t there a slew of Conservative pundits telling us the ere of Reagan is over? Hell, aren’t there people on this very website who repeatedly claim that Conservatism is a small minority and can’t win? Something tells me Trump had nothing to do with any of that.
Obama’s 2008 landslide pretty much killed conservatism on the presidential level. Unless Cruz can pull the most improbable upset in history, we will have to hope that Rubio or someone like him can rise in a future election and be a transformative candidate.
We must also come to terms with the fact that we do not have a Bill Buckley in this day and age. Even Limbuagh isn’t arguing from a conservative viewpoint anymore.
Levin and Beck are great, but we really don’t talk about our philosophy anymore.
Then why all this flipping out about Trump? It’s all you read on the main page now a days. Every post will be why Trump sucks, to one degree or another. Reaganism died the moment the GOP stopped fighting the ideological battle in 1998. Since then we’ve had “compassionate conservatism,” John “can’t say Hussain” McCain, and “Mittens” Romney. Now we have Paul “trillion $ deficit” Ryan. You guys want to cry about conservatism dying but you want to charge the wrong man for murder.
You care to explain where Limbaugh doesn’t argue from a Conservative view point?
An interesting “what if” of history would be if Calvin Coolidge Jr had not died in 1924.
“when he died, the power and glory of the Presidency went with him.” Coolidge is suppose to have said, and people say when citizens tried to draft him to run again in 1932, after Hoover failed so miserably as his replacement, Coolidge declined at least partially because he was still broken up over the death of his son.
What if Cal Jr had never died, and his father had been willing to run in 1932? Would he have won? Would having less heartbreak extended Silent Cal’s life enough so he could have served another term? The entire history of the world would be different. That world may not even talk about a “Great Depression” the way our world talks about THE Great Depression today.
2002 and 2004 beg to differ, but you can make this argument credibly.
Trump is the worst, but not the first.
This entire election cycle he has talked abut being an “observer”. He refuse to condemn Trump, and talks about that people should “probably” vote for Ted Cruz “if they are conservative”.
In 2009 those of us in the Conservative Party of NY State pushed Doug Hoffman against liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava. When that was happening Rush (rightfully) hammed Scozzafava for not being one of us, and for rejecting the ideals of conservatism. For a few moments we were the darlings of the conservative movement.
Why didn’t we like Dede? Because she was only nominally free trade, had close ties to labor unions, supported same sex marriage, defended Planned Parenthood,supported the “stimulus” package, and supported the Bush Bailouts. Limbaugh hammed her for being a RINO, a traitor to the cause.
Flash forward today, and we have a man in Trump who is very similar to Dede. Did Rush defend conservatism? Does he go to great lengths to explain why Trump is wrong, and why only conservatism has a chance to save the country the way he did in 2009? No of course not.
A congressional race is way different than a presidential race. He is about defeating Dems and if Trump becomes the nominee it becomes hard for him to do that if he spends the Primary saying how Trump sucks. Now I have written on how Rush needs to announce his choice to galvanize a sizable following for that person, but I also understand why he won’t and it isn’t because he is any less conservative.
That’s complete nonsense Robert. Either you believe in and defend a philosophy or you don’t. Limbaugh has spent DECADES claiming he believes in the conservative philosophy. Not just in Congressional elections like mine. He argued heavily AGAINST McCain in 08. He rallied AGAINST “the Maverick” to the end, until he was forced to support him.
Flash forward to today and you will hear no such damnation against Trump. You hear nothing about “the establishment” wanting to support a left wing RINO. What you hear is Rush pretending to be “above it all” as he defends his golfing buddy. Trump hasn’t received the John McCain treatment from Rush AT ALL. He has completely betrayed his former fans.
If only McCain owned a golf course I guess he could have completely avoided the “rino” label like Trump has. When push came to shove, when conservatism needed to be defended the most, from a charlatan who is trying to destroy what we’ve built Limbaugh punted for fear of offending Trump.
I do disagree with Rush about Trump’s political donations. At a certain point it means something.
Rush’s grandfather fought his entire life to try to return the money social security was sending him. I wonder how he would feel about a Republican who was a Democrat until September 2009 and who donated almost exclusively to Democrats until 2008 including Democrats like…
Hillary Clinton
Harry Reid
John Kerry
Ted Kennedy
Charles Schumer
Rahm Emanuel
Frank Lautenberg
Charlie Rangel
Kirsten Gillibrand
Ed Rendell
Tom Daschle
Joe Biden
His family aren’t Republicans. They couldn’t vote him in New York.
Busy, hard-working people with conservative instincts fall for his scam of being the honest outsider, but the media is afraid to confront his history, lies, and changes in positions. I’m not saying that the media needs to attack him to him face, but they constantly need to bring out the facts regarding Trump’s phony Republicanism. The rightish-leaning New York media fell for his scam, and it makes you wary to believe anything they say ever again.
American citizens like Anwar al-Awlaki, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev,Nidal Hasan, Syed Farook, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad?
“An establishment Republican, with their overriding belief in the glory of the free market, might be moved to tear down a cathedral and replace it with a strip mall if it made economic sense. Such an act would horrify a natural conservative. …natural conservatives have other concerns: chiefly, the preservation of their own tribe and its culture. … Their perfect society does not necessarily produce a soaring GDP, but it does produce symphonies, basilicas and Old Masters.” — Allum Bokhari & Milo Yiannopoulos, breitbart.com, March 29, 2016
The West has been in war with Islam almost forever.
I always thought the longest war was the Hundred Years’ War, 1337–1453.
The Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula lasted almost 800 years, 711-1492!
As I stated in the previous thread, “Sharia law? Rotherham child sex exploitation for over a decade? Marriage of first cousins causing birth defects and more welfare? There are many ugly truths that have to be confronted. Demography is destiny. Does America learn nothing?”
What has protected the United States all these years is a great wall of sorts called the Atlantic Ocean. Even President “rise of the oceans began to slow” Obama couldn’t get rid of the Atlantic Ocean. Without the Atlantic Ocean the United States could be having many of the same problems as Europe.
Not just the NY media, the at large portion of the so called “conservative media” has sold their soul for Trump. There are only two major Talk Radio Host I know who have come out against Trump, Glenn Beck (from the start), and Mark Levin (who came out much later).
Outside of them it’s mostly been local host, and smaller conservative voices who have had to defend our philosophy. Meanwhile the “big” girls and boys have been doing everything they can to prop up Trump.
Men and women who we once thought of as, friends, fellow fighters for the cause, and teachers have proven to be nothing of the kind. The one word that describes this election on the conservative side is “Betrayal”.
Mike Pence falls into the same category. He built his reputation by standing up to Bush on entitlements and spending.
Now, when the conservative movement needs him, he’s gone AWOL.
I sympathize with what you are saying, I do. Trump has been exactly what the GOP Leadership claims to have wanted coming out of 2012 with only few exceptions and that hasn’t been at all what Rush has said is Conservative.
On the other hand, Rush has said that Trump is not an ideologue, that he is not a Conservative, which is true. I don’t think Trump is ideologically driven in the same sense that McCain was–ideologically in the sense that McCain thought he had to be “The Maverick” to get votes. Trump is what I consider an “Average American” meaning if you listen to what Trump says and then ask your average man on the street about those same issues, you are going to hear similar themes. So, yes, that isn’t Conservative, but it isn’t RINO either.
A lot of the people simply are proving not to be conservatives. Ironically many are the ones who used the rino label the most against other conservatives. But once Trump shows up we suddenly aren’t suppose to care about ideals and philosophy, and only “purist” care about things like conservatism.
That’s another line of nonsense pushed by Rush. “Trump isn’t smart enough to think about ideas so we must give him a pass. Yeah he’s further to the left and more statist the McCain but we can’t hold that against him! Heaven no! Trump is just an “average guy”.”
What baloney. Trump’s been in politics for decades. He testified for the Democrat Party against Ronald Reagan and his philosophy. He’s propped up groups and organizations that he believes in like Planned Parenthood. He is very ideological, it’s just his ideology is similar to a centrist Democrat!
But because he is Limbaugh’s golfing buddy, we are suppose to buy these excuses. It’s not going to happen. #NeverTrump
What irks me about Jeb and the others (David Frum, Ross Douthat, etc.) is that they had already gotten their wish. Reaganism had already been abandoned, and these guys couldn’t make the connection between that abandonment and the disastrous results in front of them.
Imagine the Democrats after their 2000 loss saying “We lost because of our sentimental attachment to honesty and clean government. We need to remedy that.”
That would make about as much sense as what Jeb and the others were saying.
I agree, he did, but if you asked most people why they voted for him, it was because they liked him, they couldn’t care less what his plans were, those bored them. Sure he had the ideas, they just weren’t why most people voted for him. Carter screwed up and inflation was eating our lunch, and the hostages made everyone mad, so throw the bums out, and put different ones in was what happened. Many years later the pundits and people who cared and wrote the history said it was because of his ideas, nonsense, no President is ever elected on ideas, too many people just don’t care about policy, its just too boring.
Thank you for your dispensation, lord Josh.
Note:
Personal Attack.This thread has devolved into yet another Trump understander vs. Trump hater. Boring.
Robert McReynolds has posted the only rational responses. [redacted] Sorry.
I prefer Trump Cultist vs Conscious Conservatives. These arguments keep happening because ideals matter to people, and frankly Trump is not one of us. Plenty of us who don’t like Trump understand his bs just fine, it’s the main reason we are against him.
There is a divorce coming between the Trumpkins and the Conservatives. The writing is on the wall, and it’s not going to change.
It was the Coolidge administration. Except that prohibition thing.
The conservative movement subverted itself when it allowed anti-immigration to become part of its repertoire . Anti-immigration is not conservative because;
Having mis-defined conservatism by including this anti-conservative, collectivist, blood-and-soil cause as part of its essence, the conservative movement allowed anyone espousing this enemy ideology to misrepresent himself as one of their own, while forcing those loyal to the cause to shut up or get out. Thus the national socialist infiltrator kookoo bird Donald Trump is allowed to take over the house while the real conservative Marco Rubio is humiliated and shown the door.
You set the bar rather low here.
You’re right, but people believe those guys.