One thing I have heard over and over again this week is how Reagan transformed the Republican Party to what it is today. While watching the funeral cortage wind its way down Constitution Avenue, one commentator said that the party in 1980 was divided between moderates and conservatives and today the party is in the image of Reagan: conservative, religious and from the Southwest.
You have also seen every conservative Republican politician stake themselves as the heirs of Reagan.
I would beg to differ.
First off, I don't think the GOP we see today is one that Reagan would recognize. Reagan was a conservative in the vein of Barry Goldwater, a Southwestern conservatism that really just wanted to get the goverment off people's backs. That conservatism was not so interested in the social issues like gay rights and abortion. They thought people should be allowed to do their own thing. The Republicans we see today are more the heirs of George Wallace before he repented: social reactionaries who want to use the government to promote their prejudices. There is none of the southwestern do your own thing in this Southern bunch. Instead there is a bunch who have a rigid moral code that fears difference and sees the government as a way to promote their agenda. Reagan represented a sunny conservatism that believed in hope; the current bunch is much more dour and plays on people's fears. Reagan was principled in areas like tax cuts, but he also knew how to compromise; the new bunch is ideologically bound and sees compromise as an anathema.
In my view, Reaganism, this sunny, optimistic and flexible conservatism is barely breathing. If there is a rightful heir to Reagan it would not be our current President, but California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who seems to exude the same cheerful conservatism that Reagan had. Arnold is not a doctrinare conservative, but a pragmatist who speaks in a conservative populist rhetoric.
I think people like President Bush, as well as many in Congress are being somewhat misleading in saying that they are heirs to Reagan. He was willing to work with Democrats to get things done and he knew how to persuade people to his side. The current leadership is so sure of its rightness that they think the other side is not only wrong but some how morally deficient.
I do wonder why journalists are not seeing this.
If you want to see more about how the President fails in being an heir to Reagan, check out Kevin Drum.
It's difficult to make comparisons like this for a number of reasons.
1). Both Reagan and Bush changed over the years (as we all do). Both behaved somewhat differently as president than they did as governors. Both changed as their presidencies advanced and as the world changed.
2). These comparisons, are almost compelled to focus on only a slice of the whole - for example - to focus on the public image rather than on the substance of the policy.
As far as image goes, there are some similarities between both Bush and Reagan. How much of that image is genuine and how much is manufactured is hard to tell but the Reagan image appeared much more genuine to me.
As far as policy goes, there are a great many differences. Reagan's policies made him a very good president at a time when America needed a very good president and at a time when the Republican party needed to produce a leader of substance.
Bush's policies, if continued, could very well criple the GOP to the same extent that Nixon's abuse of Executive power did.
I do agree with Drum in that the curx of the issue is "overreaching" (or as Mark put it recently, ideology vs pragmatism). Reagan proved to be a very level headed pragmatist.
So I guess I agree in part with everything that's been said and referred to (which probably makes me an intellectual heir of John Kerry -- that's snarky, I know, I shouldn't have said it - but what the hell - I'm ready for the weekend and it's only Thursday).
Dennis,
David Shribman, in this article (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1316&ncid=742&e=12&u=/ucds/20040610/cm_ucds/reaganlegacyishiscontributiontoconservatism) would beg to differ.
Posted by: Mark Kittel at June 10, 2004 08:39 AM