If you believe Newsweek magazine -- something that usually requires a serious suspension of disbelief -- the Reagan Era is dead. Politico also chimed in, proclaiming the death of the Reagan revolution.
Newsweek doesn’t go on to tell you who killed the Reagan Era, so I will. It was the Republican Party that demolished the shining city on the hill my father built. It was the Republican Party that was 100 percent responsible for the end of the Reagan Revolution.
Michael Reagan is absolutely right. We sold our souls to the wizards of smart, who believed more in winning elections than in doing what is best for our country; who cared more for balkanizing the vote for political gain than in educating us so all would know the values of conservatism; who cared more for easy victory than hard work. How did they try to kill it?
They forgot who he was; and having forgotten who he was, they stopped following in his footsteps that should have led to smaller, less-intrusive government, and restrained government spending. They are the ones who began to undermine the sturdy foundation my father built.
By the way, the same thing happened to Maggie Thatcher in Britain. Her own party was responsible for undermining all the great advances she made towards dismantling the socialist welfare state that had made England an economic basket-case. It happened because once she was out of power her party weakened.
Maggie was strong and Ronald Reagan was strong, but when they no longer were in power and at their prime, their followers turned into weak-kneed office seekers.
Being weak they were easily led astray and went in other directions, and fell prey to the lure of big government, big spending and big deficit politics.
The end of the Reagan Era was brought to us by the Republican Party, which had thrived under his leadership and is now in danger of becoming a minor player in the nation's politics and a spectator at the birth of a socialist America doomed to follow the path to ruin of every failed state has embraced the Marxist creed.
Michael is so right. Instead of following sage principles, we decided we were smarter than Reagan...we decided we wanted to pander, and not preach principle. We decided we wanted to give away rather than truly help our country. The GOP became the party of no value, rather than conservative value. For heaven's sake, we lost on the tax issue! But, here is where I disagree with Michael Reagan:
Can the Reagan Era be resurrected? It can, but only by the party that was responsible for its death. Republicans killed it and it's up to Republicans to revive it. And if America is to survive the coming debacle looming ahead under an ultra-left-wing Obama government drenched in the welfare-state philosophies of Karl Marx, only a reborn Republican Party will be capable of bringing America back from the brink of destruction.
No, Michael, the party cannot bring Reagan back. The PEOPLE can! The party needs pruned. It needs to be freed of the detritus of the "big tent" theories, of the "go along to get along" philosophy, of the "reinvention" strategy. Only the people, the folks in places like New Hope, Mt. Orab, Wassilla, Texas...only the voices of the people rejecting squish republicanism for Reagan Conservatism can reignite the revolution....
Michael points out the fallacy of Me too Republicanism made famous by the likes of John Husted, Chuck Hagel, John McCain, and others:
They destroyed the party from within. They are the ones to blame. Not the left-wing media, not left-wing academia, not the Democratic Party but the GOP -- the Grand Old Party -- no longer grand, just old and scared silly.
Ronald Reagan had the same media that we have today. He had the same left-wing academia that we have today and the same Democratic Party that we have today. But when the media and the Democrats attacked him he found it invigorating, and found strength and fortitude in being under fire, and he fought back like a tiger.
Today, when Republicans are attacked, they tremble and run for cover. And they give in and begin to mumble “me too.”
I've heard people say that Ronald Reagan would have supported the bailout. My answer to that is: “Balderdash!” Ronald Reagan would never have supported a bailout, because under his leadership there never would have been a need for a bailout. He never would have allowed the double-dealing and sheer criminality that brought about our current crisis.
In a Ronald Reagan administration, the Chris Dodds and Barney Franks -- who bled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dry -- wouldn’t be running Congressional committees, they’d be fending off Federal prosecutors.
Let's not have any more talk about the end of the Reagan Era and the Reagan Revolution. It's time to re-fire the jets and move forward.
Amen, brother.
