Modern Conservatism and ‘The House That Reagan Built’

During the Reagan years, a dramatic shift took place within the Republican party. While President Reagan maintained his welcoming persona, conservative attitudes and policies became increasingly hard and authoritarian, exploiting cultural differences and financial inequities to serve powerful special interests. Today’s modern conservatives would likely find themselves at odds with many of the policies he touted in the ’80s.

We must stop voting on the rhetoric without examining the record. Remember Reagan’s “Trust, but verify.” Forget what you’ve been conditioned to believe is the liberal or conservative approach — both sides push a modern narrative that ignore real democratic values. Read Rick Perlstein’s latest op-ed on modern GOP ties to Reagan and share your thoughts.

From Al Jazeera English

In Reagan’s nation

In Reagan’s America, “you don’t admit” that the magic-free market, on its own, “cannot solve all economic problems”.

By Rick Perlstein

Republicans love Ronald Reagan. First in 2008, and again in 2012, they had nomination debates at the Reagan Presidential Library, each candidate jockeying to establish their bona fides as the most dedicated Che Guevera in something they call the “Reagan Revolution”.

“I’m a little too nervous to actually touch it,” debate moderator Anderson Cooper said of the original copy of Reagan’s diary laying before him during the 2008 event, as if it were a holy relic, so reverent were the candidates’ references toward what Mitt Romney called “the house that Reagan built”.

Romney has kept the reverence going this year. His trade policy proposes something he calls a “Reagan Economic Zone” for Asia. His “Plan for Jobs and Economic Growth” mentions Reagan nine times. “Romney Tax Plan Goes the Full Reagan”, reads an article republished on the campaign website. But what is this “Full Reagan” of which they speak?

Democrats, including President Obama, never get tired of pointing out all the things Ronald Reagan did that no Republican would ever dare propose today: signing a liberal abortion law as governor of California in the 1960s; raising taxes, negotiating with America’s sworn enemy the Soviets, and signing a law granting amnesty for illegal immigrants as president in the 1980s.

Republican myth

What’s more, again contrary to the Republican myth, Americans didn’t embrace Reagan for his pledge to slash government. The first year he was first elected president, only 21 per cent of Americans thought “too much” was being spent on the environment, health, education, welfare and urban aid programmes.

Four years later, only 35 per cent of Americans said they favoured cuts in social programmes to reduce the deficit. And yet they voted for Reagan in record numbers – even though 65 per cent of Americans understood, correctly, that Reagan was fighting for just such cuts.

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