Comments on Progressive Historians: History For Our Future: The Paradox of Ronald Reagan: His First Inaugural

Sorry to have been out of the loop for awhile, but...

2008-02-01T00:23:10.465-06:00

Sorry to have been out of the loop for awhile, but had a rather frightening experience with a dead battery and 50 below wind chill and then lost my hard drive.

First, thanks to Jeremy for the nomination.

Second, to have inspired the eloquence of eOz was worth the effort.

As for the issue of Ronald Reagan, I'm afraid not many people got it. First, you need to separate Reagan the man from what some have termed Reaganism--which frankly I don't think Reagan himself would own up to.

Second, it's sad, but liberals and Democrats still don't want to answer Reagan's question. Forget what your opinion is of Reagan--what ANSWERS do you have? I, for one am tired of hearing people wanting to piss on Reagan's grave. We have an old saying up north--don't piss in the wind or you get messy. The issue is what is your answer--how do we make government more responsive? Quit bitching and DO something--or offer some ideas.

Finally, I did not have space in this essay do go into a thesis I am working on, but as I read the oral history interviews with the likes of Nofziger, etc. it is clear Reagan was not the same person after the assassination attempt. My physician father believed there were signs of his Alzheimers in the debates with Mondale.

In many ways Reagan has become for Democrats like FDR was for Republicans: a symbol. I am no fan of Ronald Reagan as anyone who has read my book or my blog can testify. But I believe history is about trying to understand the whys of events.

As an activist--and a former basketball coach--I also believe you need to switch strategies if you are losing the game.

Finally, whining about the past gets us nowhere.

I was hoping this would inspire some constructive thought, that's why I threw Weber in.

Curiously, Weber believed the only way bureaucracies could be overcome was with charismatic leadership--which he was the first to try to understand. Hence Barack Obama.

Second, John McCain is winning the GOP race precisely because he is the most authentic heir to the Reagan legacy. He will be a formidable candidate.

So Weber and Reagan DID have it right: 2008 may well come down to charisma vs anti-bureaucracy.

It should make for one of the more seminal races in American political history. On the other hand if Hillary Clinton wins (see my new post)McCain will take her to the cleaners. Of course, McCain's future depends on whether he can continue his end run of the Religious Right. Expect Huckabee to stay in if there are any prospects of his being able to broker a deal.

Reagan's words DO hang in the air, which is evidence of the power, not their weakness. There is no one else in the last quarter century whose words hang anywhere. Words hang in the air for a reason and that reason lies in their connecting with feelings and beliefs held by many people. You may not like them but that does not diminish their power.

The theater is far from empty, instead people on both the left and right continue to stay in the theater far after the show has ended. The comments on this essay are testimony to that.

What we need is not clever metaphors but a new script.

Oh, and one more thing--Reagan's bio and personal correspondence make it clear to me he was no neo con. That's the Bush Dynasty.

As for DESRON 7, this is s history blog. Please show me what decisions Ronald Reagan personally made to take us "closer to the Eve of destruction." This is just a theory, but first his hands-off style suggests I doubt he played much of a role at all. Second, it is safe to say Reagan personally did not precipitate deliberate conflicts with the Soviets--that is one of the criticisms the neocons have with him--that he should have pressed harder. If anyone longed for WWIII it was Alexander Haag and not Reagan.

So let the fur fly. The Democrats truly need an answer to Reagan's question or they will lose 2008. I welcome a spirited discussion of possible answers.

Jesse, I acknowledge your frustration, but my poin...

2008-01-29T01:24:32.939-06:00

Jesse, I acknowledge your frustration, but my point still stands: even evil people can do good things. Hitler fixed the German economy. Stalin saved the Russians from takeover in World War II against enormous odds. They're not good people or good leaders, but there's nothing wrong with acknowledging their few good points while condemning them in toto.

I am not a good liberal the neocons know exactly t...

2008-01-29T00:58:48.041-06:00

I am not a good liberal the neocons know exactly the way good liberals will react that is the reason they have gotten away with what they have. That is why the criminals in this executive branch will walk out of the white house; rather then being executed or sent to prison for the rest of their natural life because they know good liberals will let them get away.

Jesse, he doesn't like Ronald Reagan. He likes Ro...

2008-01-28T11:34:19.545-06:00

Jesse, he doesn't like Ronald Reagan. He likes Ronald Reagan's style. It's possible to value that and still dislike the man, as most (all?) good liberals do.

Give me a break Ronald Reagan brought the United S...

2008-01-28T11:13:35.022-06:00

Give me a break Ronald Reagan brought the United States closer to the Eve of destruction then the Cuban missile crisis. In 1981 as the maiden vogue of the space shuttle landed I was deployed with Destroy Squadron 7 (DESRON 7) into the Sea of Okhotsk to test the Soviet Unions early warning defenses. DESRON 7 was in the Sea of O for a few days before the Soviets figured it out. Once they knew we had violated their borders they sent costal patrol boats to follow us south at the same time a Soviet Cruiser battle group left Vladivostok heading north and cut us off. I was on the frigate USS Bradley 1041 it was the smallest ship in DESRON 7. When the two battle groups meet head to head the Soviet’s choose the USS Bradley to incinerate first all of the Soviets fire control was locked on to the USS Bradley. I was the Combat Information Center supervisor at the time (pre drug testing day) remember and we left Hawaii before going north so I had a good stash. So let’s say I almost missed the significance of this mission until the Electronic Warfare supervisor started freaking out screaming this is a violation of NATO. The Soviets were in their final phase of their fire control sequence all that was left for them to do was press the button. The soviet aircraft had also surrounded us from the air.

DESRON 7 entered the Soviet Union waters with all its electronic gear in a passive mode that in its self is an act of aggression and the Soviets had all legal rights to defend it self. The Soviets had all legal rights to waste DESRON 7 yet the Soviet Union blinked and Reagan and Bush went on to bring down the great nemesis. So personally I know depths that Neocons will go to get all the oil.

I would not think twice to urinate on Ronald Reagan’s grave.

Of note: you've also been given top billing in Zen...

2008-01-27T23:40:09.655-06:00

Of note: you've also been given top billing in Zenpundit's occasional Recommended Reading post. And he's a Republican!

Reagan's words hang in the air and fade into old p...

2008-01-27T02:34:32.254-06:00

Reagan's words hang in the air and fade into old photographs in a theater which will soon be empty altogether.

I love it.

eOz, it's so good to have you back.

2008-01-26T13:26:57.520-06:00

eOz, it's so good to have you back.

Reading your diary, I wonder if in Reagan we can s...

2008-01-26T13:17:24.946-06:00

Reading your diary, I wonder if in Reagan we can see a natural paradox: a man who envisioned a goal and then had it come to pass. In envisioning, a mythos grew which brought him confidence and a sense of peace with himself. In enacting, he contended against events and circumstance, pulling him away from his center.

In the inaguration address, the mythos of the team was in the forefront, but the reality of his new position was that he was leader of a party which only four years before had believed itself dead. He was coming to power along with a hungry generation of people in Congress and all with a sense of renewal and indefinite possibility.

But in ruling, Reagan found it hard to be interested in the details. He moved from high point -- thematic moments of movielike reality in which he could immerse himself in the mythos and find renewal -- to high point, slogging through the time between by allowing his team members to do as they pleased as long as he got to set the bounds they could not exceed.

He prayed for the game gods to grant his team the victory in each round, each legislative battle and each crisis. When wounded, he joked. His instincts were pitch perfect at moments when he could see the movie. But most of the time, he had to ride herd on a "revolution" and a whole herd of young bucks chomping to prove a theory of governance to which he had to bend and try to channel.

Many of those young bucks, now older, remember Reagan as a symbol of their chance to be a part of that revolution. But Reagan himself was only really satisfied in the next speech at Normandy; the next meeting with Gorbachev; the next moment standing before the Berlin wall and calling for it to come down. In those moments, movie moments, imbued with the sweet synchrony of posing for history and living in history, Reagan found his greatest joy.

Our nation suffers still in the wake of that revolution and now must move beyond it. Reagan is now myth -- the myth that the Republican party did not die in 1976, but transformed into a ruling coalition which can lead the nation into the future. It has taken thirty years for the party to truly die.

John Dean, in Conservatives Without Conscience, candidly points out how the conservative movement itself is a counter poise to the liberalism of the Enlightenment; a rearguard action which ebbs and flows as the liberal expression falters and finds its footing again. In the end, the Constitution, faithfully and fairly followed, will expand with the liberal movement and contract with the conservative one.

Reagan himself loved the language of liberalism because he loved being in the moment of history unfolding. He savored the words which put him in the spotlight of that moment whenever possible. But he emerged as party (e.g., team) leader when those he led were fired up to rip apart the faltering liberal movement. When we get to Rove, the ultimate geek, we get to the "permanent Republican majority" in which liberalism itself could finally be stopped and diminished.

But for all the power of Reagan's rhetoric and depth of his passion for the liberal unfolding, he ultimately failed to "lead" his admirers. His myth puts the intent of his words into a box and belies the reality of his Administration's policies.

The People were afraid and tired in 1980. They gave in to their own weakness. They assumed the Constitution would take care of itself and went for short-term goals thinking themselves safe from the consequences of that behavior. Now we are older, and those consequences are back with a vengence. As Reagan-the-myth recedes into soft focus and the patriotic music swells, the theater is empty except for those who cannot leave to face the real world outside.

The People are turning to task. They sense a great work remains undone. They gave the Republicans one last chance in the 2004 election and their first warning in 2006. To the extent the party continues to cling to their determination to destroy the liberal expression, they are now facing their own death as a political presence for a generation. The ghost of 1976 has been held at bay while the People's attention was diverted, but only for a season.

That ghost now walks the nation. I have had so many discussions with people who "voted for Bush, but now regret it". The younger Bush's face now hangs before their eyes and Reagan's is an irrelevant anachronism. The moments of history are long gone. The Cold War is over. The War On Terrorism a pale and poor substitute.

The Sumnerites will not turn from their course. They can't. They have no way out of their box. Trickle-down economics, peace through strength and morning in America are ideas whose time has come and gone because reality requires problem solving, and thus is a well-known liberal conspiracy.

FDR had Henry Wallace to solve problems. Nixon had Kissenger. Reagan had Peggy Noonan, and all she could do was write great words for the great moments history provided. The problems remained unattended, and have grown. As the spell of words wears off, the "revolutionaries" are left with the raw import of their ideas, but still no solutions.

Opposing social security does not solve the problems it has grown to address. Opposing butter in favor of guns leaves no residue of good will among the People and weakens them. People are tired of being weak. People are tired of being ignored and berated. People are tired of being "lead" in circles.

The defeat of the Republicans and their generational death -- finally -- will leave Reagan a vague image hanging on the wall. His pretty words will be forgotten, without the power of those of FDR and Kennedy. FDR's New Deal and Kennedy's legacy (actually enacted by Johnson) solved problems, and those solutions still stand, assailed as they have been by the Sumnerites. Their words are attached to those living expressions of liberalism. Reagan's words hang in the air and fade into old photographs in a theater which will soon be empty altogether.

You're taking a unique and controversial position ...

2008-01-26T12:58:30.453-06:00

You're taking a unique and controversial position here on Reagan, that he was really better than his defenders have made him out to be. I don't know whether I agree with you, but I do think this deserves wider dissemination. Accordingly, I'm nominating it for this month's History Carnival.