MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN COWBOYS... (via Tom Morin):

He led a revolution. Will it survive?: Not the purest of conservatives, but he turned American politics upside-down (The Economist, Jun 10th 2004)

Reaganism was the first successful political expression of a new intellectual movement in American life: radical conservatism. Mr Reagan was the first movement conservative to hold the highest office in the land. And he was the first president to measure success and failure in terms of his ability to stick to the movement's core principles: promoting liberty, reducing government and projecting American power abroad.

To understand Mr Reagan's importance you have to remember how the Republican Party used to be. In the 1950s, it was a party dominated by the east-coast establishment, pragmatic in domestic affairs and internationalist in foreign policy. Dwight Eisenhower believed in containing communism abroad, not rolling it back; and in gently expanding government at home, not shrinking it. Richard Nixon ran on almost the same platform as John Kennedy, who appointed several old-style Republicans to his administration. The conservative movement at that time was marginal to American politics.

Yet there were stirrings underneath. The Democratic Party's southern wing was unhappy with the party's growing enthusiasm for racial equality. The burgeoning west resented the east's grip on Republican politics. Think-tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution preached the virtues of free-market economics, as did the University of Chicago's economics department. In 1955 William Buckley founded the National Review to break the liberal grip on American intellectual life.

But the first incursions of the conservative movement into American politics were a disaster. Barry Goldwater was undoubtedly a true believer. In his bestselling “Conscience of a Conservative” (1964) he declared that he had no interest in “streamlining” government, only in reducing its size. But he was a terrible campaigner, and went down to one of the worst defeats in presidential history. Nixon flirted with the right in his successful 1968 presidential campaign, but as president he reverted, introducing the most comprehensive wages-and-prices policy in American history.

In 1980 Reagan succeeded, where Goldwater failed and Nixon only half-tried, in putting together a conservative governing coalition. He triumphed in the south as well as in the west and in much of blue-collar America, carrying 44 states. Four years later he clobbered Walter Mondale by 59% to 41%, gaining a majority in every region, every age group and every occupational category except the unemployed. [...]

To what extent is George Bush Mr Reagan's heir? The similarities between the two men's administrations are striking. Like Mr Reagan, Mr Bush prefers simplicity to nuance; like Mr Reagan, he has made tax cuts and a huge defence build-up the signature tunes of his administration; like Mr Reagan, he sees himself as engaged in a struggle with evil (this time an “axis” not an “empire”); and like Mr Reagan, he is widely regarded outside the United States as a dangerous cowboy.

and they still are, it seems...

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 11, 2004 7:08 PM