The Stage Is Set for Zombie Reaganism to Rise from the Grave<\/a>, he points out some distinct parallels between the problems that Reagan dealt with and the problems we face today:<\/p>\n(1) A disastrous and humiliating withdrawal from a long, drawn out war.\u00a0 Then: Vietnam.\u00a0 Now: Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
(2) An energy crisis.\u00a0 Then: soaring gas prices.\u00a0 Now: soaring gas prices.<\/p>\n
(3) Russia invades a neighboring country, which resists with American weaponry.\u00a0 Then: Afghanistan. Now: Ukraine.<\/p>\n
(4) A communist country seeks world domination.\u00a0 Then:\u00a0 the Soviet Union.\u00a0 Now:\u00a0 China.<\/p>\n
(5)\u00a0 Inflation.\u00a0 Then: 14% in 1980.\u00a0 Now: 8.6% in 2022, subsiding to 3.7% today, but still a problem.<\/p>\n
I would add that the nation was in the doldrums of a deep \u201cmalaise,\u201d as Jimmy Carter called it, a lack of confidence, a sense that everything was going wrong, a depressed feeling about America.\u00a0 No wonder, what with the Watergate scandal, the defeat in Vietnam, the Iran hostage crisis, and a terrible economy plagued by high unemployment, supply shortages, and \u201cstagflation,\u201d the hitherto contradictory dynamics of stagnation plus runaway inflation.\u00a0 But we are in a similar malaise today.<\/p>\n
I would also add that the late 1970s and early 1980s were also a time of national polarization, with the legacy of opposition to the Vietnam War and the counterculture radicalism of the 1960s still a live issue.\u00a0 Reagan also brought the working class into the conservative fold, as \u201cReagan Democrats\u201d and other blue collar workers rallied to the Republican side.<\/p>\n
Our problems in the 1980s, prior to Reagan\u2019s election, though similar to today\u2019s, were actually worse then.\u00a0 And yet Reagan addressed them with great success, including bringing the country together to a large measure and restoring national pride and confidence.\u00a0 He really did bring out the feeling that, to use the slogan he used in his landslide re-election campaign in 1984, it\u2019s \u201cmorning in America.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the other hand, of course, there are big differences.\u00a0 Our national culture has changed.\u00a0 Back then, Christian political activists formed an organization they named \u201cthe Moral Majority,\u201d and though the term was aspirational, there was some truth in the claim that most Americans had a consensus about moral issues.\u00a0 No more.\u00a0 Abortion was an issue ever since the Roe v. Wade decision legalized it in 1973.\u00a0 But same-sex marriage, the acceptance of homosexuality, transgenderism, and the woke agenda in schools and in big corporations were unthinkable back then.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s conservative critics of Reaganism make the point that his style of conservatism did nothing to stop these moral and cultural catastrophes.\u00a0 They are not wrong.\u00a0 In fact, they are right.<\/p>\n
Then again, National Conservatives like Donald Trump didn\u2019t stop these moral and cultural catastrophes either.<\/p>\n
Moral and cultural renewal require something more powerful than government.\u00a0 Namely, a spiritual revival.\u00a0 In the meantime, it\u2019s no small task for a political leader to bring the nation together, fix the economy, and protect the nation from its adversaries.<\/p>\n
Photo:\u00a0 Ronald Reagan\u2019s Presidential Portrait, 1981, by Michael Evans \u2013 http:\/\/www.dodmedia.osd.mil\/DVIC_View\/Still_Details.cfm?SDAN=DASC9003096&JPGPath=\/Assets\/Still\/1990\/Army\/DA-SC-90-03096.JPG, Public Domain, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=257844<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The New Right has been mocking “zombie Reaganism” and the limited government, free market, individual liberty agenda that his brand of conservatism stood for. They say those policies are out of date and their advocates “don’t know what time it is.” Actually, though, many of the problems Reagan dealt with successfully are the same problems we face today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":69164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,13,19,20],"tags":[11666,12649,5252,1879],"class_list":["post-69062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-america","category-economics","category-government","category-history","tag-national-conservatism","tag-new-right","tag-president-ronald-reagan","tag-republican-party"],"yoast_head":"\n
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