Posted on 03/25/2016 5:38:22 AM PDT by Kaslin
"Ronald Reagan is dead, and he's not coming back."
"I wish more conservatives could come to grips with this relatively simple fact. We are now in something like the fifth round of the pin-the-tail-on-the-next-Reagan game and it's getting old. Catering to the conservative base, the GOP presidential candidates keep trying to put on the Reagan mantle the way Cinderella's ugly stepsisters tried to cram their dogs into her glass slipper. Not gonna happen."
I wrote the above nine years ago. I'm not plagiarizing myself to save time, but to point out that Reagan obsession on the right has been a problem for a long time. Every election season, Republican candidates start rising to their feet to declare, like the slave rebels in "Spartacus," "I'm Ronald Reagan!" "No, I'm Ronald Reagan!"
My favorite version came from Bob Dole in 1996. He couldn't bring himself to fully commit to the play-acting, saying instead, "I'll be Ronald Reagan if that's what you want."
My objection to this Reaganophilia isn't derived from any antipathy toward the Gipper. He was a great man and a great politician.
Rather, the problem is with using Reagan as a kind of ideological shorthand. Asking "What Would Reagan Do?" about challenges Reagan never faced has limited value.
Before the GOP became the Party of Reagan, it was the Party of Lincoln. But you wouldn't expect a Republican politician to spend a lot of time promising to free the slaves or preserve the Union. Trying to see today's economic problems thru Reagan-colored glasses isn't impossible -- we're still over-regulated by a too-large government -- but it can be distorting.
Similarly, casting the war on terrorism as a replay of the long battle against communism (which Reagan won) can be done, but it requires bending reality to theory. Marxism was a relatively brief and modern imposition on ancient cultures. Islam is an ancient religion, and radical Islam is an effort to fight off the imposition of modernity. Different threats and different contexts require different thinking.
All of these criticisms still stand. What's different these days is the desperate effort to insist that Donald Trump is a new Reagan -- not by Trump himself, but by a kind of conservative priesthood eager to prove by analogy what it can't prove with facts or logic.
Newt Gingrich, Bill Bennett and Rudy Giuliani are just a few of the prominent conservatives miraculously finding Reaganism in the outbursts of a loutish and crude real estate developer the way the high lamas of Buddhism try to identify a new dalai lama based on a baby's gurgling.
Most of their arguments are shockingly spurious given the intellects involved. Among the most common: "They said Reagan couldn't win, too." Logically, this has nothing to do with Trump's alleged resemblance to Reagan (or Trump's general election chances). "They" -- whoever they are -- also claimed Kermit the Frog couldn't win 270 electoral votes. That doesn't mean they were wrong, or that Kermit is an amphibious Reaganite.
Indeed, all of the "They said X about Reagan, too" arguments are preposterous, but one stands out: "They said Reagan was a dunce, too."
Of course, "they" were wrong about Reagan. But the "they" in 1980 were overwhelmingly liberal. Trump's most important critics are overwhelmingly conservative. The claim that conservatives in 2016 are wrong about Trump because liberals 36 years ago were wrong about Reagan is a hard one to diagram on a grease board. And getting to the conclusion that these combined errors mean Trump is Reagan-like is the logical equivalent of crossing a canyon in three leaps.
In terms of personal character and ideological seriousness, Trump and Reagan could not be more different. Reagan was one of the most dignified politicians of the 20th century, one who turned his cheek to vicious attacks, refused to use profanity and rarely showed an angry side. Meanwhile, Trump's crude and vengeful streaks virtually define the man.
Reagan's ideological principles were derived from decades of reading, speaking and debating. Trump, meanwhile, is winging it.
"I don't think he has an ideology," Pat Buchanan told the Washington Post. "He very much is responding to the realities that he has encountered and his natural reactions to them. It's not some intellectual construct."
Here lies both the irony and farce of the cult-like effort to anoint Trump as the second coming of Reagan. The one meaningful similarity between the two men is that they can both be seen as authentic responses to their times. The difference? Reagan was the right response.
I listen to Rush every day and I don’t understand why he supports Cruz. Is it because he supported him in the very beginning and can’t just admit he was wrong?
Is there any limit to the number of conservatives trump supporters will throw under the bus in an attempt to lift the Donald?
He's honest, though. I'll take it.
Rush is like that. He gets paid either way.
But I think that he wants a candidate with Cruz’s supposed squeaky clean past (oops) and Trump’s fight.
What he likely knows is that the fight is more important, but he thinks Cruz supporters make up his audience, so better to not lose the audience right now.
Straw man argument. Nobody is claiming that Trump is the “next Reagan” but Trump opponents love to claim that people are so they can use the Lloyd Bentsen line.
But over and over again, the counter-claim is made, that Trump is no Reagan. It is part of the TDS that all liberals and some conservatives are mentally ill with.
Goldberg meets his deadline with another “Look at me! Blah blah Trump! But look at me!” trying to be relevant. He’d do better writing about the Easter Bunny’s role in politics. But he’s not smart enough.
Not agreeing with someone =/= throwing them under a bus.
But since you brought it up, what do you think of the blacklist being created of conservatives that support Trump that has been created?
And Cruz isn’t either. Reagan could connect with the people, hence his nickname “The Great Communicator”. Cruz is preachy, condescending and easily slips into lawyer mode. He wooden mannerisms give Al Gore a run for the money. And he never led anything, less operate anything bigger than a lemonade stand.
Never idolize any politician or anyone else for that matter.
Is anyone at Townhall even old enough to remember Reagan?
Trump is obviously not Reagan, but the Trump victory plan IS quite like Reagan 1980/84, and Nixon 1972 as well.
There have been four elections since FDR where the President has won overwhelmingly - 1964, 1972. 1980 and 1984.
Leave out 1964 for the moment. The other three - 520 EV, 489 EV, 525 EV - were all won by Republicans whose brand of American nationalism won over white Democrats.
Saying Reagan wasn’t a conservative is throwing him under the bus.
Jonah seems to feel he has an obligation to write a daily Trump-bashing column. Jonah was 11 when Reagan was elected; 19 when he left the presidency. So he’s an expert on that Administration.
Jonah is not alone, of course. There is a small army of ‘conservative’ writers and talk show hosts who feel a similar obligation. Their stories get oh, so, tiresome.
I’m sure they will all rebound and find lots of wonderful things to say about Trump after he’s elected, and try to get exclusives from the Trump Administration, not to mention invites to the White House. That’s just the way the game works. Or has worked. It’s the whole new game that scares them to death!
There are no perfect people, politicians or otherwise. Reagan was a good man and a patriot.
SENIORS; CRUZ WANTS TO CUT YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY
CRUZ DISLIKE, DISTRUSTED
Alumni, roommates, law clerks, former staffers in the George W. Bush campaign and White House (and the president himself), members of Congress and others who have known Cruz — lots and lots of people — consider him socially awkward, nasty, dishonesty
httpest, a blatant apple-polisher and all-around creepy guy. You can write off a few of these critics as jealous of his success, or liberal antagonists, but all of them? There is something badly amiss here. Cruz, who so obviously lacks emotional intelligence, cannot recognize it, but those closest to him surely must see that something is awry...
CRUZ NOT REPORTING FOR THE JOB HE WAS ELECTED TO DO:
Ted Cruz the senator: Heard but not seen
The Texas Republican seriously lags most of his colleagues in attending hearings and casting votes.
Ted Cruz came to Washington two-and-a-half years ago pledging to be the anti-senator. But he’s been more like the no-show senator.
The Texas Republican seriously lags most of his colleagues in attending hearings and casting votes in what has been a Senate career long on rhetoric and short on Senate business.
He’s skipped the vast majority of Armed Services Committee hearings, is below-average in attendance on his other major committees and ranks 97th during the first three months of this year in showing up for roll call votes on the Senate floor. ... -Read more: Ted Cruz the senator: Heard but not seen
Ted Cruz the senator: Heard but not seen
The Texas Republican seriously lags most of his colleagues in attending hearings and casting votes.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/ted-cruz-2016-senate-vote-record-117201
Seniors, Ted Cruz wants to cut your Social Security benefits:
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/01/31/this-presidential-candid
One of the things Cruz would like you to forget:
His father fought along side Fidel Castro
AND THIS: OMG
http://aattp.org/flashback-rafael-cruz-calls-son-ted-cruz-an-anointed-king-responsible-for-the-end-time-transfer-of-wealth/
http://aattp.org/flashback-ra fael-cruz-calls-son-ted-cruz-an-anointed-king-responsible-for-the-end-time-transfer-of-wealth/
Ted Cruz’s Father: My Son “Anointed” To “Take Control of Society”..
CRUZ IS WEAK ON IMMIGRATION AND SEALING BORDER
Then-Governor Reagan signed into law the Mulford Act (1967) which banned open carry in California. He saw “no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.”.
As President he defended subsidies in farm rich states like Iowa and North Carolina.
Jonah who?
They are not conservatives now are they? They’re elite beltway types.
Great guy...but I’ll respond if Trump gets attacked in his name.
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