Why do people love ronald reagan

About the promise of individual liberty and responsibility, we will hear less and less; about the benevolence of government, more. The thought of such subtraction makes us self-conscious about what we will lose. Thus, these remarks are openly valedictory of the rhetoric of the Reagan presidency, the eloquence by which we were so securely environed.

And very soon this will be the attitude of most conservatives, however frequently we have lost patience with President Reagan while he has been in office. For all things change when the expectations generated by political discourse shift.

In recent months, conservatives have argued that tax reform and tax cuts have made it difficult for politicians coming after Reagan to Postulate the necessity for creative spending; to insist that government, if properly concerned for the unfortunate, should throw money at social problems. For a time I shared that opinion. Now I doubt its validity. Leftism is a virus in the bloodstream of our body politic, present in authoritative appeals to tolerance and peace, fairness, charity, and a natural right to the property of others.

It will not go away. It has a ground in envy and resentment, which are the fashionable modern responses to eminence and distinction of every kind. Yet the political success of Ronald Reagan has forced the contemporary Left to disguise the intransigent emotional core of its world view behind talk of heart-rending circumstances and imminent disasters, which by reason of their severity cancel every consideration of means or ends.

Assuredly, the task that President Reagan set for himself has not been completed. The practical consequences of his triumphs have been adumbrated by continuing Democratic power on Capitol Hill, by a press overwhelmingly on the left, and by the timidity of too many of his servants.

We must remember that he was allowed to govern for only one term. The rest has been a holding action, undercut by concern for respectability and by a preoccupation with the 'Judgment of history.

Reagan reaffirmed with eloquence the continuing validity and vitality of the American Dream. In this more than in any policies or decisions lie his legacy and enduring claim to greatness. This president has taught those who share his politics how to conduct a national campaign-how to give limited government, strong national defense, and a check on inflation mass appeal.

He has shown us how to do this with a high heart and good humor, making conservatism an optimistic creed. Moreover, he has put to rest forever the old axiom that no candidate for the presidency can run as a conservative and be elected. Finally, with the counsel of Attorney General Edwin Meese, he has compounded these achievements by choosing judges who will defend the Constitution as it has not been defended in over 50 years. These appointments are this president's greatest accomplishment.

I leave aside the effort of the Reagan administration in Central America, its role in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf.

They involve business that is far from complete. Along with much of the Reagan agenda, their disposition must wait upon his legitimate successors: those who will go forward with implacable determination regardless of the enmity that confronts them. Ronald Reagan will be remembered for the initiatives he set in motion with his anti-statist rhetoric, and for changing through such language the current of our politics almost as dramatically as that current was changed in The most popular of our modern presidents, he has in his virtues and personal style symbolized our national character, not necessarily as it is, but as we wish it to be.

After Ronald Reagan has endured the usual biographical cycle of bunk, debunk, and rebunk he likely will be remembered as an outstanding national cheerleader. If such an assertion sounds disparaging, it should not.

In the Media Age, rhetorical leadership has become one of the presidency's most important functions. In part through hard policies but even more through his skills as a communicator, Reagan has successfully lifted the morale of a nation that in was wallowing in pessimism and uncertainty.

Long accustomed to the spotlight and the microphone and understanding the way in which the media magnifies one's personality, Reagan has turned what was a liability for most of his predecessors into an asset of major proportions.

It seems doubtful, however, that they will consider him the outstanding political leader and conceptualizer of the return to free market capitalism. That honor will be reserved for Margaret Thatcher, a political captain of notably greater will and tenacity.

It is in the realm of the substantive rather than the symbolic that future generations will raise the greater number of questions about Reagan. Their ultimate judgment probably will be that like most American presidents he wore his ideology lightly and was more notable for his flexibility than for his dogmatism.

Was he conservative? Sure, but not a "hard" conservative. Reagan has largely had his way on economics but with policies that do not fit well into traditional definitions of economic conservatism.

Many observers, not all of them liberal, argue that in the long run we will pay for a prosperity set in motion by massive budget and international trade deficits. Reagan's defenders may confound or simply infuriate them by invoking Lord Keynes' dictum that in the long run we are all dead.

It remains to be seen whether the American economy is capable of generating the output to cover our internal and international debts with little or no pain. It is notable, moreover, that even in the realm of economics Reagan has taken the easy path rather than the hard one.

For all his rhetoric in favor of a balanced budget, he has consistently refused to fight for one. Instead, he has rather easily acquiesced in one of the worst tendencies of democracy, its cupidity. Despite the incessant rhetorical handwringing about the plight of the poor, the vast bulk of federal "social programs" involve some sort of subsidy to the middling groups in American society. It is, no doubt, a realization of this situation and along with it a basic political survival instinct that has caused the administration to back away from programmatic hit lists.

Reagan ran up against a popular appetite for federal benefits without parallel in our history. He and the people around him were able to deal with it only by pandering to it. The Ronald Reagan who announced that the elderly will receive an increase in Social Security benefits whether or not inflation runs high enough to trigger it is hardly the leader of a counterrevolution. One wonders what historians will make of all the talk of a conservative era in a decade when federal social spending actually increased.

Reagan has left the nation stronger, more prosperous, and more confident than he found it. Yet it will be difficult to argue that he has achieved greatness. It is even harder to determine how they may classify a man whose foreign policy has meandered all over the ideological spectrum and has run in qualitative terms from the steadfast defense of the American nuclear presence in Europe and the liberation of Grenada to the muddled Reykjavik summit and the shabby arms-for-hostages dealings in Iran.

That said, it is a pretty sure thing that most historians will approve of the recent moves toward detente with the Soviet Union, in part because most historians are liberal but also because if present indicators hold up, Reagan will have done the right thing. One wishes, however, that he could have found a better way to go about it than tinkering with the nuclear balance.

Has he been a great president? Let us begin with the acknowledgment that at the very least in the short run, Reagan has left the nation stronger, more prosperous, and more confident than he found it. Unless sometime in the next several years we fall victim to a catastrophe that can be convincingly traced to his policies, it will be hard to rate him a subpar chief executive.

Yet it will be difficult even for those in sympathy with him to argue that he has achieved greatness. It is clear now that his administrative style has been not simply "detached" but virtually disconnected.

It is well for presidents to avoid obsession with detail and to keep their eyes on the larger goals, but Reagan exemplified the opposite extreme to a fault. He too often appeared indifferent not simply to detail but to the personnel who managed his presidency, not just ill informed but positively removed from the world of policy execution.

According to data shared with CNBC by consumer data company Resonate , 7 percent of people who said that they vote Republican weren't even alive when Reagan left office, and more than a third of Republican voters weren't of voting age. Whalen's advice to the debating candidates: "Like Reagan and his political journey from Trumanite to Thatcherite, dare to show evolved thought. Be bold enough to take the GOP in directions beyond its present conservative straightjacket. When did Republicans become obsessed with Reagan?

Mark Fahey marktfahey. Getty Images. Republicans want you to know that they adore Ronald Reagan. Vote Vote to see results. Not a Scientific Survey. The new Reagans Reagan's disappearance from public life nearly six years after he left office also made it easy for conservatives of all stripes to claim his mantle. Elected in as the 35th president of the United States, year-old John F. Kennedy became one of the youngest U. Harry S. Truman , the 33rd U.

In the White House from to , Truman made the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan, helped rebuild postwar Europe, worked to Abraham Lincoln, a self-taught lawyer, legislator and vocal opponent of slavery, was elected 16th president of the United States in November , shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War. Lincoln proved to be a shrewd military strategist and a savvy leader: His Emancipation Thomas Jefferson , author of the Declaration of Independence and the third U.

Similarly, the record eight shutdowns that On March 30, , John Hinckley Jr. The effects are still felt today. Secret Service tightened security, Franklin D. With the country mired in the depths of the Great Depression, Roosevelt immediately acted to restore public confidence, proclaiming a bank holiday and Live TV.

This Day In History. History Vault. Recommended for you. One time he made a speech that was not his best. As great a speaker as he was, and as inspiring as his spoken visions could be, Ronald Reagan was equally happy telling a joke to a small group in a social situation. He would be quite animated, and always laughed heartily at the punch line — eyebrows raised, eyes crinkled, head back -- his wide smile lighting up the room.

Maybe it was the Hollywood part of him that made him feel good about having made his audience laugh. And he was not afraid to laugh at himself. He even found ways to be friends with political adversaries. But rather than get angry or carry a grudge, the President invented a rule that Tip could say whatever he wanted during the day, but at 6 PM, the politics would stop and they would be friends.

It was why he never viewed life as a burden. On the contrary, he enjoyed it. He smiled easily and often. He took his responsibilities, but not himself, seriously.