Shifting

Ronald Reagan was born on February 6, 1911. All members of his immediate family belonged to the Democratic party. But in time Ronald’s brother Neil became a Republican. And the brothers would argue about their contrasting political philosophies. The future president would for a time champion the virtues of big government and the good it brought to its citizens. Many, including the future president, attributed the great success of America in the late forties to the policies and programs of the Federal government, which had grown under FDR's leadership aimed at getting the nation through the Great Depression and then through World War II.

Many people change their political affiliations and of course many others, maybe most, remain for life in the first political party they joined. Ronald Reagan was one of those people who eventually left the Democratic party—that happened in 1962—to become a Republican, and an obvious question to ask is “What prompted him to do so?” or “How was he transformed in this way?” Such a transformation may be just a change of heart—some development brought on by a personal revelation of some moral or practical truth. Or such a transformation could occur with reflection on historical events or the state of the nation at the time. Of course the change may occur for expediency as well: an ambitious person considering a career in politics might calculate that a particular party offers a candidate a greater chance of success than another. Adopting the most popular views can be a good strategy for winning more votes.

Ronald Reagan was one who changed on principle and in response to the changes he had seen in America after the second world war. But his transformation came over time as he also gained prominence on the national stage and moved from his career as an actor to his career as a politician.

He didn’t succeed as he hoped he would as an actor. He had acted in plenty of films, but none brought him great acclaim. Along the way, General Electric offered him a job as a host of a weekly show it would sponsor, a show that presented dramas featuring various guest stars. GE also expected that Reagan would be a spokesperson for the company and in that role travel and speak to audiences of employees and others in areas where General Electric had factories and offices. The company was no fan of labor unions, and so part of its strategy was to have Reagan make audiences happy with corporate governance.

Although he was a union man of sorts—a president of an AFL affiliate—the Screen Actors Guild, he enjoyed working with GE and came to appreciate the point of view, values and concerns of the company. And in his work for GE, he gained or maintained the popularity that he very much enjoyed, for he had continuing access to a national audience.

Reagan had begun to view with suspicion the great expanse of power centered in Washington and viewed the state of the country with increasing dissatisfaction. He was not pleased with the expansion of Social Security, the high costs associated with the building of the national system of highways and the growing number and costs of projects aimed at building and launching rockets and putting satellites into space.

The talent he had as a performer and communicator enabled him to focus on politics initially in the world of movie-making. But over time, he became more outspoken on a range of national issues, and as he continued to expound his personal conservative views, he went beyond what General Electric needed from him. General Electric offered Reagan the opportunity to continue advertising their products, but only if he would quit his political pronouncements. The company gave him an offer he could choose to refuse. And he chose to refuse it. The TV show was losing viewers anyway and went off the air in 1962—the year he joined the Republican Party. The General Electric Theater went dark, and Reagan moved on. He hosted another TV show in 1965—Death Valley Days—and so continued a presence on television.

He was becoming increasingly involved in politics. He spoke in support for Barry Goldwater in a prerecorded program called ‘Rendezvous with Destiny’ on October 27, 1964. His speech was titled ‘A Time for Choosing’ and it is widely regarded as the speech that put Reagan on track for the presidency.

He took the stage in a major elective office in 1967. Reagan served as the 33rd Governor of California from January 2, 1967 to January 6, 1975. He was elected after having campaigned against high taxes and extravagant spending by government and against the activism by students at the University of California, Berkeley. Demonstrations against the Vietnam War and demonstrations in support of civil rights had created a lot of turbulence around the time, and the public unrest upset quite a few voters—people who found Reagan’s emphasis on law and order appealing.

Balancing

In a presidential campaign speech of February 1976, Reagan spoke about a typical ‘Welfare Queen’:

"She has 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards and is collecting veterans' benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she's collecting Social Security on her cards. She's got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income alone is over $150,000." (Reagan, Asheville N.C Campaign Trail Speech)

That wasn’t to show support for benefits from government.

But Reagan offered hope in America, hope which Jimmy Carter certainly had, but which Reagan was better able to convey as the nation grew tired of its economic woes and the crisis involving American hostages taken by terrorists who were supporters of the revolution in Iran. Reagan benefited from the many voters who longed for a change.

Regarding the state of the economy in 1981, Reagan said in his first inaugural address

"The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away. They will go away because we as Americans have the capacity now, as we've had in the past, to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom.
"In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

The basic unit of any political system is the individual—the person with needs, desires and beliefs. Beliefs and emotions drive us all. And while we don’t all share exactly the same emotions and beliefs, we can recognize them and even understand them when we experience them ourselves or see them in other people. With regard to political beliefs, the labels ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’, owing to preconceptions and shifting meanings, don’t always by themselves help to advance discussions. To achieve if not consensus at least clarity, we need to be more specific. What are considered ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ views often overlap: both sides might agree with some aspects of a program or policy but not others.

All presidents have had to contend with competing ideas about what the country needs and how the nation should be managed. One of the ways we characterize a president is noting how that president balances the forces pulling the nation in different directions.

All, or most of us anyway, want peace, safety and security. All or most want freedom of speech and freedom from fear. All or most favor prosperity—if not staggering wealth, at least a comfortable life with all basic needs satisfied. Those preferences, we know from history, are not always simply realized. In fact, battles have sometimes been necessary to win them. And in any case the guarantees we have are only as good as the politics we practice.

Most taxpayers would be happy with lower taxes. Most of us would help or claim to be willing to help others, yet we may have some aversion to, or at least some reservation about, paying someone else’s medical bills or retirement benefits. But most citizens enjoy the benefits that government offers, especially the guarantee of income after retirement and a safety net to catch us when we are victims of a financial collapse or medical catastrophe. Reagan planned to cut Social Security, but the outcry from the public when the plan was revealed was so great that the administration abandoned the idea. And Reagan aimed to lower the rates of the federal income tax with the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. But as the national debt continued to rise during his time in office, he raised taxes 11 times (Bartlett) to help pay the bills the government had racked up.

Many conservatives, especially those who are farther to the right, have expressed disappointment with the administration of Reagan. He added about 300,000 workers to the bureaucracy of the Federal government. The Federal budget went up by 70% during his administration. His administration increased spending for national defense. And so, instead of reducing the size and power of the national government, he nourished its growth. The New Deal and the Great Society lived on, much to the dissatisfaction of those who claim to hold the strongest conservative values.

One argument holds that poverty or some of it results from moral failure, from laziness or lack of initiative. One belief, going even further, is that the strong and cunning will survive and that the best outcome for any society comes about when we let nature, without our intervention, cull the weakest from the herd. From that perspective, any government that runs any system for providing financial or medical aid to its citizens is guilty of smothering initiative and encouraging the permanent maintenance of an underclass. In all probability, a government that hands out money indiscriminately to support its citizens will not be helping all the poor rise from the depths of poverty to flourish as healthy, productive citizens. Without constraints, certain programs can induce the development of a culture of poverty for generation after generation.

And yet most of us would not stand by to watch without trying to help people suffering from natural disasters—hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, wildfires, earthquakes—or collapses of parts of our infrastructure—breakdowns of our communication system, bank failures, attacks by terrorists. We realize that however great our intentions, however strong our motivations, our strengths and abilities are limited. And the power of governments to help those in need may just be enough to save lives and restore the damages to society. In these cases, government, I’m sure Ronald Reagan would agree, is the solution.

And in dealing with other nations of comparable power, we need a strong government of our own backing a powerful military to ensure the security of our nation. Superpowers can effect changes in various parts of the world and can even determine the systems of government and choose the leaders for some weaker countries. Inevitably superpowers with different interests and global concerns clash. And diplomacy can mitigate the possibility of war. In the first meeting of Reagan and Gorbachev in Geneva, Reagan said

“One of the things that creates mistrust of the USSR by the U.S. is the realization of the Marxist idea of helping socialist revolutions throughout the world and the belief that the Marxist system should prevail.” (Brands, p. 512)

But we think that our system of government is best for us and for other nations too. And we can cause ourselves and a lot of others much trouble when we try even with the best of intentions to deploy our system worldwide. An ever present issue in our history is the degree to which we want or need to interact with the world, not only in trade but also in attempts to control the fate of other nations. Our history reveals alternating periods of engagement and relative isolation. Reagan's time was clearly a time for American engagement with other nations—especially the Soviet Union. One of the chief concerns in this regard was achieving some balance in the kind and number of nuclear weapons under the control of the two countries. From the descriptions given by both Reagan and Gorbachev of their meetings, we can see how important are the interactions of two people—people who happen to be at the pinnacle of power—for the course of history. Time and again the personalities, perceptions, emotions, physical stamina and mental acuity of the individuals involved, and countless other factors, play a role in the outcome of negotiations. Fortunately by the end of the Reagan administration, relations with the Soviet Union were improved. Reagan no longer considered the Soviet Union the evil empire. (Brands, p. 696)

Yet history is all about changes.

Many of the issues with which our past presidents have grappled will beset anyone who dares to rise to that level of our political hierarchy. And for that matter, as citizens, we should grapple with those vital issues as well. And so until humanity passes altogether, the great conversation regarding politics will never end.
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References

Bartlett, Bruce. The Benefit and The Burden: Tax Reform-Why We Need It and What It Will Take. NewYork: Simon & Schuster, 2012.

Brands, H. W. Reagan: The Life. New York: Doubleday, 2015.

Byrne, David T. Ronald Reagan: An Intellectual Biography. Potomac Books: University of Nebraska Press, 2018.

Lamb, Brian, Susan Swain and C-SPAN. The Presidents: Noted Historians Rank America’s Best—and Worst—Executives. New York: Public Affairs, 2019.

Morris, Edmund. Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan. New York: Random House, 1999.

Noonan, Peggy. When Character Was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan. New York: Viking, 2001.

Reagan,  Ronald. The Reagan Diaries. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.

Reagan,  Ronald. Ronald Reagan: An American Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990.

Reagan,  Ronald. Asheville N.C Campaign Trail Speech, January 1976, “‘Welfare Queen’ Becomes Issue in Reagan Campaign” New York Times, February 15, 1976.