Founder of the Weekly Standard William Kristol, National Review editor Jonah Goldberg and Daily Caller Foundation editor (and Rare contributor) W. James Antle III took part in a panel at the Heritage Foundation Wednesday to discuss the legacy of Ronald Reagan and whether another Reaganesque leader is needed today.
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David Azerrad, the moderator, said in his opening that two arguments are normally made against the idea that America needs a Reagan resurgence. First, that Reagan “failed to rein in big government” and, second, “that the world Reagan lived in is long gone.”
Despite these critiques, Azerrad maintained that “We don’t just need another Reagan, we need one right away.” The panel agreed that a conservative with Reagan’s charisma, competence and personability are much needed today.
Antle noted that Reagan had two major accomplishments, ending “stagflation and the Cold War didn’t exist by the time he was out of office.”
“[That’s] a record of accomplishment that I don’t think too many people can really hold a candle to,” Antle said, having mentioned that Reagan was able to keep two of the three promises he made before his inauguration. Antle added that stopping government growth was the one promise on which Reagan did not deliver.
Today, we have similar economic problems, and although the Cold War is over there are serious foreign policy issues that another leader with Reagan’s abilities could help address today.
Jonah Goldberg focused on Reagan’s charisma and ability to work with those who didn’t agree with him.
“We desperately need a winner, we definitely need a happy warrior, we desperately need someone who knows how to win over people from the other party,” Goldberg said.
Goldberg pointed out that with the rise of modern media, many conservatives and pundits spend their time preaching to the choir rather than engaging with those beyond their circles.
“[Reagan] spent vast amounts of his life as a politician and an activist talking to offices that disagreed with him. Not only was that useful in terms of winning people over, it was useful for him in terms of cultivating the modes of communication that appealed to the broadest audience possible,” he said.
William Kristol observed that “Reagan always thought of himself as a movement conservative.” Kristol cited Reagan’s ambition and risk-taking nature as valuable traits.
“It was a great vindication of the conservative movement that Reagan was therefore a successful president,” he said. “One president who was unambiguously a product of the conservative movement was probably the most succesful president of the last 40 or 50 years — that’s not nothing.”
Jonah Goldberg summed up the discussion well:
“[Whether we need another Reagan] is one of these questions, the answer to it is obviously yes — we need another Ronald Reagan — and obviously no — we don’t need another Ronald Reagan. It just depends on what we’re talking about when we’re talking about Ronald Reagan.”