On Maggie's First Anniversary in Heaven

Tribute to a dog. Written by George Graham Vest - c. 1855 and voiced by Ronald Reagan in a 1964 episode of Death Valley Days.

REAGAN, TRUMP, AND THE UPSIDE OF AGE

A young Donald Trump meets President Ronald Reagan

By Michael Cook      

Much has been made of the fact that Donald Trump vanquished 16 challengers on his way to winning the 2016 Republican nomination. But scarcely anyone bothered to note at the time that Trump, aged 70, was the oldest among the many contenders.

There are plausible explanations for this inattention to Trump’s age. As a campaigner, Trump worked tirelessly, and scheduled more interviews and rallies than any of his younger rivals. Indeed, the man seemed never to sleep.

Then, too, the working press may have considered it somehow indelicate to focus on Trump’s age, given that the leading candidates for the Democrat Party’s nomination were just as old, or older.

Finally, it’s quite likely that the issue of age and the presidency had been settled several decades earlier, with the election, at age 69, of Ronald Reagan.

Perhaps it’s true: seventy is the new fifty. In any event, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump are the two oldest men ever to have won the presidency.

Reagan and Trump share another circumstantial similarity: each came to power as an outsider, and followed in the wake of a failed presidency. The hapless Jimmy Carter, who preceded Reagan, preached a doctrine of resignation in the face of crippling stagflation. Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, exhorted the nation to accept and embrace a “new normal” consisting of low workforce participation and perpetually anemic GDP growth.

Neither Carter nor Obama believed sufficiently, if at all, in the idea of American Exceptionalism. Theirs were failures of both leadership and imagination.

Ronald Reagan, the Hollywood actor, always appreciated the power of imagination. He urged his fellow citizens to think of America in the way John Winthrop described it: as “a shining city on a hill.” Countering the despair and futility of the Carter years, Reagan assured Americans that the nation’s best days lay ahead.

Donald Trump, the builder, announced his firm determination to restore American greatness. And it is fitting that a builder should succeed the president who proclaimed – in one of his few memorable utterances – that “you didn’t build that.”

President Reagan’s advanced age, much remarked upon at the time, actually proved a great benefit to the nation, owing both to his personal experiences and to the things he learned (and did not learn) as a young man.

Reagan was born in 1911, in a small apartment situated above the local bank, on the main street of Tampico, a tiny town on the Illinois prairie. Reagan’s father Jack was a salesman, and the family moved often, always renting their homes, and always living in modest circumstances.

But easily the most prosperous period of Ronald Reagan’s youth took place in Dixon, Illinois, where the family landed in 1920. Jack Reagan had become a partner in a retail venture, the Fashion Boot Shop.

In his autobiography, Ronald Reagan recalls that it was in Dixon that “I learned to admire risk takers and entrepreneurs, be they farmers or small merchants, who went to work and took risks for themselves and their children, pushing the boundaries of their lives to make them better.”

If things seemed to be looking up for the Reagan family in Dixon, so too was the nation beginning to prosper under the administration of President Calvin Coolidge. Reagan entered Dixon High School in 1924, just as Coolidge was winning election to a second term.

President Calvin Coolidge

The Coolidge years proved to be one of the most dynamic periods of innovation and economic growth in American history. Coolidge and his treasury secretary, Andrew Mellon, implemented dramatic cuts to marginal income tax rates, and the resulting economic boom produced a near 50% increase in federal tax receipts (which Coolidge and Mellon used to pay down federal debt). During the Coolidge years, inflation averaged 1.5%, and unemployment averaged 3.0%. And Calvin Coolidge, a believer in limited government, actually reduced the size of the federal workforce.

The youthful Ronald Reagan must have been paying attention. Richard Reeves, in his President Reagan: The Triumph of Imagination, notes that Reagan would, as an adult, read Coolidge’s autobiography twice. And, following his inauguration in 1981, Reagan chose to display Coolidge’s portrait in the Cabinet meeting room. Members of the press seemed puzzled by this gesture; of course, few (if any) of them were old enough to have lived through the Coolidge presidency.

Following his graduation from Dixon High School, Ronald Reagan headed off to college. His college search was limited to one school, Eureka College, located a few hours south of Dixon, and operated by the Disciples of Christ, the denomination to which Reagan and his mother Nelle belonged.

In his autobiography, Reagan explains that “Eureka… is a Greek work that means I have found it, and it described perfectly the sense of discovery I felt the day I arrived there in the fall of 1928.”

As an economics major at Eureka College, one thing that Dutch Reagan would not discover was the work of John Maynard Keynes. Keynes’ General Theory did not appear until 1936, by which time Reagan was a college graduate working in Iowa as a radio broadcaster. (Radio, by the way, was among the most important technological innovations to emerge during the Coolidge years.)

Reagan studied classical economics at Eureka College, and his understanding of how markets operate would have been informed by Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” metaphor, rather than by Lord Keynes’ prescription that government should, whenever necessary, intervene in the economy to stimulate demand and thereby eliminate periodic recessions from the business cycle. As a student, Reagan missed out on the Keynesian revolution in economic thinking, and this is significant. As FDR proved in the 1930s, and as Obama would demonstrate 80 years later, Keynesian policies tend to prolong rather than eliminate recessionary conditions.

Ronald Reagan continued to study economics throughout his lifetime. The columnist Robert Novak interviewed Reagan at the White House in 1981 for the purpose of gaining insights into Reagan’s influences. The new president cited, among others, the nineteenth century political economist Frederic Bastiat, as well as members of the Austrian School, F.A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. Novak returned to his office following the interview and, after looking up Bastiat, remarked to his partner Rowland Evans that Reagan was actually more widely-read and better educated than they were.
 
During Reagan’s so-called “wilderness years” of the late 1970s, the free market economists of the Chicago School began their remarkable Nobel Prize winning streak. Milton Friedman, the most prominent among them, worked effectively to discredit Keynesian fiscal policy, and later assessed Keynes’ influence as “wholly bad.” It was an influence Ronald Reagan managed to avoid.

Reagan was doubtless aware of the ascendency of the Chicago School and, in fact, subsequently appointed George Schultz, a former dean of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, as his secretary of state.

Having witnessed the prosperity of the 1920s, and having studied economics in college prior to the advent of Keynesian theory, Ronald Reagan assumed the office of president particularly well-equipped to govern, in the 1980s, in such a way as to re-create the tremendous and sustained economic growth last experienced during the administration of Calvin Coolidge.

In 1946 Ronald Reagan was 35 years old and a major box office attraction in Hollywood. Across the country in New York City, Donald Trump was born into comfortable circumstances. His father Fred developed housing in the borough of Queens, where Donald grew up.

After attending a military boarding school, Trump enrolled in college – first at Fordham and then at Penn – to study business. He graduated from Penn’s Wharton School of Finance in 1968.

Whatever brand of economics Trump may have studied in college, it is probable that most of his training took place within the classroom of his father’s business, against the backdrop of New York City’s rough and tumble real estate market. But this much is certain: as a young man starting out in the business world, Donald Trump witnessed at first hand the calamitous circumstances of the New York City financial crisis of the mid-1970s.

Soon thereafter, in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the nation turned to Jimmy Carter, who promised to restore honesty and integrity to the presidency. Unfortunately, Carter appeared ill-equipped to deal with an ever-worsening economy – one that was characterized by runaway inflation, extremely high borrowing rates, stagnant growth, and severe energy shortages. In response to these miserable conditions, Carter admonished Americans to turn down their thermostats in winter, put on sweaters, and get used to lower living standards.

Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress began to attach tax reduction amendments to every new piece of legislation. All of these amendments (known as Kemp-Roth) were effectively killed until, in October of 1978, a bill that included one such amendment finally passed both houses of Congress. As Brian Domitrovic recounts in his history of the supply-side movement, Econoclasts, President Carter cancelled a weekend trip to Camp David in order to veto the legislation – thus precluding, in Domitrovic’s view, any chance of an economic recovery and any chance of Carter’s re-election in 1980.

Donald Trump celebrated his 30th birthday just a few months prior to Carter’s election in 1976. As someone whose business, real estate development, is especially sensitive to interest rates and the cost of capital, the mid- to late-1970s could not have been, for Trump, a period that inspired much confidence in government. It is therefore likely that Trump would have taken special note, in January of 1981, of a particular passage in Ronald Reagan’s inaugural address: “In the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

By 1986, Ronald Reagan had fully-implemented his supply-side program of tax cuts and regulatory relief, and Donald Trump, now aged 40, was both observing and participating in the tremendous economic expansion that Reaganomics engendered. But the view from his office window in Trump Tower troubled him. For six long years, New York City’s municipal government had been engaged in a seemingly futile effort to rebuild Central Park’s Wollman skating rink. With no end in sight, Trump issued a challenge to Mayor Ed Koch: Let me take over this project. I’ll complete it in six months. Or you can wait another six years.

After a bit of wrangling, Trump assumed responsibility for completing the project. He brought it in under budget. And it took him only five months.

Donald Trump’s public comments over the next 30 years would often point to what he characterized as the declining status of the United States within the world community, and to the ineptitude of the government officials who were responsible for America’s falling fortunes. When Trump at last decided to put himself forward as a candidate for president, it is clear that he took as his model the nation’s last great president, Ronald Reagan.

Recall that when Reagan challenged the incumbent president in 1980, his appeal to voters was simple and straightforward: “Let’s make America great again.” In 2016, Trump adopted Reagan’s appeal, but re-phrased it as an injunction: “Make America Great Again.” And it worked. Trump managed to re-assemble enough of the old Reagan Coalition to prevail over Hillary Clinton.

Thus far into his presidency, Donald Trump’s demeanor and tone recall the original outsider in American presidential politics, Andrew Jackson. It is obvious that Trump admires the fiery (and frequently tempestuous) Jackson, and a portrait of Old Hickory now hangs prominently in the Oval Office.

But consider for a moment what Donald Trump is actually doing as president – in terms of tax and regulatory policies, in terms of foreign affairs, and in terms of judicial appointments. All of this can be fairly and accurately characterized as Reaganesque.

In the cases of Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, our two oldest presidents, age has played a fortuitous and crucial role. This is not to suggest that age alone sufficiently determines a politician’s preparedness to lead successfully. Hillary Clinton, for example, is just as old as Donald Trump, but she appears utterly unappreciative of the achievements of the Reagan presidency. (Indeed, in 2008 she berated her primary opponent, Barack Obama, for acknowledging the obvious fact that Reagan had been a “transformative” president.) And to the extent that one can divine her political principles, Hillary Clinton’s thinking appears to have been shaped primarily by Saul Alinsky, the subject of her college thesis (and more recently, perhaps, by Willie Sutton).

Occasionally, a bold leader will emerge from outside the established political order. Such a leader will help us to recall the better moments in our history, and to honor the statesmen who so ably presided over them. As Americans, we are fortunate that Ronald Reagan came along when he did, and that he was able to remind us of the achievements of President Calvin Coolidge. Today, we are similarly fortunate to have as president a man who remembers and seeks to emulate – programmatically if not stylistically – the great statesman Ronald Reagan.


Michael Cook is a friend of this blog and lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Aiken, South Carolina.

Flashback Friday: Ronald Reagan Shares Timeless Wisdom with Johnny Carson

Remembering D-Day with Ike and Reagan

By Paul G. Kengor

Editor’s note: This piece first appeared at The American Spectator on June 6, 2011.

For me, Memorial Day happens twice within a week. The first, the official holiday at the end of May, is quickly reinforced a week later, every June 6: D-Day.

Of all the wartime anniversaries, none strike me quite like D-Day — the invasion of Normandy, the liberation of France, the final push to defeat Nazi Germany. It was June 6, 1944, a date that sticks like December 7, like July 4, like September 11. The mix of extreme sorrow and triumph has been unforgettably replicated on film by Steven Spielberg in the stunning opening of Saving Private Ryan.

What must it have been like to be among those first waves at the beaches? Indescribable, simply indescribable.

When I think of D-Day, I always think of two presidents, neither of which were president at the time: Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. What they had to say about the event was profound.

Hillsdale Forum: "Benjamin Franklin, Ronald Reagan, and the Renewal of Civil Society"

Terrence O. Moore, Professor of History at Hillsdale College, spoke on civil society at a Kirby Center forum on January 31, 2013.
 

What Reagan Thought His Kids Should Know; What Obama Thought His Kids Should Know

From American Thinker

By Ed Lasky

 

The mark of a leader is what he believes. Beliefs are the foundation of his life. This is one reason presidential biographies are so revealing and why so often they serve as guides to explain presidential actions. This is often why candidates have their lives examined -- or why they should be examined, since the principles they hold dear are talismans regarding how they will govern as presidents. What a father teaches his kids can be the distillation of the best of these beliefs -- the ones they consider the most vital, if not sacred.

I kept this in mind when reading Peggy Noonan's book on Ronald Reagan, When Character was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan and James Dean: Rare Video From 1954

From The Atlantic
By John Meroney

Today, it's an astonishing, even eerie, scene: the icon of modern American conservatism, whose rise to political prominence was galvanized by the cultural rebellion of the 1960s, fighting off an attack-at-gunpoint by the quintessential modern American rebel. But when "The Dark, Dark Hours" episode of General Electric Theater aired live from Hollywood on December 12, 1954, Ronald Reagan and James Dean were just two actors yet to find the roles that would define them.

No one has seen this episode in the decades since; the kinescope has been locked away, until now. My friend Wayne Federman, a writer for NBC's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, unearthed the broadcast, condensing it from its original 23 minutes (without commercials) into the six-minute version you see below. (Federman is planning a retrospective of Reagan's television career for next year's Reagan centennial.)

Here, Reagan is a physician, forced to defend his home and family from Dean, a teenage lawbreaker seeking medical treatment for an injured friend.

A decade before Reagan's political career took off, with a nationally televised speech supporting Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign, and months before Dean started filming Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, both of these Midwesterners seem to be rehearsing future roles—Reagan as the happy warrior who could, in a moment, turn fierce ("I am paying for this microphone, Mr. Green!") and Dean as teenage angst writ large ("You're tearing me apart!").

At the time of the broadcast, Reagan was 43. With the movie industry in recession, and his career waning, his agents had been bringing him offers to do TV shows. Like many movie actors at the time, Reagan was skittish about the small screen. But producers thought he was perfect for the anthology genre, which was still struggling to gain traction with audiences. He eventually signed on, helping produce the show, hosting it, and acting in a half-dozen dramas per season.

Less than a year after this episode aired, Reagan was a major primetime presence whom millions tuned in to see each week. Dean was a tragic, what-might-have-been figure, dead at age 24 from an automobile crash.


John Meroney is completing a book, Rehearsals for a Lead Role: Ronald Reagan in The Hollywood Wars.

A Reagan Foundation Interview with Mort Zuckerman

America's Betrayal of the Iranian Freedom Fighters

President Obama has been handed a huge opportunity to contrast the ideals of American freedom, democracy and self-determination, with the fascist terror regime ruling Iran. The freedom fighters bleeding and dying in Iran would welcome America's leadership in galvanizing world opinion and supporting an end to that tyranny. Such leadership would also make reparation for the policies of Jimmy Carter that did so much to bring the current regime to power.

Unfortunately, when Obama finally spoke, his statement was so ambivalent it was not clear whether he was condemning the violence of the government, the freedom fighters, or in his usual way, seeing moral equivalence between the mullahs and those risking their lives in the streets.

We should not be surprised. We can hardly expect one who is embarrassed by, and apologetic for America's role in the world, to understand the aspirations of young freedom fighters in Tehran. Obama's indifference to their struggle was even too much for members of his own party in Congress, which has passed a resolution supporting the freedom fighters.

In the following article, Paul Kengor contrasts the ambivalence of the current administration with President Reagan's support for freedom-loving insurgents around the world.

From American Thinker
By Paul Kengor

I frequently get asked how Ronald Reagan would react to certain situations. I've gotten those questions a lot lately given the penchant for central planning by the new team Americans elected in Washington.

But nowhere is there a Reagan lesson that needs heeded as desperately as in Iran right now. The desperation is more apparent daily as President Obama doesn't seem to recognize -- or doesn't know how to support -- the huge historical opportunity before his eyes, and quickly slipping through his fingers.

What would be Reagan's reaction to what's happening in Iran? That's a slam-dunk: He would have responded as he did to every cry for freedom suffocating under the last global scourge America battled -- Soviet communism. Wherever those resisting the despots resided and raised their voices, in Afghanistan, in Nicaragua, in Poland, Reagan was consistent, never missing the opportunity, always staying on theme. He called these people "freedom fighters."

He did so unequivocally, boldly, proudly, loudly, with the left often trashing him and undermining him, contesting whether this or that group met their criteria as legitimate "freedom" fighters. Reagan was undeterred. He recognized the historical imperative, what he called the March of Freedom. The freedom marchers needed America and its president to urge them on.

The total Reagan statements promoting these freedom fighters are literally uncountable. I know this well, as I collected them for research purposes. Reagan didn't simply step to the microphone to encourage these people at certain crisis moments; he called them out routinely, regularly, including in special, newly created ceremonies with names like Afghan Freedom Day, Solidarity Day, Captive Nations Week, and honoring things like "Observance of the Afghan New Year" or speaking at the annual Pulaski Day Banquet in New York City. In these statements, the president of the United States and unapologetic leader of the free world -- Reagan took that task to heart -- mercilessly blasted the tyrants with just about every name in the book.

Reagan didn't play footsies with dictators. He knew human nature. He knew evil. He knew who was wrong. He knew the dictators were bad regardless of whether we were nice. Not condemning them wouldn't make them behave better.

Read the rest of this entry >>

RONALD REAGAN'S UNSEEN PRESENCE

After nearly sixteen years of historically bad, if not treasonous, Presidential leadership, the Republican candidates for President are agreed on one thing, Americans long for the noble, valiant leadership of Ronald Reagan and his buoyant vision of the "shining city upon a hill."

We may have been betrayed by greedy multinationalists, and national leaders who have done their bidding by refusing to protect American sovereignty, borders, industries, jobs and families, but based on the campaign rhetoric, the politicians who aspire to the Presidency know that America well remembers what greatness walked among us. Let us never forget, and may we find it once again!

Were a star quenched on high,

For ages would its light,

Still travelling downward from the sky,

Shine on our mortal sight.

So, when a great man dies,

For years beyond our ken,

The light he leaves behind him lies

Upon the paths of men.

The Reagan Diaries

George Osborne's review for The Spectator