ActRight

‘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.” #ad#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 through 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. Of course, ‘they’ were wrong about Reagan. But the ‘they’ in 1980 were overwhelmingly liberal. Trump’s most important critics are overwhelmingly conservative. 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. — Jonah Goldberg is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior editor of National Review. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected], or via Twitter @JonahNRO. © 2016 Tribune Content Agency

Political insiders and operatives on Twitter are buzzing about new rumors concerning Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). This news comes just after the 12th Republican debate which was hosted on CNN, …

In Finland there is no minimum wage, yet its citizens are still able to make a living wage. Music: Hi-Tech Background Theme - FREE Instrumental Background Mu...

Things got heated Thursday evening when Ted Cruz communications director Alice Stewart confronted Donald Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson over the billionaire's recent attacks on Heidi Cruz. Stewart said that Cruz denounced a controversial ad featuring Melania Trump "the moment" it was "brought to his attention" and noted it...

State governance would proceed more smoothly if leaders focused on getting the basic job done before taking on elaborate special projects.

Mark Levin said tonight on his radio show that he fears we are going to get blown out in the general election because a lot of what is going on in the primary is turning people off and it just isn&…

National advocacy groups are encouraging mosques to turn themselves into voter registration centers before the November election so that Muslims can make their voices heard at the polls.

"We have to be a people of principles," the conservative commentator added.

"Donald, you're a sniveling coward and leave Heidi the hell alone."

Soon after Hillary Clinton's arrival at the State Department in 2009, officials in the information technology office were baffled when told that a young technician would join them as a political appointee, newly disclosed emails show.

They succeeded where Occupy Wall Street failed.

Conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos continued his in-your-face crusade in support of free speech in a new interview on “The Rubin Report” — and if you’re easily offended, this would be a good time to walk away. The openly gay journalist discussed the terror attacks in Brussels, Donald Trump,...

Barack Obama told an audience of Argentinian youths there really was not a big difference between capitalism, socialism and communism ...

'Civil society': not the sexiest concept, but indispensable nonetheless.

As last fall's wave of student protests arrived in Durham, North Carolina, a self-described “group of unaffiliated and concerned students” presented the “Demands of Black...

[More in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.] On the 16 March 2016 edition of CNN's New Day, Chris Cuomo revealed that he was wearing his father's guayabera shirt, which was "given to him by Fidel Castro as a gift." Cuomo,...

I’m sick of all the emasculated politicians declaring “We stand against terror” while the world erupts in a useless hashtag campaingn.

There are policy, class, and social fissures in the GOP, but the real divide is one of mood: Aspiration Republican vs. Resentment Republicans.

It pains me at times to watch cable news. I say pain because there are people who routinely show up and who are likely making six figures. That's great for them. Capitalism is a wonderful thing.

On Thursday, Fox News's Charles Payne asked Ben Carson about the ongoing feud between Donald Trump, who Carson has endorsed, and Ted Cruz, over Cruz's wife. Carson said, there's plenty of sleaze in the political world, and people have come to accept that, though he hopes to help change that. Payne asked Carson about a tweet Trump re-tweeted that insulted Cruz's wife. @Don_Vito_08: A picture is worth a thousand words @realDonaldTrump #LyingTed #NeverCruz @MELANIATRUMP pic.twitter.com/5bvVEwMVF8— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2016

"So how many other HRod emails from before March 18, 2009 were deleted?"

Ted Cruz is ripping Trump for his attacks on Heidi Cruz today in a press conference at Dane Manufacturing in Dane, Wisconsin, according to multiple reports on Twitter: UPDATE: Here’s video of…

While discussing how to handle Islamic jihadist terrorism, political commentator Rula Jebreal claimed "white people" cannot understand Islamic culture. As a guest on "CNN Tonight" with Don Lemon o

You are NOT a Racist for Doing These Things