A Journal of Political Thought and Statesmanship
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VOLUME XVIII, NUMBER 1, WINTER 2018 A Journal of Political Thought and Statesmanship Charles R. Hadley Kesler: Arkes Trump’s . First Year James R. Stoner, Jr.: e End of John Marini. Free Speech Michael M. Uhlmann David P. Goldman: Bradley C.S. Condi Rice Watson: Goes to Bureaucracy the Seashore in America Matthew Brian Allen: Continetti: e New Senate African American Pages Museum Andrew Allen C. Roberts: Guelzo: VDH on e WWIIs Gilded Age Joseph Karl Rove: Epstein: William P.G. McKinley Wodehouse A Publication of the Claremont Institute PRICE: $6.95 IN CANADA: $8.95 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Book Review by Michael A. Needham Trumping Reagan? Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle, by Jeff Flake. Random House, 160 pages, $27 The Working Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue-Collar Conservatism, by Henry Olsen. Broadside Books, 368 pages, $27.99 vidence and logic go only so far Trumpism requires conservatives to ponder licans stray from those principles, they suffer in democratic politics. To see things as the meaning of conservatism itself. electoral defeat, as in the backlash in 2008 af- Ethey are, rather than as we wish they ter George W. Bush. Flake fears the backlash were, is to recognize the importance of rheto- enator jeff flake’s history of yet to come, after four or eight years of a big- ric and myth in shaping public sentiment. In conservatism in Conscience of a Con- spending, big-government Trump Administra- the Left’s myth, the arc of progress points Sservative is familiar: Barry Goldwater tion disdainful of conservative principle. toward justice not yet attained. Progressiv- offered renewal to an intimidated, marginal- For all that, Flake is an unlikely Goldwa- ism deprecates the idea that justice is already ized Republican Party. Instead of being the terite. A conservative House member from inherent in our system in favor of the better tax collector for the Democrats’ welfare state, Arizona who led the successful campaign future’s truly just polity, which liberals are the party could offer a libertarian alternative against earmarks, Flake made a sharp pivot forging. As opponents of this myth, conserva- to the big-government status quo. Sixteen to the politics of bien pensant respectability tives defend not merely our own preferences years later, after all the votes were counted, upon election to the Senate in 2012. In recent but the republic itself. as George Will quipped, Goldwater’s 1964 years, he has seemed more devoted to scoring Conservatism’s counter-narrative centers campaign was ultimately victorious via Rea- media points by reaching out to Democrats on the Barry Goldwater-Ronald Reagan legacy, gan’s election in 1980. The principles of limit- than to advancing libertarianism. In Octo- a realignment that repudiates progressivism ed government and economic freedom fueled ber, he announced his retirement from the in favor of timeless constitutional principles. not only his campaign but also the modern Senate with a showy speech denouncing the Conservatism’s success depends, therefore, on conservative movement. This revolutionary president. that narrative’s resonance. Is the Goldwater- movement advocated extremism in defense Reagan myth, in essence, true? Does it speak of liberty, which the country embraced on onscience of a conservative con- to our present moment? Does conveying it re- the rare occasions the GOP offered a choice, veniently follows in this vein, bemoan- quire altering its finer points? And how does it not an echo. Because conservatism remains a Cing all manner of liberal bogeymen. account for Donald Trump? movement of timeless ideas, its time has not But Flake knows well that America’s elites, Two recent books offer different answers to yet come and gone. now his primary audience, will not merely tol- these questions about the meaning of Trump Subsequent events have only underscored erate but embrace some renditions of liberty: and conservatism. The authors’ competing ap- the original lesson, Flake argues. When Re- mass immigration understood as a univer- proaches show that the choice of embracing publicans stand for conservative principles, sal quasi-right, and the free trade orthodoxy or rejecting Trump will shape conservatism’s they win hearts, minds, and elections: the that Donald Trump attacked in 2016. Thus, future course, but also the interpretation of White House in 1980; the House of Represen- the free flow of labor and goods plays an out- its past. Deciding how to regard Trump and tatives in 1994 and 2010. And when Repub- sized role in Flake’s account of the essence of Claremont Review of Books w Winter 2018 Page 15 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm conservatism, standing in for a more broadly Reagan in his revisionist history, The Working his 1964 “Time for Choosing” speech Reagan libertarian agenda. Trump’s protectionism, Class Republican. Many movement conserva- claimed, “We’re for a provision that destitu- Flake tells us, is of a piece with his general tives would regard this as a distinction with- tion should not follow unemployment by rea- openness to big government. This argument out a difference. To the contrary, says Olsen: son of old age, and to that end we’ve accepted reduces the fight against big government to Reagan’s conservatism succeeded because he Social Security as a step toward meeting the the defense of globalism. transcended rather than perpetuated Gold- problem.” Olsen traces similar concessions The belief that the rising tide of global GDP water’s ideas. throughout Reagan’s career, disabusing us of lifts all boats by no means defines pre-Trump Working Class Republican casts Reagan as the notion that such apostasies were outliers conservatism, but it does represent the sort a legatee not of Goldwater but of Franklin rather than fundamental beliefs. of abstraction that characterized the move- Roosevelt—a controversial, counter-intuitive ment Goldwater founded. Trumpism suc- thesis. A senior fellow at the Ethics and Pub- hese brushstrokes portray a rea- ceeded by rejecting the universal and abstract lic Policy Center, Olsen disputes what “ev- ganism that rejects more than it affirms for the particular and concrete: the particular erybody knows” about Reagan: that Reagan’s Tconservative orthodoxy. Rarely did communities harmed by trade; the particular conservatism was libertarian, that the essence Reagan argue that any ongoing or proposed workers losing jobs to immigrants; the eleva- of his philosophy was the reduction of gov- government intervention in the service of a tion of concrete issues like joblessness, crime, ernment’s size and scope; that he would today worthwhile goal was constitutionally or phil- and the opioid crisis over the abstract goal of join those who decry most of modern govern- osophically illegitimate. Moreover, his objec- shrinking government. Flake may not be an ment as unconstitutional overreach. Even “ul- tions to government programs often focused ideal representative of his brand of conserva- traconservative” readers, to use Reagan’s par- on flawed execution rather than illegitimate tism, but he is among the few in its ranks will- lance, will find it difficult to dismiss Olsen’s ends. Mostly absent and never central in Rea- ing to take on Trumpism so publicly. He is not reinterpretation of Reagan. gan’s lexicon, contra Flake, were buzzwords wrong to recognize Trumpism for what it is: Olsen makes his case by drawing atten- like “liberty.” Arguments about federalism an existential threat to a conservatism that be- tion to Reagan’s frequent departures from the were more prominent, but never as dispositive gins and ends with reducing “big” government. small-government ideology routinely ascribed considerations against some government ac- to him. For example, Reagan’s “There you go tion in the service of a legitimate need. n the broader view, conservatism is again” retort during the 1980 presidential But Olsen’s Reagan is not without prin- prudent, not defined by and limited to lib- debate set up remarks on his support for an ciples. His philosophy, embodied in Reagan’s Iertarian abstractions. Where Flake choos- alternative to Medicare that would have pro- “Creative Society” speech delivered in 1966 es Goldwater as the lodestar for American vided federal financial assistance to states to when he was running for governor of Cali- conservatism, Henry Olsen chooses Ronald establish old-age insurance programs. Even in fornia, boils down to three emphases: self- BAYLOR UNIVERSIT Y PRESS “This book deserves to be widely read, candidly discussed, and strenuously debated.” Books for Good | baylorpress.com Claremont Review of Books w Winter 2018 Page 16 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm government coupled with interpersonal ob- orking class republican will vided the most comprehensive longitudinal ligation, serving as a bulwark against central be embraced or scorned by most study yet produced of the attitudes that control; the identification and addressing ofW conservatives based or whether drove Trump’s surprise victory. As described public needs; and human dignity. they feel it carries Reagan’s openness to gov- at VoterStudyGroup.org, Olsen argues persuasively that Reagan’s ernment too far and underestimates his role conservatism is best understood in terms of in creating the anti-government image that The 2016 VOTER Survey (Views of the human concerns it addressed in his day, has animated the conservative movement the Electorate