I published this several years ago:
Understanding Reagan
Reading Norman Podhoretz on Ronald Reagan, one is impressed with the lack of fundamental sympathy for the position of the man. It is actually rather painful. He relates an anecdote about a meeting in 1980 between the candidate and a gaggle of intellectuals, disaffected anti- Communist Democrats, most still regarding themselves as social democrats. Reagan had been given the task of winning them over. Rather than selling the virtues of a strong defense , which they are presumed to agree with, he extols the utility of public- private partnership. Rather than try to convince them that he was strong enough on Communism, when most intellectuals regarded him as a war monger, he tries to impress them with his geniality and grasp of domestic policy. And Mr. Podhoretz, rather than understanding why Reagan might take such a tack, right or wrong, wonders at his performance, characterizing it as "wildly irrelevant" and "baby talk". Of course, in the end he condescends to give Reagan the benefit of the doubt (perhaps he was inadequately briefed). Still, he finds many of Reagan's actions similarly incomprehensible, decides that he is far more of a "conventional politician" than had been assumed, and finds him a somewhat mysterious person.
Intellectuals generally do not understand much about politics, even those whose interests are primarily political. It is not their bailiwick. The whole business of gaining popular support, forging coalitions, trading votes, and having to make quick decisions in the fog of battle is foreign to them. Often it seems sordid, a business of pandering, compromise, and trimming. Of course, for a politician to promote his cause, he must win, or at least gain yards in the larger scrimmage of politics. It is up to him to choose the principal members of his staff, make the large strategic decisions, and lead the charge. After that, he must rely upon his lieutenants and allies to do their part.
Ronald Reagan understood that, at the end of the day, he was being paid for his judgment, and for his ability to lead. He knew how to set a legislative agenda, and get a good portion of it passed. He knew how to get our NATO allies to allow the placement of intermediate range missiles, despite a massive European anti-nuclear movement. He knew how to get liberals like Steve Solarz aboard in support of the dubious Afghan insurgents, and how to keep conservative support despite his willingness to negotiate with Gorbachev. In short, he was a statesman, someone with a sense of the historical moment and his role within it.
Although Bill Clinton is often referred to as a great politician, he is in fact feckless, except when campaigning. His first term was a disaster, a catalogue of managerial failure and political misstep that led to the Republican ascendancy within Congress and in the states. With the advice of Dick Morris, and a large campaign war chest, he recovered his position and managed to win re- election. He squandered most of his political capital by the succession of scandals that has plagued his administration, and his continual need to play defense. He is the conventional politician, the mere careerist, who succeeds through a protean cunning. Reagan accomplished more in his first two years than Clinton will have accomplished in two terms.
One reason for this is that Reagan knew that he could not accomplish everything, and that he must pick his battles wisely. He also knew that one inevitably makes mistakes, in the course of trying to anticipate and influence the flow of events, and that mistakes need not be fatal. Battles may be lost, but if the general trend is correct, the war will be won. He understood what many conservatives do not, that even the "Movement" is a coalition among social conservatives, libertarians, neo-conservatives, and plain vanilla economic conservatives. He understood that the Republican party was an even broader coalition, including "country club Republicans", ex- Dixiecrats, "cloth coat Republicans" from the Midwest, "gypsy moths" from the Northeast, and rabble- rousing Western insurgents. Some were conservative, some moderate, a few even liberal: they needed to be held together, insofar as possible, and to reach out to Democrats and independents. Among the Reagan Democrats were neo-conservative policy wonks, Southern evangelicals, and Northern urban Catholics. In short, he understood that politics is not about trumping arguments, but mobilizing support and getting votes from disparate, and sometimes mutually antagonistic, groups.
But that is not all. With the House firmly in the hands of Democrats, and the Senate passing back and forth by slim majorities, Reagan needed to achieve a reasonable amount of cooperation with the Democrats, sometimes through charm, sometimes through compromise, and sometimes by playing hardball. Only an equally masterful politician is in much of a position to second guess his tactics on any given issue. Similarly, he needed to re- energize the NATO alliance, in the face of growing neutralist sentiment and a certain doubt about his fitness among many of our allies. For this reason, he had to reassure as well as challenge, and belie the image of a reckless cowboy that had been widely promoted by his enemies. He needed to win over some who were not natural allies, as in the Congress.
Reagan was intelligent enough, but more importantly he had the instincts and experience which develop political talent. Had he been more ideologically truculent, he would have lost his effectiveness, and the gains in economic and geopolitical restructuring that he bequeathed us might not have come about. Had he been less driven by the twin goals of reducing the burden of government, and rolling back the Soviet advance, he would have accomplished little except his own self- aggrandizement, like Bill Clinton.
History is messy, and not subject to laboratory conditions. It is difficult to establish clear lines of causality. However, liberals predicted that Reagan would exacerbate tensions with the Soviet Union, and provoke them into more aggressive behavior. Conservative critics thought that he was going soft on the Soviets, thus strengthening the hand of the Communists, and once again emboldening them to attempt foreign adventures, and to try to corrupt NATO. Neither set of critics came near to being correct. Indeed, some conservatives are as adamant as any liberal that Reagan was merely lucky to come up against Gorbachev. The fact that virtually no one anticipated the fall of the Soviet Union within our lifetime except Reagan , and that he was right, has made little impression upon them.
Reagan's supposed fecklessness in Reykjavik, criticized by liberals for blowing a deal on nuclear disarmament, and by conservatives for allowing the issue of disarmament onto the table, was a particularly masterful stroke. By making SDI the deal breaker, he increased public support for missile defense, and scared the Soviets badly. For the first time, they truly took seriously the possibility that we would outspend them on missile defense, and permanently alter the balance of power. That was the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union.
Similarly, the liberals predicted that the bill for Reaganomics would come due in the '90's, and Democrats scared the electorate over a relatively mild recession in the last couple of years of the Bush administration. Well, the '90's came, and have been even more prosperous then the '80's. All of that restructuring, those junk- bond financed start-ups, those leveraged buy outs, those predatory take- overs, those deregulations and tax- abatements that were supposed to lead to a new age of the robber baron, create an even greater gulf between have and have- not, and remand all but the most educated to a life of burger flipping, has instead lead to an economic boom that Clinton, notwithstanding his programmatic sterility, insists on taking credit for. (The next thing you know, he'll take credit for the end of the Cold War).
The most serious black mark against the administration, the Iran- Contra Affair, was not as bad as has been asserted. Reagan honestly thought that he was strengthening the hand of supposed moderates in the Iranian regime, who might then persuade the regime to use its influence with the terrorists. He did not think of himself as trading arms for hostages, since he did not think of himself as dealing with those responsible. He finally was brought to see that by selling arms to the regime in order to influence the outcome, he might very well motivate the sponsors of terrorism to support more hostage taking, in order to gain more leverage. Thus, in effect, he was violating the principal of refusing to negotiate with such people. He failed to see this in the first place because he was used to thinking that he could "work" difficult situations politically---in other words, his own political success mislead him in this case. As for funding the contras, no President has accepted limitations on foreign policy of the sort the Boland amendment attempted, and Reagan felt that he had a moral obligation not to abandon the Contras while litigating the matter, so he used a slippery expedient to get around it. Actually, the diversion of profits from the arms sales to the Contras is the most defensible part of the business, as defensible as FDR's nonsense about Lend- Lease.
More broadly, Reagan was also a great force in American culture . He recalled to Americans, after the turmoil of the Sixties and the cynicism of the Seventies, after Watergate, the hostage crisis, and the selling of declinism, their best ideals and aspirations, and energized them to step forward once again, confident that America could renew itself and meet the challenges of the times. He made people feel the noble sweep of our nation's history, and to feel, as he did, the call of destiny. It has been said that character is destiny, and he expressed the American character, which had led us to victory in the Second World War, and to the noblest peace mankind had ever seen. He told us of an America that had fought at Normandy, and rebuilt Europe, and kept the tyranny of Communism at bay; an America constantly struggling to live up to its ideals, but also one that has ideals of political freedom and human dignity to live up to. And we were encouraged, because he was there to rally us, to resist decline and renew the promise of America. There is no great mystery here, only a great man. |
