OK. So don't support them.
Who are you going to support? Libertarians? Randians?
Good luck with that.
Ronald Reagan grew government and piled on debt. I guess you hated him too.
Conservatives', particularly "pure" conservatives', views on Reagan always surprise, and depress, me. Ronald Reagan was not the "pure conservative" so many want to make him out to be. He was a pragmatic conservative who understood the art of compromise, something that is sorely lacking in almost every republican politician today, moderate, middle of the road, or conservative. But don't take my word for it, here are some others who've made similar remarks:
Commentary: Ronald Reagan and the Art of Compromise
By Dan Morain
The Sacramento Bee
July 12, 2012
There's a move afoot to place a statue inside the Capitol honoring Ronald Reagan, the most consequential politician ever to come from this state and the only California governor to become president. It's a great idea, so long as it teaches a lesson about the vanishing art of compromise.
Sacramento public affairs consultant Doug Elmets, who worked in the Reagan White House, proposed putting the monument in the building where Reagan's political career began. Elmets laments the hardened stands of politicians, particularly in his Republican Party. An honest look at Reagan might help Republicans and Democrats tear down those walls. "Where has the civility gone?" Elmets asked. "Regardless of your political views, you cannot deny that Ronald Reagan was one of the most politically transformative – and collaborative – figures in recent history."
Reagan campaigned against "welfare bums." But as governor, he sat down with one of the most influential Democrats of the time, Assembly Speaker Bob Moretti, and overhauled welfare. He ran to the right, but signed legislation allowing no-fault divorce and "therapeutic abortions." He denounced the size of government, but pushed for the largest tax increase ever enacted in this state up to that point. In March 1967, Gov. Reagan pondered whether he would sign a bill authorizing income tax withholding from workers' paychecks. "I suppose if I were held with a hot iron to my feet and bound hand and foot," he told reporters. "Every man has his breaking point." The following day, this headline appeared in The Bee: "Governor seeks $946 million more in tax increases." Taxes on income, corporate profits, booze and cigarettes all went up. Reagan called it a "regrettable necessity."
Former Gov. George Deukmejian was the freshman Republican state senator who carried tax legislation that Reagan signed in 1967. "He was very pragmatic, very pragmatic," Deukmejian told me this week. "He set a tone that spelled out what he felt would be the best type of government. But he was willing to listen to all the arguments and try to work things out. Solutions sometimes involve compromise."
Assemblyman Curt Hagman, R-Chino Hills, is carrying Assembly Bill 2358 to authorize the statue. In keeping with the views of the politician who complained about government spending, the statue would be privately funded. The Assembly approved the bill 61-0, and it cleared its first Senate committee on a 12-0 vote.
Gov. Jerry Brown was stepping into a Capitol elevator when I asked him about the concept of a statue of the man who unseated his father. "I want to see what other governors are similarly respected. What about Hiram Johnson? Is he in the park?" Brown asked, noncommittal, knowing there is no such tribute to the Progressive-era governor. Nor is there a statue of Earl Warren, the governor who became U.S. chief justice.
As governor, Reagan made some terrible decisions, like emptying state hospitals without making sure counties had money to pay for mentally ill people who had no place to live but on the streets. In the process, he made deals. John Quimby, an assemblyman from San Bernardino when Reagan was governor, recalled the night he and few other legislators had drinks with "Ronnie" in the basement of his Sacramento home, and started shooting pool. Quimby, intent on saving Patton State Hospital in his district, made a wager on the outcome of the pool game, and won. Patton remains open; Mendocino State Hospital was shut long ago. I suppose there are worse ways to make decisions. "He was a great one to socialize with," Quimby said.
Republicans who were children when Reagan was president buy into the myth that he was a rock-solid conservative, and politicians who are old enough to know better perpetuate the myth. No less a figure than former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush recently poked at some so-called conservatives by musing that Reagan, like his father, George H.W. Bush, would have a hard time navigating Republican politics today, given that they had a history of compromise. "Some of the things he did when he first became governor would make it difficult for him to be elected today," said John Herrington, who was among Gov. Reagan's political aides and became energy secretary during his presidency.
As governor, Reagan famously declared he was so opposed to withholding income taxes from workers' paychecks that his feet were in concrete. When he compromised with Democrats not long afterward, he quipped that the concrete was cracking. Of course, Californians should construct a great statue in Gov. Reagan's honor. But the legend should be leavened with facts. Perhaps the sculptor could place Reagan's feet in cracked concrete.
Richard Grant at Forbes magazine has a similar article. Although it stresses that Reagan did not value compromise for the sake of compromise, it does point out that he was willing to compromise on a lesser value in order to protect a greater value:
How Reagan was Compromised. One of the things the article also stresses - something that demonstrates the fecklessness of today's so-called "moderates" such as McCain and Graham, is that for Reagan compromise was a two-way street - he wouldn't compromise unless the other side made similar compromises - and he also refused to let bygones be bygones when the other side reneged on a promised compromise. That is, he had a backbone.
For a view of Reagan and the art of compromise in ending the Cold War, there are these pages from John Prados,
How the Cold War Ended: debating and doing history. Mind you, Mr. Prados is left of center, so one may want to discount this source.
Another interesting source, which I will only link to because (a) it's too long to quote in full, and (b) it focuses on the broader issue of politics as the art of compromise and only uses Reagan as an example in several sections:
Politics as the Art of Confined Compromise. Two points on this article are in order:
(1) this article is maintained on the Cato Institute's website, so it isn't a liberal or leftist article, and
(2) it makes the further point that while the core skill of politics is compromise, the most skillful politicians are able to work that skill fully while still maintaining the appearance of being more ideologically committed than pragmatic. Why do I bring this up? Because, as the article makes clear, Reagan was a tremendously skillful politician who was very adept at appearing to be more ideologically committed than he in fact was. Why does this matter? Because a politician who appears to the voters to be too willing or ready to compromise often ends up being seen as wishy-washy and unappealing to voters, and thus often ends up losing despite the fact that he or she is just as skillful at the art of compromise.
The article illustrates this point by comparing and contrasting Reagan to Bush I. Bush I made the no new taxes promise and then, for very sensible, pragamtic reasons, made a compromise; however, because he wasn't able to preserve his appearance of being ideologically committed, he ended up losing his bid for re-election, in large part because of that broken promise. Reagan made just as many compromises, but was adept enough at maintaining his image that he was re-elected, despite those compromises.
You, the reader, can make of that whatever you wish.
What should be kept in mind, however, is that Reagan was, in fact, a conservative, and he did, in fact, manage to accomplish all or part of many conservative goals. As the first article above from the Sacramento Bee makes clear, Reagan was without any doubt one of the most transformative presidents in recent history. As such, Reagan must be seen as a pre-eminent, and pre-eminently, pragmatic conservative: one who holds conservative views and values, but knows the relative value of each and is not afraid to compromise on a lesser value in order to achieve a greater value.
That is what made Reagan great: not just his conservativism, but his pragmatism; that is, his skillful, adept practice of the art of compromise or, in a word, politics.
And that is what makes today's republicans/conservatives - both the spineless moderates as well as the sterile conservatives - so trivial and meaningless: the utter lack of any skill at the art of compromise or, in a word, politics.
