Reagan, Roosevelt, Rushmore
Gregory Fossedal
June 9, 2004
Copyright © United Press
International
WALL STREET -- You could probably pick many places around the country to talk to people about the presidency of Ronald Reagan, from Peoria to California to the home of the global chattering class in Washington, DC.
But here on Cortlandt Street seems a fitting spot. Here, in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville disembarked for his discovery of "Democracy in America." Here, at the offices of The Wall Street Journal, Robert Bartley and Jude Wanniski re-invented classical economics as "supply-side" in the 1970s -- an approach that Reagan the populist adopted and implemented in the 1980s.
A few blocks away, trillions of dollars in wealth are exchanged every day. Investors not only have opinions about political forces and trends -- but will make money if they're right, and lose it if they're wrong.
In recent years and in the days after he passed away, Ronald Reagan has been the object of a surprising degree of credit-giving. And not just from his political friends -- but from politicians and pundits like Ted Kennedy, Peter Jennings, Joseph Biden, Judy Woodruff, and Mara Liasson.
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Reagan and Roosevelt, together, on Mount Rushmore? The answer here on Wall Street -- admittedly, at a time of a gush of national feeling over Mr. Reagan -- is a relatively solid "yes."
"FDR was a war president, and he came after the Great Depression" says Pete, a fund manager, wearing a pin-stripe that appears crisp even in this week's oppressive New York City heat. "I love Reagan and I prefer his philosophy, but you can't put him in the same league."
"What, Idunno," answers Franklin -- "it's Franklin, not Frank," he specifies -- an apparent Reagan Democrat in rumpled blue shorts. Franklin pauses from making a delivery to chat. "Reagan took the Soviets down without firing a shot. To me that's better."
"That's true," offers an attractive but nervous young lady who prefers not to give out a first name. "And maybe it wasn't the Great Depression in 1980, but it was pretty close."
She's clearly not old enough to remember first-hand, but correct. A Time magazine cover wondered if U.S. inflation would ever go below 10 percent again. Double-digit unemployment and credit-card-like interest rates on long-term Treasuries pushed Jimmy Carter's "misery index" to near-1932 levels.
Political change? Reagan, unlike FDR, didn't get elected four times. But he wasn't allowed to try. Anyway, he did the job more quickly. Likewise, Reagan didn't quite get control of both houses of Congress -- but he came close, and laid the groundwork for the man who did, Newt Gingrich. Gingrich once listed the three main causes of his 1994 coup as: "Reagan, Reagan, and Reagan."
A construction guy, Mike, comments: "Reagan and FDR, yeah, they both belong up there. And if somebody says they can't do it, you tell 'em to call me."
How does one explain the remarkable shift in conventional wisdom from the time Reagan left office as "the great communicator" -- a belittling phrase suggesting he was merely smooth and good at delivering speeches -- to the widespread (and deserved) respect he enjoys today?
Jeffrey Bell, a founder of what is now the Manhattan Institute and long-time advisor to and observer of Reagan, offered his perspective. "I think it's a matter of distance," Bell said in a telephone interview. "As you get farther from a president, things come into perspective."
This is true, but, it seems to me, does not explain the turnaround.
One certainly can't give credit to those who wrote books about the man, from the understandably-miffed Donald Regan to apostate David Stockman, to Reagan's official biographer, Edmund Morris -- who, alas, failed the main test of an historian, not understanding his subject.
Ironically, Reagan's own memoir probably had an impact -- so much for the man's superficiality as a mere "former actor." So did George Shultz's surprisingly populist recollection of the Reagan foreign policy. Books by Dinesh D'Souza and Martin Andersen, questioning the "amiable dunce" view of Reagan, helped as well, as did Mr. Bell's periodic articles on Reagan for The Wall Street Journal.
Most important, in my view, have been works of historians at the Hoover Library, who have in recent years made clear to the world that -- c'est incredible -- Reagan was a deeply reflective man who wrote most of his own material, and gave as good as he got in taking ideas from the best and the brightest, from Jack Kemp to John Lenzowski. Not to mention shaping ideas of his own, and then patiently waiting for his advisors to grasp the vision and implement them.
Fortunately, though, textbooks and even serious history books are lagging indicators. The daily press, and more important still, events -- these are the things that have brought Reagan's reputation in the national mind to the place it enjoys, and merits, today. In my mind, there are two factors here.
One is Bill Clinton -- along with his chief nemesis, Newt Gingrich. "Only Nixon could go to China," as they say. And only a populist Democrat, like Clinton, could implement an incentive-based welfare reform. This followed the unforunate presidency of George Bush 41, whose personnel director opened a 1989 meeting of administration laiasons by asking the departments to outline how they were progressing at "getting rid of the Reaganites."
Welfare reform, like much that Clinton did -- cutting tax rates on investment, and, as well, actually reducing government spending -- not only achieved some of the goals that Reagan had been unable to in two short terms, and with the necessity of large defense expenditures. It also helped cement the fact that, as Mr. Clinton put it, "the era of big government is over." Much as the Eisenhower 1950s confirmed the New Deal, to cogent complaints from National Review, so Clinton provided a perhaps inadvertant second to Reagan's supply-side vision, to the discomfit of some of his allies.
Clinton's foreign policy, likewise, took a notion once ridiculed by most Democrats and many neoconservatives alike -- that the U.S. could tangibly contribute to the spread of democracy world-wide -- and cemented it into a reality, largely accepted by both parties. At the time Reagan advanced the notion, most intellectuals, including seasoned Reaganites -- George Will, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger --were deeply skeptical of its application. Younger ones -- Fareed Zakaria, David Frum, David Brock -- questioned the whole design as a dubious crusade.
This points to the second factor that lifts Reagan, like FDR, to a separate level in the presidential discussion. He not only made profound changes, and produced visibly good results. He did so against a near-monolithic conventional wisdom that it couldn't be done. Paul Taylor Kennedy's book on U.S. decline comes to mind, as do others on "the coming stock market crash."
Everybody knew -- especially really smart people -- that the "Evil Empire" speech was a joke. "You can't change the Soviet system" was a mantra repeated so often that it's hard to attribute to the original author. Reagan bested his political opponents, and changed the world for the better. He also proved, well, smarter than the intellectuals of his day. He implemented policies they said would bring disaster -- and instead, they not only worked, but accomplished what was regarded as the impossible.
Intellectuals are often, contrary to the spirit of intellectualism, more stubborn than regular folks about rethinking their position in light of new evidence. For this very reason, the zeitgeist shift over Ronald Reagan in recent years is heartening, not only as a matter of justice to him, but as an indicator that even brilliant thinkers can adjust their thinking -- and even admit it.
1932 and 1980. Economic collapse, a crisis in confidence. In response, a "dangerous experiment," and a "riverboat gamble."
1932 and 1980. Fascism rising, Communism advancing. The "national interest"? America first? Yes, two great presidents answered -- by being true, in the words of Henry Luce, to the spirit of America, "democracy -- a spirit of liberty and of enterprise and of high resolve."
As co-author of what is now the Democratic Century, Reagan deserves to be remembered in a breath with FDR. And yes, to my friends on the right -- Roosevelt should be remembered with Reagan.
Reagan, Roosevelt, and Rushmore: A fitting rendesvous.
(Gregory Fossedal is a research fellow at the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, which studies the extension and perfection of democracy. He is the author of "The Democratic Imperative" and "Our Finest Hour," and co-author, with the late Terry Dolan, of "Reagan -- A President Succeeds." He served as an independent consultant and advisor to the Reagan White House on strategic defense and global democracy in the 1980s.
