Has anyone else noticed the irksome tendency among progressives to invoke the memory of Ronald Reagan as a last-ditch argument for their policy prescriptions? Usually this involves the pseudo-clever, contrarian Chomsky tactic of taking a piece of accepted knowledge and, as Marx did to Hegel, turning it on its head. (“You think water is made of hydrogen and oxygen? Ha ha, it’s actually made of sulfur!”)
This usually takes the form of the phrase “even Ronald Reagan” followed by a left-wing policy. For example: “Even Ronald Reagan raised the debt ceiling!” Do you remember hearing that one?
I’ve also heard: “We should leave Afghanistan! Even Ronald Reagan left Lebanon!”
Now we’re told that Reagan was a Keynesian. Paul Krugman, the dirigiste-in-residence at the New York Times, writes:
“Reagan, not Obama, was the big spender. While there was a brief burst of government spending early in the Obama administration — mainly for emergency aid programs like unemployment insurance and food stamps — that burst is long past. Indeed, at this point, government spending is falling fast, with real per capita spending falling over the past year at a rate not seen since the demobilization that followed the Korean War.
Why was government spending much stronger under Reagan than in the current slump? ‘Weaponized Keynesianism’ — Reagan’s big military buildup — played some role. But the big difference was real per capita spending at the state and local level, which continued to rise under Reagan but has fallen significantly this time around.”
I suppose Krugman will now have to go back and revise all of his old columns in which he derisively mentions “trickle down economics,” a synonym for the Reagan administration among the Left. Hasn’t he spent the last decade whining about how the Reagan years were a time of mass austerity and inequality?
Progressives invoke Reagan for several reasons:
(1) They have no intellectual or political legacy of their own to invoke. (Jimmy Carter? George McGovern? Walter Mondale?)
(2) Progressives know that a whole lot of Americans loved and still love Reagan; this is an implicit admission that their own ideology is not popular outside of editorial offices and Ivy League lecture halls. Thus they must cite a figure that people actually liked as opposed to failed social engineers.
(3) Progressivism is not based on an actual coherent philosophy. You might disagree with conservatives and libertarians, but they at least have an intellectual and philosophical lineage with which you can grapple and debate. Conservatives cite Burke, Hayek, and Milton Friedman. Whom do liberals cite? When was the last time you heard a John Dewey reference in a syndicated column? Absent this respectable pedigree, progressives must, like parasites, graft their ideas onto conservative figures in order to appear valid.
Even Tip O’Neill passed a budget for Reagan to sign.
Saying “Reagan did that too” is only one tactic within a larger strategy that is actually very useful to conservatives. It’s the same argument as the MarketWatch thing that came out saying that Obama had limited the growth of government and was some sort of fiscal hawk. If you’re willing to overlook the inaccuracies with that little infographic, or the many problems of comparing Reagan to Obama, you find a very entertaining and useful gem.
They’re trying to convince us that their guy is more conservative than ours.
Be it Romney, or Bush, or Reagan, the point is that Obama is actually fiscally responsible and will be better for the budget deficit than Romney or whoever else they want to compare him to.
If you’re willing to ignore the obvious bait, you can easily sidestep and respond, “Oh good, you agree that we need to limit government spending.” Right now, they’re just using these comparisons to try to discourage conservatives that our candidates aren’t really conservative, but, to do so, they have to tacitly acknowledge the fiscal preconceptions of conservatism. If you are succesful in making them reexamine what they said, and show them that they support decreasing government spending, you will have done far more good than defending the good name of the Gipper.
And even if it doesn’t work, its still pretty funny that they don’t even think they can convince people that their viewpoints are right.
The real reason for this is to characterize the Conservative movement as extreme. “They have become so extreme, Reagan could not get their nomination today.”
So, they distort Reagan’s record, misrepresent it to seem like it matched their views, then call the Right hypocritical and extreme. It’s not about making their views valid, at all. It’s about making the Right not valid.
They are destroyers. They do not build anything. They tear down everything. There is nothing so pure, that they will not sully it with their filthy hands.
“We have no solutions of our own. We just do not like your solutions.”… you crazy, rightwing nutcase!
You’re right, Marc, and I realize that, but there *is* a not inconsiderable degree of validation they’re seeking by attaching their ideas to conservatives. It’s not all for making the Right appear extremist. They do it with the Founders, too, attempting to portray them as progs. Both approaches work for them. Both are equally horrendous.
– how’s Enron?