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Ronald Reagan's 1964 Speech 'A Time for Choosing' Speaks Volumes Today

(AP Photo/File)

On Oct. 27, 1964, Ronald Reagan delivered what was perhaps the most influential and uplifting speech he’s ever given. In retrospect, it was the beginning of Reagan’s presidential campaign.

During the 1964 presidential campaign, California Republicans turned to the “Great Communicator” and asked him if he could deliver a speech on behalf of Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, who was running against then-President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Reagan’s speech, “A Time for Choosing,” wouldn’t end up helping Goldwater; instead, it set the stage for America’s future president. In the speech, the Gipper highlighted the pure authoritarianism of the elites, also known as today’s Democratic Party.

“I have spent most of my life as a Democrat. I recently have seen fit to follow another course. I believe that the issues confronting us cross party lines. Now, one side in this campaign has been telling us that the issues of this election are the maintenance of peace and prosperity. The line has been used, ‘We’ve never had it so good,'” Reagan began. “But I have an uncomfortable feeling that this prosperity isn’t something on which we can base our hopes for the future. No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income.”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Under President Joe Biden, inflation has soared, gasoline prices are through the roof, and it’s taking the average family much more to get by than it did just a couple of years ago — all while the national debt of the U.S. is currently $32 trillion, according to the Treasury Department.

Related: Are 2024 Candidates up to the Challenge of Being Great Leaders?

Reagan spoke about how the United States is the best hope for the rest of the world. He explained that we are the last resort of freedom for those who have none. No stranger to storytelling, Reagan talked about a Cuban businessman he and his buddies had come across.

“Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story, one of my friends turned to the other and said, ‘We don’t know how lucky we are.’ And the Cuban stopped and said, ‘How lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to.’ And in that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there’s no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth,”

The United States is the last stand on earth, as Reagan said. Yet, today, we are seeing Democrats try to politically persecute their political opponent, former President Donald Trump. Such an action is not reflective of our republic, but rather it resembles communism. Today, Democrats want to teach our children that there are multiple genders, that they can choose to change their gender whenever they’d like. They are trying to indoctrinate the next generation with lies.

As Reagan said during his 1964 speech, “the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”

“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny,” Reagan said. “We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”

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