It was 59 years ago today that a 14-year-old kid in Oklahoma just happened to be sitting with his family in the living room watching TV when a man named Ronald Reagan stepped up to a microphone and began speaking to an audience.
The kid’s main interest at that point was becoming shortstop for the New York Yankees because Oklahoma’s greatest baseball player ever, Mickey Mantle, was still with the legendary team. But there was something about what Reagan was saying that kept the kid’s attention.
Then came this from Reagan:
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.
For whatever reason, that story grabbed the young Okie by the heart and would not let go. He hung on every word for the rest of Reagan’s address, including especially this concluding summons:
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. 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. At least let them say of us that we did all that could be done.”
I was that kid way back when in Oklahoma, and I remember “The Speech” from Reagan as clearly as if he just delivered it today for the first time. From that night forward, my life was devoted to doing whatever I could to help Reagan save America, save individual freedom, and save the future for our children and grandchildren.
Reagan did indeed do all that he could, and it was good for America in his time. Would that he were back among us today! But his inspiration remains strong in some quarters in this country, as newly elected Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) demonstrated this week.
Out of nowhere, Johnson became Speaker, ending more than three weeks of political turmoil among the House Republicans, who have a razor-thin four-vote majority. The turmoil was prompted by the historic ouster on Oct. 3 of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) by eight Republicans led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and 208 House Democrats.
In the weeks that followed the unprecedented ouster, first House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), then House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and finally House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) tried and failed to succeed McCarthy.
By Monday evening this week, when the angry, frustrated, and clashing House GOP Conference reconvened, there were eight, count’em, eight aspirants, including Johnson. All eight gave short presentations, then responded to what one individual who witnessed the closed-door proceedings described as “an onslaught of questions, wonky, policy questions.”
Something about how Johnson responded to those questions stood out. The others talked mainly about themselves. Johnson talked about his legislative record, he talked about the “seven core principles of conservatism” and he talked about what the Bible teaches. Those core principles are right out of the Reagan policy agenda. What the Bible teaches is how the human heart can be transformed through God’s grace.
Within hours, the disunity began disappearing, so much so that by the time the House of Representatives assembled on Wednesday to vote, Republicans, in what some wise men see as a miraculous turn of events, voted unanimously to make him the new Speaker.
What followed in Johnson’s first official address to his colleagues in both political parties as Speaker was equally remarkable, though likely not nearly as widely appreciated as it deserved. Johnson reminded every man and woman present that they, like he, are not where they are solely by their own efforts or for their own purposes:
I want to tell all my colleagues here what I told the Republicans in that room last night: I don’t believe there are any coincidences in a matter like this. I believe that scripture, the Bible, is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority. He raised up each of you. All of us.
And I believe that God has allowed and ordained each and every one of us to be here at this specific moment. This is my belief. I believe that each one of us has a huge responsibility today to use the gifts God has given us to serve the extraordinary people of this great nation, and they deserve it.
Mike Johnson is a man who loves God, who loves his wife and children, who loves America, and who loves — and serves — his fellow Americans. He spoke the truth when he told his colleagues that God put them where they are, just as Reagan spoke it when he said America faced a time for choosing.
Check out the photograph that accompanies this column of Johnson and his wife. It’s no coincidence that above and behind his left shoulder is a bust of who else but Ronald Reagan. Choose thoughtfully and well, America.
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