Conservative Idolatry

To be a bit flip, you could say that rather than thinking in a serious way about public policy the conservative movement debates issues by asking "what would Reagan do?" Either that or you could flip over to the home page of the Heritage Foundation, the flagship policy outfit of the right, and find a prominent banner advertising Heritage's new What Would Reagan Do? website. At the moment, they seem to be having a special focus on energy policy.

Might I suggest that Reagan, having been a prominent political figure in the 1960s through 1980s, wasn't in a position to avail himself of 21st century research into the problem of global warming and the risks of catastrophic climate change. If Reagan were both alive today and actually possessed of the God-like powers that Heritage attributes to him, I like to think he would have taken that research into account. Alternatively, if he were alive today and just plowed ahead with policies that take no account of post-Reagan research, then he'd be nicely in line with mainstream conservatism but that would hardly be a very responsible way to behave.

Comments

You know you've in deep crap when your political standard bearer is dead. How about a what would McCain do Web site? Or a George W. Bush?

It's kind of like Walter Mondale referring to Harry Truman and FDR during the 84 election. When you need to rely on dead presidents to fill the vacumme of your own lack of new ideas and talent, you've got a problem.

Posted by am | July 28, 2008 11:17 AM

If Reagan were both alive today and actually possessed of the God-like powers that Heritage attributes to him, I like to think he would have taken that research into account.

You dismiss the Reagan threat at your peril. One word: horcruxes.

Posted by Milk for Free | July 28, 2008 11:22 AM

But masturbating over the concept or Reagan is all the GOP has these days. Remember the image of the GOP primary debate at the Reagan library, with everyone stepping over each other to talk about who loved Reagan more?

That's what they've been reduced to.

http://strategy08.wordpress.com

Posted by Dan | July 28, 2008 11:23 AM

Wouldn't he just take a nap and say he couldn't recall anything when he woke up?

Posted by PGS | July 28, 2008 11:25 AM

I always find it interesting how ideologs always seem to end up with some sort of personalty cult.

What is the difference between the current right wing personality cults over Reagan and/or Milton Friedman and the Soviets with Stalin and the Chinese Communist with Mao?

Posted by spencer | July 28, 2008 11:29 AM

"If there has to be a bloodbath, then let's get it over with." --Ronald Reagan (Governor of California), quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle, early morning edition, May 15, 1969. (Reagan reveals how he intends to quell student protests in the city of Berkeley, California. Protesters were teargassed and fired upon with buckshot, killing one, blinding another, and wounding 128. Reagan would later declare a state of emergency in the city and send in 2,700 National Guard troops.)

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Reagan would bring liberty to you on the point of a bayonet jammed up your ass.

God I hate that fucker.

Posted by calipygian | July 28, 2008 11:33 AM

What am said. The cons are running on fumes now. All Obama needs to do it to make the election about McCain/ GOP/ Bush. If successful, they are toast and Obama will win by a huge margin. The only problem is that the election is becoming somewhat of a referendum on Obama which is dangerous. Not that he will loose but it probably makes it more competitive.

Posted by Rum raisin | July 28, 2008 11:33 AM

I would just like to point out that Reagan blamed trees for causing pollution...

Posted by McKingford | July 28, 2008 11:38 AM

...which would put him at the very centre of today's conservative orthodoxy on environmental policy, btw...

Posted by McKingford | July 28, 2008 11:41 AM

What Would Reagan Do?

*Triple the national debt

*Negotiate with "evil" regimes

*Covertly sell arms to Iran

*Provide amnesty to illegal immigrants (and straight-forwardly call it "amnesty")

By the way, does anyone else notice how Reagan takes the place of Jesus in the WWRD formulation? Of course, I can't be too superior in this regard, as there are still liberals in Minnesota who drive around with "What Would Wellstone Do?" bumper stickers on their cars.

Posted by Another Chris | July 28, 2008 11:50 AM

Oh, I forgot! What Would Reagan Do?

*Withdraw U.S. troops from a flawed mission in the Middle East after three bombing attacks.

Posted by Another Chris | July 28, 2008 11:58 AM

*Mine the harbors of a country that was not at war with the United States (Nicaragua).
*Support bloodthirsty terrorists in a covert war of aggression against said country.
*Bankroll right-wing death squads in a country next door (El Salvador).
*Provide support for a government that was engaged in the process of killing about 200,000 people (Guatemala).

Posted by Hector | July 28, 2008 12:05 PM

Looks like the Reagan obsession is not limited to conservatives. You want to know what Reagan would do. Well, judging from how he spent little time wondering what Eisenhower or Taft would have done, I think the answer is that the thing Reagan would do is to tell everyone to stop spending so much damn time asking what Reagan would do.

Posted by Counterfactual | July 28, 2008 12:15 PM

And yet we're told it's Obama who has a personality cult? Eh?

Posted by cdc | July 28, 2008 12:18 PM

This is a bit like the American version of the tomb of Lenin. Idolatry is right. It is the personality of Reagan that confers rightness to policy choices, not facts. And the shamans and witch doctors of the thinktank right believe that if they can claim the ability to channel Reagan, they will achieve oracular standing in the community. Which is probably correct.

Click that banner to find out what Reagan would do. Not to discuss when he might have done if in some counterfactual way he were still around and offering sage advice. Not to discuss facts and predict policy outcomes. No, you click to receive guidance from beyond about what Reagan thinks our energy policy should be.

The document title is especially precious: The Conservative Guide to Energy. Again, facts are secondary. Ideology and the Reagan personality cult are primary. This is just like those posters of Mao in the 70s and 80s, and the declaring of this and that to be un-communist.

Heritage does not offer fact-based solutions to problems. What it offers is ideological prescriptions based on what they think Reagan wants us to do.

As with Communism, this kind of thinking probably does make it easy to maintain appealing and consistent messages and a lot of order in the movement. At the same time, it disconnects the conservative movement from facts and voters, which in the long run, one imagines, would lead to electoral collapse. Ahem.

Posted by nobi yuno | July 28, 2008 12:20 PM

* Raise taxes when he realized that the size of the annual budget deficit was unsustainable.

Posted by LFC | July 28, 2008 12:23 PM

*Withdraw U.S. troops from a flawed mission in the Middle East after three bombing attacks.

Oh, if only Reagan had been president the last 8 years . . .

Posted by rea | July 28, 2008 12:33 PM

a bit crass but late stage Reagan might:

*Ask who stole his pancakes

Posted by ml | July 28, 2008 12:37 PM

The Republicans spent their primary hunting for Ronald Reagan hidden behind a rubber (Huckabee? McCain? Giuliani? Natalie Portman?) mask. Meanwhile, the Dems actually nominated a charismatic guy with a gift for making people feel optimistic about the country and about themselves as Americans.

So, Heritage, Neener neener.

Posted by Deborah | July 28, 2008 12:57 PM

*Withdraw U.S. troops from a flawed mission in the Middle East after three bombing attacks.

*After terrorists bombed a US base, killing hundreds of Marines, ignore those terrorists and invade a tiny Carribbean island that poses no threat to anyone instead.

Posted by Notorious P.A.T. | July 28, 2008 1:25 PM

*Name someone whose prior record is closely associated with the East Coast Rockeffeler wing of the GOP as your runningmate. (Schweicker in '76, GHWB in '80).

Posted by Another Chris | July 28, 2008 1:41 PM

More realistically, Reagan would probably come out rhetorically for a solution that would have Ron Paul sound like a statist squish, then start negotiating with the Democratic Congress and come up with a deal.

Posted by Ben (The Tiger) | July 28, 2008 1:58 PM

By the way, does anyone else notice how Reagan takes the place of Jesus in the WWRD formulation? Of course, I can't be too superior in this regard, as there are still liberals in Minnesota who drive around with "What Would Wellstone Do?" bumper stickers on their cars. - Another Chris

At least Wellstone, like Jesus, was a nice Jewish boy ( / maniacal ethno-centrism ).

*

I think the answer is that the thing Reagan would do is to tell everyone to stop spending so much damn time asking what Reagan would do. - Counterfactual

With apologies to the Simpsons: Oh you're wrong there Counterfactual, Ronald Reagan was a shameless self-promoter.

(ref:

Marge commenting on Homer Simpson's Edison obsession and his worriment about not accomplishing as much as Edison: Maybe the reason why Edison accomplished so much is that he didn't spend all his time talking about Thomas Edison

Homer: Oh, you're wrong there Marge, Thomas Edison was a shameless self-promoter
)

Posted by DAS | July 28, 2008 3:05 PM

"...if he were alive today and just plowed ahead with policies that take no account of post-Reagan research, then he'd be nicely in line with mainstream conservatism but that would hardly be a very responsible way to behave."

Best Yglesias line ever.

Posted by socctty | July 28, 2008 3:53 PM

Secretly, Reagan presided over a great piece of environmental legislation, the signing of the Montreal Protocol banning CFCs. Tim Flannery describes this legislation as having a less-strong scientific basis than the current knowledge over anthropogenic global warming; meaning that while both had strong scientific basis, we know more now about AGW than we did then about CFCs; we just had conservatives who were actually at least somewhat reality-based.

So, I encourage Heritage to think long and hard about what Reagan would do about energy policy. However, they'll just sit around and pretend to do that and instead revert to their priors.

Posted by Jim M. | July 28, 2008 6:16 PM

I'm not a political or history wonk like many of the readers here. But one thing I do seem to recall is that Jimmy Carter's prescient views on energy conservation and weaning the country off foreign oil, successfully enacted by Congress, were almost immediately repealed when Reagan took office.

Do I have that right?

Posted by Brian Link | July 28, 2008 7:02 PM

I think the real question is, "What would Brian Boitano do?"

Posted by CFisher | July 28, 2008 7:22 PM

Wow, that graphic design is terrible. Looks like an info-ad for some ponzi peddler.

Posted by Chris C | July 28, 2008 9:32 PM

He'd use his magical fire breath and save the human race again! I hate hate hate South Park but I love that song. Thank God I'll have it stuck in my head now instead of "Mamma Mia!"

Posted by vivisfugue | July 28, 2008 9:40 PM

“What would Ronald Reagan do,

If he was here right now?!?

He’s certainly take a nap or two,

Yes, that’s what Ronald Reagan would do”!

Posted by Nuada | July 28, 2008 11:36 PM