October 27 will mark the 60th anniversary of one of the greatest speeches of the past 100 years. In fact, in the modern annals of rhetoric this speech is often ranked among the top 50 or even top 25.
It's Ronald Reagan's landmark address titled "A Time For Choosing" and though it was delivered on behalf of a losing presidential candidate (Barry Goldwater) it laid the groundwork for Reagan's own emergence as a national figure -- a man who went on to become a great president and a model for presidential leadership.
Like any classic, Reagan's work has aged so well that when we look back upon it, its foresight takes our breath away. Consider just this one vivid passage which can aptly be applied to the upcoming presidential contest:
This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
And Reagan's on to Democrat (now progressive) tactics that continue to this day:
Yet anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we're always "against" things - we're never "for" anything.
And consider this prescient, cogent warning:
No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. So governments' programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth.
We're sure a certain presidential candidate would find this gem from Reagan's speech particularly applicable right now:
The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute.
And jumping off from that, Reagan declares:
Our natural, unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.
And here's another one that rings true right now:
They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer - not an easy answer but simple: If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right.
Looking back on all this what does it tell us now, in 2024?
Well yes -- obviously, Reagan was right about a lot of things. Plus, he was certainly a visionary and a much deeper thinker (and probably brighter) than most people imagined.
But beyond that, Reagan was a disrupter.
Goldwater wasn't the "establishment" GOP candidate and he certainly wasn't the choice of the elites. But Reagan supported him anyway. And he did it at great risk. Reagan didn't care because the cause -- the movement -- was what drove him.
Goldwater lost in a landslide and Reagan lost his own first bid for the presidency as he still failed to be embraced by Republican moderates (aka The Old Guard). Nelson Rockefeller, William Scranton, Gerald Ford and many other "establishment" Republicans all opposed Reagan. And they did not hesitate to brand his ideas as dangerous and even radical.
Even in 1980 Reagan still had to fight off the likes of tepid Republicans like George H. W. Bush, Bob Dole, Howard Baker, Phil Crane and John Anderson, who was so adamant in his opposition to Reagan that he went on to run as an Independent candidate for president.
Many people forget all this.
Through nearly all of his political life a core of old line Republicans either opposed Reagan outright or remained suspicious of him and and/or disloyal as it suited their personal interests and, in some cases, their deeply held resentments. Even into Reagan's second term in the White House, key GOP defections in Congress thwarted his agenda. For example, in 1987 Reagan was supported by Senate Republicans only 64 percent of the time.
Against all odds, Ronald Reagan still realigned our political parties and pulled off a modern day revolution. Defiant, persistent and determined to prevail, Reagan bedeviled those who sought to derail him. No doubt about it: Ronald Reagan was a fighter.
Whose side would Reagan be on today? Which themes would ring true to him? Whose movement would he embrace?
We turn once again to Reagan's own words. As early as 1976 Reagan challenged the Republican Party to rally round "a banner of bold, unmistakable colors with no pastels."
If you're still wondering where Reagan might stand today watch the video below and the answer will be obvious.
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