Ronald Reagan Archives - The Florida Capital Star

Commentary: The Demographics of Realignment

August 15, 2024 American Greatness

It has become a truism among right-of-center voters in America that as the percentage of non-Hispanic whites in the population decreases, the percentage of registered Democrats increases. This truism is shared, of course, by the progressive left in America. That might lead one to conclude that if Democrats wanted to turn America into a one-party nation, they would do everything in their power to increase the percentage of voters who are not “non-Hispanic whites.”

There is evidence to support this truism. For example, in 1970, the population of California was 80 percent non-Hispanic whites, with Republican governor Ronald Reagan and both houses of the state legislature controlled by Republicans. That was the last year Republicans had a trifecta in the state. Today, California’s population of non-Hispanic whites has declined to 34 percent, and the state is under the absolute control of Democrats. They have held both houses of the state legislature since 1997, and apart from Schwarzenegger’s anomalous presence from 2004 through 2010, the state hasn’t had a Republican governor since 1998.

Commentary: Battle for the Soul of America

August 10, 2024 Florida Capital Star Staff

There is a battle for the soul of America.

The first shots of a long simmering revolt were fired when Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama pledged to “fundamentally transform” America five days prior to his winning the presidency in 2008.

Commentary: Draining the Swamp Is Now a Job for Congress

August 2, 2024 RealClearWire

Wading into the confusing abyss of administrative law, on June 28 the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote, overruled the much-criticized 1984 decision in Chevron, restoring the bedrock principle — commanded by both Article III of the Constitution and Section 706 the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act — that it is the province of courts, not administrative agency bureaucrats, to interpret federal laws. This may sound like an easy ruling, but the issue had long bedeviled the Supreme Court. Even Justice Antonin Scalia, an administrative law expert, supported Chevron prior to his death in 2016. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, Chief Justice John Roberts sure-footedly dispatched Chevron.

If, as I wrote for The American Conservative in 2021, “Taming the administrative state is the issue of our time,” why did the Supreme Court unanimously (albeit with a bare six-member quorum) decide in Chevron to defer to administrative agencies interpretations of ambiguous statutes, and why did conservatives — at least initially — support the decision? In a word, politics. In 1984, the President in charge of the executive branch was Ronald Reagan, and the D.C. Circuit — where most administrative law cases are decided — was (and had been for decades) controlled by liberal activist judges. President Reagan’s deputy solicitor general, Paul Bator, argued the Chevron case, successfully urging the Court to overturn a D.C. Circuit decision (written by then-Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg) that had invalidated EPA regulations interpreting the Clean Air Act. Thus, in the beginning, “Chevron deference” meant deferring to Reagan’s agency heads and their de-regulatory agenda.

Analysis: Trump Looks to Appeal to Reagan Democrats and Independents with Vance Pick, Convention Speakers

July 17, 2024 Florida Capital Star Staff

Former President Donald Trump wants to engineer a landslide in 2024.

In 1972, 1980, 1984 and 1988, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush won monumental 49-state, 44-state, 49-state and 40-state landslides in their respective re-election and election bids.

Commentary: Republicans Must Stop Retreating on Abortion

July 12, 2024 Florida Capital Star Staff

While President Joe Biden’s halting performance in the first 2024 presidential debate generated the most significant commentary, it was some of former President Donald Trump’s remarks that raised concerns for pro-life voters. Those remarks ended up foreshadowing the recently proposed Republican platform’s surrender on the abortion issue.

Trump’s first misstep was his contention that “everybody” wanted abortion regulated at the state level. “Fifty-one years ago you had Roe v. Wade,” Trump argued, “and everybody wanted to get it back to the states, everybody, without exception, Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives. Everybody wanted it back… Ronald Reagan wanted it brought back” (emphasis added).

Commentary: If Character Matters, Biden Flunks the Test

June 22, 2024 RealClearWire

When a candidate runs on character, you know his record can’t be good.

Hence President Biden’s reported $50 million spend on an ad titled “Character Matters,” which features unflattering photos of Donald Trump while focusing on the Republican nominee’s legal troubles. Hey, we paid good taxpayer money engineering those court cases and we’re not going to waste it.

Commentary: The Destructive Generation Proves America’s Weakest Link

June 4, 2024 Florida Capital Star Staff

Governor Ronald Reagan, in his 1967 inaugural address, famously remarked, “Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction.”

Reagan today might have expanded on his theme by declaring that civilization itself is both fragile and can lost by a generation that recklessly spends its inheritance while neither appreciating nor replenishing it—if not ridiculing those who sacrificed so much to provide it.

Analysis: Trump Says Biden Is ‘So Bad’ That Every State Could Be Competitive

May 13, 2024 Admin

“As you can see today, we’re expanding the electoral map because we are going to officially play in the state of New Jersey—we’re going to win the state of New Jersey… We’re also looking… at the state of Minnesota, which hasn’t been won [by the GOP] since 1952 and we’re leading in the polls, and the state of Virginia and actually many other states, I don’t know, it could be all of them.”

Commentary: If Republicans Want Better Legislative Outcomes, Trump Needs to Win Greater Majorities by Playing for the Popular Vote

May 9, 2024 Florida Capital Star Staff

Since 1960, Democrats have won the popular vote in 10 out of the last 16 presidential elections, and thanks to a combination of historical realignment (beginning during the 1930s), presidential coattails and the incumbency advantage, have also won U.S. House majorities in 11 out of those 16 contests, oftentimes with super majorities.

The modern story over U.S. House control, and therefore legislatively shaping the society of laws we live in presently, begins in 1932 when Franklin Roosevelt and Democrats utterly crushed Herbert Hoover’s reelection bid, winning 57.4 percent of the popular vote and 42 states to Hoover’s meager 39.6 percent and 6 states.

Commentary: Free Markets are Necessary But Not Sufficient

May 5, 2024 Florida Capital Star Staff

For most of our lifetimes, classically liberal economics so dominated the Right that nobody wondered if conservatives were abandoning free markets. In recent years, though, a new generation of conservative thinkers—more traditionalist, populist, or nationalist than libertarian—has challenged the utility and even the morality of laissez faire economic policy.

We welcome their questions and critiques, as they have compelled American conservatives to have a long overdue conversation about the market, the family, and the state. But the blunt truth is the movement cannot abandon free markets. The moral and practical case for free enterprise is as necessary today as it was when Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher used it to rescue their nations’ economies and win the Cold War.

Commentary: The U.S. Defense Industrial Base

December 19, 2023 RealClearWire

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, along with increased tensions in the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific region, has generated many debates. Debates about the stability of the international order, the cohesion of NATO, and many others. But for the United States, one significant debate regards the size and expansibility of the American defense industrial base. It’s a discussion that is well past due.

Last year, Under Secretary of Defense Colin Kahl testified to Congress that, “What the Ukraine conflict showed is that, frankly, our defense industrial base was not at the level that we needed it to be to generate munitions.” But the challenge with ammunition is more symptom than cause, in economic terms something of a “leading indicator.”

Second GOP Presidential Debate Was Sloppy, At Times Chaotic, Ultimately Forgettable, Critics Say

September 28, 2023 M.D. Kittle

Wednesday evening’s chaotic GOP presidential primary debate at times felt more like an episode of “Jersey Shore” than a showcase of the best and brightest minds in conservative politics.

A Closer Look at Vivek Ramaswamy’s Bold Plan to Take Down the Administrative State

September 17, 2023 M.D. Kittle

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy proposed a plan on Wednesday to halve the size of the federal administrative state in his first year in office — should he be elected.

Commentary: Is Former Vice President Mike Pence’s View on Conservatism Correct?

September 12, 2023 The Center Square

Former Vice President Mike Pence in a speech before the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College and in an article in The Wall Street Journal warned Republicans and conservatives about the danger of populism. The former Vice President argues, in echoing Ronald Reagan’s 1964 address, that it is “a time for choosing” for Republicans whether to continue to follow the “siren song” of populism or return to true conservatism. It is clear that Pence is not only drawing a line in the sand and forcing a debate over conservatism, but also distancing himself from former President Donald Trump and those who support his policies. Nevertheless, Pence fails to understand that the conservative populism he is denouncing is actually rooted within the American conservative tradition.

Commentary: Why Not ‘America First?’

March 28, 2023 Admin

It’s challenging to say something original about the Ukraine war. It’s been debated now for more than a year, and it’s not over yet. But that’s bad news for those supporting the war. Most Americans’ interest in foreign policy matters is limited, and many expect quicker favorable results than are probably ever possible in war. A year of war in a far-off land – another war in another far-off land – is not something Americans are likely to support for long, especially if it’s led by a stumble-bum president who picks incompetents for cabinet secretaries, campaigned for a mentally challenged stroke victim, and may be compromised by his son’s business dealings.

Commentary: Six Bold Ideas for Trump, Republicans to Rebound from 2022 Midterms

November 14, 2022November 13, 2022 Just the News

After an underwhelming midterm election, the Republican Party and its enigmatic leader Donald Trump find themselves in a political wilderness, much like Ronald Reagan did after losing the 1976 nomination.

The Biden Democrats with hiding Kathy Hochul and hobbled John Fetterman seemed as beatable as bumbling Gerald Ford, and yet somehow the Reagan and 2022 GOP teams lost the process even though polling data showed they had won the hearts of the faithful. And the despair of knowing a far left regime (Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden) might rule for another election cycle led many to throw hands up and point fingers.

National Archives Lawyer Central to Mar-a-Lago Raid Documents Sued Reagan While at ACLU

September 1, 2022August 31, 2022 Florida Capital Star Staff

The general counsel for the National Archives and Records Administration, who was central to coordinating between NARA and former President Donald Trump’s attorneys regarding the documents at Mar-a-Lago, previously sued then-President Ronald Reagan in 1989 while working at the American Civil Liberties Union.

White House Unveils Nancy Reagan Stamp, ‘Important Part of One of the Most Pivotal Presidencies’

June 7, 2022June 6, 2022 Admin

Acommemorative postage stamp of former first lady Nancy Reagan was unveiled Monday in a White House ceremony attended by surviving family, historians and first lady Jill Biden who remarked of the portrait-size image on display, “Isn’t this stamp just beautiful.”

When the stamp officially goes on sale next month, Reagan becomes the sixth first lady to have one created in her likeness, following Eleanor Roosevelt, Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Dolley Madison and Lady Bird Johnson.

Commentary: Biden Needs to Held Accountable for His Lies

June 1, 2022May 31, 2022 Florida Capital Star Staff

According to The Washington Post, Donald Trump told 30,573 lies over the course of his four years in office.

CNN nutshelled it with “The 15 most notable lies of Donald Trump’s presidency.”

Commentary: Great American Stories Such as ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’

December 24, 2021 RealClearWire

This week in 1946, “It’s a Wonderful Life” was screened for the first time at the Globe Theatre in New York City. Audiences weren’t quite sure what to make of the film, even though it starred Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed and was directed by Frank Capra. Perhaps the economic jeopardy of life in Depression-era small towns was still all too real. Or maybe the specter of sons and husbands returning from the front reminded audiences of how many American fighting men had not come back from Europe or the Pacific.

Stewart, the leading man who portrayed small-town savings-and-loan owner George Bailey in Capra’s movie, was such a charismatic leading man that when studio executive Jack Warner heard in 1965 about Ronald Reagan’s plans to run for governor of California, he quipped, “No, no! Jimmy Stewart for governor. Ronald Reagan for best friend.”

But casting in movies, as in life, can be deceiving. It was something of an in-joke, for instance, to have Jimmy Stewart play the older brother who flunks his Army physical in “It’s a Wonderful Life” and can’t go to war. In real life, Stewart and Frank Capra both enlisted in the military after making “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” together in 1939. The Italian-born Capra, then in his 40s, produced an evocative series of films for the military called “Why We Fight.” Stewart did his part, too, and then some. After winning Best Actor for his role in 1940’s “The Philadelphia Story,” Stewart had become the most bankable star in Hollywood. Nonetheless, by the time Pearl Harbor was bombed, he was already in uniform, pulling duty at Moffett Field, south of San Francisco, in the Army Air Corps. By the end of World War II, Stewart had flown 20 combat missions in a B-24, become a squadron leader, been awarded a chest full of medals, and risen in rank from corporal to colonel.

Commentary: Revisiting Prudent American Realism

December 11, 2021December 10, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

I have long deplored the poverty of international relations (IR) theory, which pits “realists” of all varieties against “liberals” or advocates of “liberal internationalism” and its corollary, “cooperative security.” In essence, the debate between these two schools is a dispute between Thucydides and Machiavelli on the one hand and Kant on the other.

Realists argue that states are driven by naked interest. In a system of “international anarchy,” states face a security dilemma that leads to arms racing, offensive and defensive alliances, and ultimately war. For realists, the international system is conflictual. In contrast, liberal internationalists argue that the international system is potentially cooperative. Diplomacy trumps force. For realists, liberals are too abstract and place too much emphasis on the “good side” of human nature. For liberals, realists are too pessimistic and cynical. In addition, say liberals, realism is too parsimonious: it fails adequately to explain the world.

Commentary: America Gone Mad

October 28, 2021October 27, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

After three weeks in Europe and extensive discussions with dozens of well-informed and highly placed individuals from most of the principal Western European countries, including leading members of the British government, I have the unpleasant duty of reporting complete incomprehension and incredulity at what Joe Biden and his collaborators encapsulate in the peppy but misleading phrase, “We’re back.”

As one eminent elected British government official put it, “They are not back in any conventional sense of that word. We have worked closely with the Americans for many decades and we have never seen such a shambles of incompetent administration, diplomatic incoherence, and complete military ineptitude as we have seen in these nine months. We were startled by Trump, but he clearly knew what he was doing, whatever we or anyone else thought about it. This is just a disintegration of the authority of a great nation for no apparent reason.”

Mollie Hemingway Commentary: Taking on the Establishment

October 19, 2021October 19, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Before the 2018 midterm elections, Trump’s political advisors were thinking about the president’s re-election bid and noticed a curious commonality among incumbent presidents who didn’t get re-elected: they all faced challengers from within their own party.

Five U.S. presidents since 1900 have lost their bids for a second term. William Taft lost to Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover lost to Franklin Roosevelt, Gerald Ford lost to Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush lost to Bill Clinton. While each election is determined by unique factors, all five of these failed incumbents dealt with internal party fights or serious primary challenges.

Commentary: Biden Will Prove Reagan Right About Big-Government Incompetence

March 23, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Respected Washington Post journalist and CNN host Fareed Zakaria has thrown down the gauntlet by betting that President Joe Biden “can show us that Reagan was wrong” when the Gipper said that “government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem.”

The headline in the Washington Post was “Biden is showing government can work,” and this assertion was supported by a commitment from a Biden White House official that “For people like us who believe in government, task number one is to make government work.”