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  1. Ronald Reagan

Against Optimism

Surely it is less important that a speech be optimistic or pessimistic, than that it be true to the realities of the moment, true to the capabilities of the government, and true to the responsibilities of the citizenry. Continue Reading »

Rotting-Flesh Reaganism

Ted Cruz failed to endorse Donald Trump for president. Snore. It’s a sign of how out-of-touch our political class has become that they speak of Cruz as a possible presidential candidate. In him, see the rotting flesh of Reaganism, a noble political project that no longer speaks to our time. Continue Reading »

The Passé Passes Again

The Republicans are reliving the Democratic Party's nightmares. The cancelled Donald Trump event of Friday March 11 seemed to presage 1968-style disruptions at political events, but 1968 might not be the right analogy. As the party of tired myth and exhausted agenda, the Republicans of 2016 most . . . . Continue Reading »

Ronald Reagan: Cold Warrior and Nuclear Abolitionist

In recent years, as scholars have explored Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy with greater access to primary-source documents, something utterly baffling to the conventional wisdom of his time (and ours) has come into focus: Reagan, determined to win the Cold War, was also eager to rid the world of nuclear weapons. And while many, in his time and ours, imagine those to have been incompatible goals, the fortieth president of the United States was capable of holding both ideas in his head at once, and acting toward both ends. Continue Reading »

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