11 Principles of a Reagan Conservative

by Paul Kengor, Edwin Meese III (Foreword)

Perhaps no other president's name is invoked by politicians as much as Ronald Reagan's. Every election, as presidential hopefuls jockey for the Republican nomination, each one claims to be a Reagan conservative. But are these candidates truly carrying on the mantle of Ronald Reagan, or are they abusing the memory of our great president? What did Ronald Reagan really believe?

In 11 Principles of a Reagan Conservative , biographer Paul Kengor analyzes Ronald Reagan's speeches and actions to paint a full, accurate picture of his beliefs. Kengor identifies these principles that lie at the crux of Reagan's conservatism; Freedom, Faith, Family, Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life, American Exceptionalism, The Founders' Wisdom and Vision, Lower Taxes, Limited Government, Peace Through Strength, Anti-Communism, and Belief in the Individual. And it is through these principles that Reagan's modern emulators may create a successful, conservative future.

Many a politician has What would Reagan do if he were president now? Where would Reagan stand on today's issues? Who is the next Ronald Reagan? Paul Kengor dissects Reagan's presidency and provides decisive conclusions. The answers to some of these questions may surprise conservatives and liberals alike.

Genres: Politics, History, Nonfiction, Biography, Economics

159 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2014

About the author

Paul G. Kengor is an author and professor of political science at Grove City College and the senior director of the Institute for Faith and Freedom, a Grove City College think tank. He is a visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace. Kengor has focused much of his work on Ronald Reagan, faith and the presidency, conservative politics, the Cold War, Communism, and Catholicism.

Reviews

[Troy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good (quick) look into who Reagan was and what he stood for.

Growing up as a Liberal, I was always taught to devalue Conservatives and their way of thinking. After watching a few YAF videos, it was clear to me that right now, I stand more in line with the Conservative ideology than the Radical Left.

Part of me will always be torn, it’s like Liberalism was built into my DNA, but due to the current pulse of the party, I had to jump ship. Maybe not forever, but certainly while the radical Left is running it.

Reagan believed in great values, and you will learn them in this book. I believe leaders like him are brought to us at the right time- we needed someone who would look the Soviet Union in the eye and not blink. Carter was not capable of that and Ford was not Presidential material.

This is a good look into what Reagan stood for while in the White House. An Liberal actor who became a Conservative politician. Quite the interesting guy.

[Beaufort Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 11 Principles of a Reagan Conservative acclaimed Reagan biographer and presidential historian Paul Kengor paints the first comprehensive picture of Reagan’s beliefs. He identifies 11 principles, what he calls his “Reagan Eleven,” that comprised Reagan's conservatism. “These eleven,” says professor Kengor, “tell us what Reagan’s conservatism was truly about, and what his emulators might take to heart.” Here are those 11 principles:

· Freedom

· Faith

· Family

· Sanctity and dignity of human life

· American exceptionalism

· The Founders’ wisdom and vision

· Lower taxes

· Limited government

· Peace through strength

· Anti- Communism

· Belief in the individual

A great fast light read for those interested in Reagan and conservative politics.

[Adam · Rating 1 out of 5]

No American president is more mythologized by modern politicians than Ronald Reagan, and as Paul Kengor points out in the introductory notes to his book on Reagan’s legacy, this is somewhat understandable. Popular in his time and considered by many to be one of America's greatest presidents, Reagan's presidency was preceded by immeasurable failure--LBJ's Vietnam policy, Nixon's corruption, Ford and Carter's electoral defeats--and followed by much of the same, including George H.W. Bush's failed reelection bid, Clinton's impeachment, and George W. Bush's disastrous policies and near historically low approval ratings. Reagan was elected to two terms, both times by historic margins, and oversaw huge economic growth while also remaining relatively free from scandal.*

However, this narrative, which is at the heart of Kengor's short volume, is one written not only by Reagan's millions of supporters, all of whom lived through the 80s with relative ease and never felt the sting of Reagan's actual policies, but by contemporary conservative Republicans hoping to capitalize on the president's mythologized legacy to gain higher office and enact sweeping legislation that is regressive, authoritarian, and far from anything Reagan himself ever signed into law. By outlining eleven "principles" that supposedly personify a modern conservative, Kengor has added to the fallacy that Reagan was anything other than a typical Republican whose policies benefited his political cronies while damaging the rest of the country for decades--and generations--to come.

1. Freedom

When Kengor writes of Reagan's commitment to freedom, his meaning is twofold: freedom from political leaders and ideological doctrines that enslaved millions and curtailed personal liberty, and freedom from the burdens of unnecessary taxation--that is, freedom for people to spend more of the money they earned by giving less to the government.

The first argument, which is less ludicrous than the second, is based primarily on Reagan's response to the Soviet Union's totalitarian control over its satellite states, especially Germany and Poland, where Communism had empowered ruthless dictatorships for decades. Kengor is correct when he asserts that Reagan was in the White House during the gradual collapse of not only the Soviet Union--which was dissolved in 1991, under Mikhail Gorbachev--and its dominance in Germany, which ended with the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1990. However, the leap that many Republicans make--that Reagan and his policies were directly responsible for these events--is not only flawed but ignorant of events years in the making.

In Dismantling Utopia, author Scott Shane pinpoints the Soviet Union's collapse as beginning in the mid-1970s, when a stagnating economy--caused by the changing demands of its people, an overabundance of unwanted goods, poor morale, corruption, a lack of workers' incentives, and a functionless bureaucracy--alerted Russian intelligence to the possibility of disaster. Years before Reagan was even president, Russian leaders--first Leonid Brezhnev, then Yuri Andropov--were aware of the coming collapse, even though their many attempts at staving it off would be unsuccessful: "If the [Communist] party under Brezhnev, in the years before his death in 1982, seemed almost oblivious to the eroding Soviet economic position, the KGB under Andropov was acutely aware of the deepening quicksand. As head of the agency from 1967 until 1982, Andropov had a clearer idea than almost anyone else in the leadership of how serious and fundamental were the causes of Soviet economic malaise. Eager to focus the Kremlin’s attention, Andropov set up a secret department in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Such a department would have undoubtedly highlighted Soviet technological backwardness and focus on the enormous role played by West Siberian oil in financing such economic progress as there had been in the 1970s. Understanding that the oil-fueled joyride was coming to an end, Andropov would have known that the Soviet Union’s very status as a superpower, already reduced essentially to a big collection of nuclear warheads, could soon be jeopardized altogether." [1]

Reagan had no role in any of these events, and instead of looking at him as the man who liberated millions from the grips of Communism, we should see him for what this truly reveals him to be: a shrewd politician who read the data, understood trajectory, and placed himself squarely in the center of events that were destined to happen anyway. Had Reagan said or done nothing policy-wise, the Soviet Union would have still collapsed, the Berlin Wall would still have been torn down, and history in this area would have changed little.

2. Faith

In December of 2013, President Obama and his family skipped Christmas church service, a decision that elicited outrage and derision from conservative pundits, many of whom accused the president of disrespecting a solemn Christian holiday. Others saw his decision as proof of a hidden faith, or even faithlessness, which have dogged him since long before he was first elected. Explaining the president's decision, Ashley Parker, writing for the New York Times, said, "Part of Mr. Obama’s decision to largely opt out of religious services reflects a desire to avoid disruptions by his Secret Service detail and security requirements." [2]

The reaction to Obama's decision encouraged many to examine the faiths and observations of his predecessors, including Ronald Reagan. For many conservative Republicans, Ronald Reagan's faith is indisputable, and his Christianity was an indomitable cornerstone of not only his political life but also his personal one. Paul Kengor takes this element of Reagan's life and legacy one step further by stating that the president's Christianity was one of his most redeeming qualities, as it influenced his unyielding optimism and supported his ideas about freedom, as he himself noted in a 1988 speech to college students, which Kengor himself excerpts: "At its full flowering, freedom is the first principle of a society; this society, Western society. And yet freedom cannot exist alone. And that's why the theme for your bicentennial is so very apt: learning, faith, and freedom. Each reinforces the others, each makes the others possible. For what are they without each other?" [3]

This is an interesting and much-repeated idea, that a free society and a society of faith cannot exist without one another, all of which insinuates that a nation--and, by the unspoken transitive property, its government--cannot exist without a strong faith at its forefront. What Reagan's supporters have forgotten--or chosen to ignore--is the fact that, beyond the necessary and expected pandering done as part of political campaigns, Reagan's faith played an almost negligible role in his political decisions, a reality that was so well-known that it even inserted itself into Reagan's 1984 bid for reelection, when a moderator asked Reagan why he attended church so irregularly. Reagan responded, "I pose a threat to several hundred people if I got to church. I know all the threats that are made against me." [4] Reagan made this assertion without qualifications, almost three decades before Barack Obama made the exact same assertions about his own lackluster church attendance, and today the issue of his spotty religious observation--at least publicly--is almost forgotten, even as conservative pundits chide our current president for the same transgression.

Even beyond this one dichotomous statistic, we see that the Christian beliefs Reagan so often spoke passionately about--the protection of the unborn, allowing God to be taught in public-school classrooms--were never once enacted into law. Twenty-five years after Reagan left office, abortion is still a Constitutionally protected right, religious worship and prayer is still forbidden from public-school classrooms, and the line between church and state is enforced by law. Kengor finds an exceptional number of speeches and quotes from Reagan extolling his desire for the nation to reflect his own religious convictions; what he cannot find are examples of these same convictions being signed into law and remaining to this day.

3. Family

Paul Kengor does not like gay marriage. Normally this would be an irrelevant piece of information, especially in the context of a book about Ronald Reagan, but seeing as how Kengor spends much of his third chapter denouncing not only the idea of same-sex unions but also those who look to make it legal nationwide, his personal beliefs on this topic are unavoidably relevant, especially since much of the vitriol Kengor spouts is delivered without quotation marks or attributions to Reagan himself--that is to say, they are not Reagan's opinions but Kengor's, which the author offers unabashedly under the banner of an objective examination of another man's politics. And Kengor does this despite the fact that Reagan himself was president during a time when the very idea of "gay marriage" was unthinkable to either political party. As Kengor himself notes, "Any politician advocating for such a thing in Reagan's time...would have been hauled off to a lunatic asylum as a public menace." And while this may be mostly true--the first public endorsement of gay marriage by an elected official didn't happen until the new millennium--the gay rights movement had already been publicly active for decades by the time Reagan was elected president, so the idea that someone would have advocated for such a right at some point is not as far-fetched as it may seem in retrospect.

Despite this, Kengor makes a leap that has very little support beyond anecdotal insinuations, stating that it would be "very difficult to imagine Reagan today suddenly contradicting himself and favoring a redefinition of traditional marriage." In fact, Reagan's views on homosexuality--in the age before gay marriage--was unclear, which itself went against the prevailing mood of the day, when homophobia and prejudice against gay Americans was almost expected. Two years before being elected president, Reagan wrote privately against a proposed ban of gay school teachers in California, purportedly saying, "Whatever else it is, homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles. Prevailing scientific opinion is that an individual's sexuality is determined at a very early age and that a child's teachers do not really influence this." [5] This unusually tolerant and educated position was most likely informed by his time in Hollywood, when he was surrounded by openly gay performers and crew-members who defied prevailing stereotypes of the day; as Reagan's own daughter Patti wrote in 2003, "My father and I were watching an old Rock Hudson and Doris Day movie. At the moment when Hudson and Doris Day kissed, I said to my father, 'That looks weird.' Curious, he asked me to identify exactly what was weird about a man and woman kissing, since I'd certainly seen such a thing before. All I knew was that something about this particular man and woman was, to me, strange. My father gently explained that Mr. Hudson didn't really have a lot of experience kissing women; in fact, he would much prefer to be kissing a man. This was said in the same tone that would be used if he had been telling me about people with different colored eyes, and I accepted without question that this whole kissing thing wasn't reserved just for men and women." [6]

By making an assumption about Reagan and his ideological beliefs, Kengor is demonstrating one of the major problems with acolytes of the former president: a need to transcribe their own personal beliefs onto those of their hero. Because Paul Kengor doesn't like gay marriage, and because he wants to be a conservative in the mold of Ronald Reagan, he must make Reagan similarly opposed to gay marriage, even though it requires resurrecting the late president as he supposedly was decades ago and making him unable to change a supposed opinion. Kengor does not offer a single verifiable document or attributable quote supporting these notions of Reagan, nor does he offer a single quote, speech, private journal entry, or letter even suggesting that Ronald Reagan would've been opposed to gay marriage, or even that he thought of gay people as inferior to himself in any way.

4. Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life

Kengor's chapter on Reagan and abortion, titled "Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life," is the shortest of his entire book, coming in at just under 4 pages. And there's a good reason why Reagan, often extolled as the personification of Christian conservative principles, should find his legacy on abortion consigned to so few pages: he has none. For all the noise made over abortion as a political topic, especially in the era of Tea Party legislation, Reagan remains one of the few Republican icons who made little progress for the pro-life cause. In fact, if his political career is considered in full, Reagan's achievements on abortion are remarkably--and ironically--liberal, and one could argue that his executive decisions contributed to making our country as pro-choice as it ever was and would be.

The first of these major decisions was made while governor of California, when Reagan signed the Therapeutic Abortion Act. Designed to keep women from seeking "back-alley abortions," which were often unsafe and led to dangerous complications and even the death of the patient, the act allowed women in California to undergo safe, protected abortions if the pregnancy endangered her health, or if it was the result of rape or incest--exceptions that remain standard in pro-life conversations to this day. Nowhere in Kengor's chapter on abortion does the author once mention this act on Reagan's part, even though Reagan himself came out as pro-life after signing the bill.

The second major decision, made almost immediately after being elected president, was to appoint Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court, a choice that made conservatives almost apoplectic at the time. As Reagan himself wrote in his diary, "Called Judge O'Connor and told her she was my nominee for supreme court [sic]. Already the flak is starting and from my own supporters. Right to Life people say she is pro abortion. She says abortion is personally repugnant to her. I think she'll make a good justice." [7] Would any modern Republican president appoint someone who expressed pro-choice views, their decision would result in widespread outrage, dissent from their own party, and the eventual withdrawal of the nomination; for Reagan, it meant little, an indication that while abortion was an important topic, the opinions of his "Right to Life" supporters were not, at least not in a non-election year. For her part, Sandra Day O'Connor would be overwhelmingly approved by the Senate and spend the next quarter-century on the Supreme Court, where she would be the deciding factor preserving abortion rights on case after case. As O'Connor once wrote in a majority decision upholding abortion rights, "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State." [8] It is perhaps the most stinging, succinct rebuke to the conservative Republican argument that abortion is an affront to liberty and freedom, and it was written by Reagan's very first appointment to the Supreme Court.

One other aspect to Kengor's short fourth chapter that deserves attention is his definition of "life"--namely, its limited scope, rendered only to include the unborn. Kengor, like many conservatives, speak of "the dignity of life" as though we begin living at the moment of conception and stop once we emerge from the uterus. Nowhere in Kengor's chapter does he discuss the dignity that comes with properly educating those babies; ensuring those babies graduate from high school and can attend a good college or earn a decent living wage; guaranteeing those babies can one day afford a home, raise kids, and feed their family without putting their financial stability at risk; providing them with affordable health care and well-funded hospitals should they ever get sick; keeping them safe with clean water, clear air, and inspected food; and so on. Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun, isolated the dissonance best when she said, "I do not believe that just because you're opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don't? Because you don't want any tax money to go there. That's not pro-life. That's pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is." [9] Had Reagan's pro-life approach focused on "the dignity of life" beyond the womb rather than just the dignity of those inside it, perhaps his legacy--and Kengor's chapter--would be worthier of study and attention.

5. American Exceptionalism

There is little reason to doubt that Reagan thought of America as an exceptional place, and as Kengor points out, he made this idea the subject of countless speeches, including some delivered long before he ever ran for public office. Even if Kengor were to concede that analyzing presidential speeches for quotes on American exceptionalism is pointless, as all presidents deliver speeches that highlight the qualities that make their country unique in the world, there is still ample evidence supporting the idea that Reagan saw his nation as different than most, almost transcendent....



The rest of this review, including full citations, can be found at There Will Be Books Galore.

[Jeff Lowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Writing about politicians always proves to be a difficult job, however, writing about an influential character such as Ronald Reagan is an even more difficult task. Paul Kengor’s 11 Principles of Reagan Conservatism tells us what made Americans rank Ronald Reagan as the greatest president for many years. What enabled him to win the votes of forty-four out of fifty states in the presidential elections of 1980. Paul Kengor gives us insights to Reagan’s conservative philosophy and agenda. An agenda which is made up of 11 principles, such as Freedom, Faith, Family, Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life, American Exceptionalism, Lower Taxes, Limited Government, and Peace Through Strength. Paul Kengor points out all the features and attributes which made Reagan a great American president, without forgetting to address the criticism directed at him. But what is even more interesting is that the author skillfully describes all that is good in Reagan’s career without falling into the trap of blunt propaganda.

I highly recommend adding this to your reading, it won't disappoint.

In simple words, Paul Kengor’s book is a gateway to Reagan’s political philosophy, and most importantly it is a pleasure to read whether you like Reagan or not.

[Jameson · Rating 4 out of 5]

However brief it is, I found Kengor's concise summary of one of the more coherent modern political philosophies to be successful in its didactic function. Coming from a pro-Reagan perspective, it used common language and basic but strong arguments to explain the positions of Reaganite conservatives and lay out the path forward for a coalition of citizens espousing these intertwined ideals. Though written prior to modern political conditions, its foundations apply to the current day and are in many ways being pursued as a normative vision within a wing of the Republican party. Kengor treats this work as a primer on Ronald Reagan's political philosophy and its application, not as the definitive Reagan biography, which makes it a great instructional tool for teenagers in articulating an expression of American conservatism. I'd like to see this next to the Gideon Bible across the country.

[Joe Rodeck · Rating 4 out of 5]

A history lesson on the rudiments of Reagan conservatism.

The only problem I have with this excellent short study is the pushing forth of Christian conservatism. [Though Right to Life-rs will love it.] And laughable is the high toned lecture on the sanctity of the family. Reagan was divorced!

But . . . Reagan's greatness is displayed in three ways. 1) Fiscal conservatism: Tax cuts. 2) Smaller government. More government = less freedom.

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

3) The coining of the blunt phrase "Evil Empire." From an all-time great speech, it is still thrilling as he refers to the Soviet Union as "The focus of evil in the modern world."

[Wesley Lim · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great introduction to President Reagan’s personal beliefs and ideological leanings. Anyone interested in conservatism or Reaganism should consider picking this book up and giving it a read.

My main issue with the book is the lack of depth behind each of the 11 principles. The book tells you “what” but barely scraps the surface of “why”.

An interesting read nonetheless!

[Dusty Shandy]

What an amazing book! It points out issues that need to be addressed in today's administration and the fact that if God is removed than our country is destined for destruction.

[J.A. Irvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book for every office seeker. I feel like all Republicans should be held up to the standards in this book. Such a great book.

[Michael Hines · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing new. Just a good summary of Reagan Conservative/Libertarian values.

[Leighton · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a really great book and I learned a lot from it. It is definitely a must read.

[Cliff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is basically a cliff-notes version of Kengor's conclusions about Ronald Reagan. He's written several books about different facets of Reagan and his legacy, and this is basically a distillation of his conclusions about his worldview.

It's a useful book for someone who wants to understand the basics of his philosophy. For people like me, it's mostly just repetitive. But I'd recommend it to someone who merely wants to understand the basics about someone who was, undoubtedly, one of the two most influential Presidents of the 20th century.

[Dr. David Steele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superb account of one of America's greatest presidents.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good summary of those values that made Reagan great.

[William Kulbicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

wonderful insights and explanations of deeply held and well thought out principles.

[Vincent Kiernan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ridiculous BS.