#WTH A Time for Choosing

On Reagan, elections, and comity

🚨Stay tuned: For the first time, we’ll be doing a special online post-election event for paid subscribers. Information coming later today!

Tomorrow is Election Day. Many of us have already voted, but some prefer the tradition of voting on the day set out in the 19th century: The first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

We recently hosted Reagan historian Peter Schweizer on the podcast to talk about the 60th anniversary of Reagan’s A Time for Choosing speech in 1964. I commend the entire, brilliant oration to you. It is an appeal to values and principles, to citizenship, and most of all, it is a potent reminder of what a wonderful and unique place these United States can be for us, her citizens. Please, as you go to vote, or contemplate the election, remember that first and foremost. You may not agree with Reagan, but you can agree with his spirit.

We spend endless months harping on the glaring faults of our candidates, marveling angrily at the fecklessness of our opponents, underplaying or exaggerating, in turn, the faults of our political opposites, and bemoaning the state of our nation. Tuesday of all days is a day to rest, and appreciate what we have rather than what we have not.

Half of us will be unhappy with the outcome of the race. Some of us will cry fraud, or rail against the media, the establishment, the Nazis, the Commies, the government, the women, the men, the illegals, the Whites, the Blacks, the Muslims, the Jews, the Evangelicals. I am possibly as far from a “love thy neighbor” type as you can find. Nonetheless, the privilege of being able to take a deep breath, to step back, to choose our leaders, and to trust in the result — and we should — is enormous, nay, historic. There are precious few democracies such as ours in the world, and fewer this year than last.

We are not in China, or Saudi Arabia, or Gaza, or Russia, or Iran, or Georgia, or South Africa, or Ukraine. We are troubled by our cultural differences, and angry at each others’ predations on tradition or on progress. But our institutions are still the strongest in the world, our values of freedom are still the standard of the world, our people are still the best, the brightest, and the freest. Can you find examples to contradict me? Of course. Can you point to cracks in our edifice? Sure. Nonetheless, there are moments to count ourselves lucky, to look at the people in line with you, people arguing on TV, your friends, family, and community, and say thank you. We are lucky to live in the best place on earth.

Wednesday, you can go back to your sweet spot, and ask yourself whether we can ever again be the nation that Reagan believed we must be. We have strayed quite far, and the Republican Party of 2024 is not the party of 1964. Ditto for the Democrats. If Reagan was speaking to you on that October day sixty years ago, the fight would begin again on November 6. If he wasn’t, that too is manageable.

Ronald Reagan’s candidate did not win on that Election Day in 1964, and it would take 16 long and costly years before the principles Reagan articulated won the day. But he got there, always believing there was morning in America, happy fighting for the best people in the best nation on earth. Remember that.

HIGHLIGHTS

Here are our highlights of Reagan’s “Time for Choosing” speech:

RR: We're at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it's been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well I think it's time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers.

Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, "We don't know how lucky we are." And the Cuban stopped and said, "How lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to." And in that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.

And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man.

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.

You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down - [up] man's old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course…

"The full power of centralized government" this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose…

We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they're going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning. Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer - and they've had almost 30 years of it - shouldn't we expect government to read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn't they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? The reduction in the need for public housing?

But the reverse is true. Each year the need grows greater; the program grows greater…

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.

Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so…

I think we're for telling our senior citizens that no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds. But I think we're against forcing all citizens, regardless of need, into a compulsory government program, especially when we have such examples, as was announced last week, when France admitted that their Medicare program is now bankrupt. They've come to the end of the road…

I think we're for an international organization, where the nations of the world can seek peace. But I think we're against subordinating American interests to an organization that has become so structurally unsound that today you can muster a two-thirds vote on the floor of the General Assembly among nations that represent less than 10 percent of the world's population. I think we're against the hypocrisy of assailing our allies because here and there they cling to a colony, while we engage in a conspiracy of silence and never open our mouths about the millions of people enslaved in the Soviet colonies in the satellite nations.

I think we're for aiding our allies by sharing of our material blessings with those nations which share in our fundamental beliefs, but we're against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world…

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…

But as a former Democrat, I can tell you Norman Thomas isn't the only man who has drawn this parallel to socialism with the present administration, because back in 1936, Mr. Democrat himself, Al Smith, the great American, came before the American people and charged that the leadership of his Party was taking the Party of Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland down the road under the banners of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. And he walked away from his Party, and he never returned til the day he died, because to this day, the leadership of that Party has been taking that Party, that honorable Party, down the road in the image of the labor Socialist Party of England…

Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy "accommodation." And they say if we'll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he'll forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. 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.

We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, "Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we're willing to make a deal with your slave masters." Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." Now let's set the record straight. There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace - and you can have it in the next second - surrender.

Admittedly, there's a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face, that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand, the ultimatum. And what then, when Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we're retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he's heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he'd rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us.

You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin - just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it's a simple answer after all.

You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." "There is a point beyond which they must not advance." And this - this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said, "The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we're spirits - not animals." And he said, "There's something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.

We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.

If you look at the arc of conservative history, was Reaganism a flash in the pan or is it an enduring ideology in the movement?

PS: Look, Reaganism as it were, or what conservatives used to call Fusionism, this is like merging anti-communism and classical liberalism and bringing them together was a rarity. But I would also argue that it was also a reflection of the time, right? I mean, if you look at who did Reagan most admire as an American president, it's debatable. But I would argue it was Calvin Coolidge. He favored Calvin Coolidge and he loved silent Cal. Calvin Coolidge was a president in the 1920s, and he was free trade oriented. He was free markets oriented, but he did not favor a strong posture overseas. Why was that? Because he didn't believe in it? No, because in the 1920s it just was not a problem or it was not an issue.

So, I think you are right in the sense that Reaganism represents a blip, but I also think Reaganism was a reflection of the time. And at that time when Reagan was running and became president, two large things were happening and I would love you guys to jump in on this. One was of course the domestic malaise in the United States, the excessive regulation, the inflation that was plaguing us domestically, the general psychological profile of the country. So, along comes Reagan free markets and optimism to deal with. The second historical thing going on is the Cold War and Soviet ascendancy. So, I think you are right that Reaganism, in a sense was a blip along conservatism.

How did we end up the the Republican Party of today that has seemingly strayed away from Reaganism and embraced populism?

PS: There certainly are changes that are different from Reaganism, but I would also argue that's partly because of the political leadership we have, but I think it's also part of the realities that we face. So, for example, let's dive into one of the big controversial subjects right now, which is Ukraine. I absolutely support the Ukrainian government and think we should support the Ukrainian government. But I think we also have to look at a simple fact, and I think we have to put it in a context as much as I would like to take Reaganism and apply it to Ukraine, the reality is when Ronald Reagan became president in 1981 and began his massive defense buildup, what was the debt to GDP ratio in the United States? It was 38%. What is it today? It's 123%.

In other words, we are massively in debt. I still remember when Reagan was president, we passed a trillion dollars in debt, we're now at 35 trillion. So, my point would be I disagree with those who say, "Oh, we should not worry about Ukraine." But on the other hand, I am very sympathetic to the argument that a full-throated United States is going to fund the entire operation in Ukraine. I don't think you can harken back to Reagan to make that argument because I think even Reagan would recognize with the kind of debt that we have, we are going to have to make some priorities. We're going to have to pick those priorities. And pretending that the debt exists I think is not a way to deal with that issue.

How have the political realities changed since Reagan was elected?

PS: Part of it I think reflects the changing nature of the Republican electorate, which is it is more blue collar, it is more working class than it was before. Part of that is out of political expediency, part of that is I think because of social dynamic changes in the United States. So, I agree with you, the conservative movement has changed. The leadership is different. Some of it is based on opportunism, and I think some of it is based on realities that we face that we did not face in the 1980s.

Can America fix its fiscal problems without retreating from the world stage?

PS: I think the question becomes not one extreme or the other, the sort of complete isolationism is one thing. On the other hand, I think there has to be a recognition, and this is where, hopefully, we can square the circle. There has to be some recognition that the United States has to fix its fiscal problem, and we're going to have a very hard time doing that with the mood of the public if they perceive that so much of the money is going overseas.

How can we move the Republican Party back to its Reaganite roots?

PS: In terms of thinking about a solution and moving the Republican Party back to its Reagan roots, I think it's trying to analyze what that problem and that issue is. And I think part of the problem, having talked to people in Washington, as I know you do in elective office, there's not a whole lot of profiles in courage in the Republican Party. They don't see cutting entitlements as a political winner. And we all saw the commercials when Paul Ryan and others campaigned on this, how they got crucified by the Democrats. And what Trump's solution to this is, I'm just going to double down on the Democrats, which is absolutely not the right approach to take.

What made the Time for Choosing speech so important and influential?

PS: I think the thing that's so important about Reagan and about his speech and the political courage that Reagan showed because in 1980 and 1984, he staked out positions that were heavy lifts. They weren't necessarily popular things. He did it with an optimism. He did it with an engagement that gave people hope to the future, but he was also giving people some hard medicine to face. And that's I think one of the things that's lacking with the modern-day Republican Party. It's that willingness to stand on principle and to firmly tell people, "This is where we need to go," even though we're going to get criticized and heard for it. And that is not the Republican Party that we have today.

Reagan firmly stakes out a position against big government in his speech. But today, neither party is advocating for smaller government. How do we contend with the lure of taxation and big government?

PS: So yeah, the problem has gotten worse. And the political temptation that comes from people in elected office to spend money and to make promises is enormous. And I think one of the challenges with Trump's approach or with the new populist approach is that there's this sort of conflating of the free market and pro-business, right? Milton Friedman once said, "I'm pro-free market. I'm not pro-business. What you're seeing with populists is pro-business." And I think that's not good. That's not the direction we want to go.

Could a Ronald Reagan type politician get elected today?

PS: I'm not sure that a Ronald Reagan could get elected right now given where we are socially in terms of expectations from the government...

Why not?

PS: Especially since the Republican Party has moved in the same direction. Remember when Reagan won in 1980, America was in economically a very difficult place. I was 15 years old. I think I was 15 years old when Ronald Reagan got elected. And I remember interest rates were 17%, unemployment was going up. So, when we complain about inflation, that I think reached 9%, which is terrible, it was far more worse there. And I think people were more willing to go with somebody who wanted shock therapy.

Would a Reaganite leader be able to change the course of the Republican Party?

PS: When you're in a crisis situation, I would agree with Marc, if you have the leader in that circumstance, you can't actually change the course of history. It takes hard work, it takes courage. You have to have Congress, you need to have people supporting you in Congress and you can do it. But unfortunately, I don't think the crisis is bad enough for us to elect somebody who's going to provide shock therapy. That's why you have this competition between the parties as to who can, "We're not going to tax this. We're not going to tax that." Look, I love the fact that taxes are lower. I do not like the fact that just certain types of income and certain people are getting tax cuts. I think that's just the reverse coin of giving handouts to people. I know tax cuts aren't handouts, but it's the same political gesture and I don't like that.

What might American foreign policy look like in a second Trump administration?

PS: I think we have to return to this question of Trump diplomacy. What is Trump diplomacy and how much of is it tied up with this negotiating approach that is designed to achieve some specific result? I know in the first term, Dany, both you and Marc I'm sure tracked this. There were lots of concerns in Europe that Trump was going to pull out of NATO. I think if you look at what Trump actually did, part of what you saw Trump saying about NATO and about European defense spending was an approach to get them to spend more on military approach.

There were concerns that he wouldn't stand up to Russia. He put Patriot missiles in Poland and was very supportive in lots of ways. So, the point is I think that you have to not necessarily look at things that Trump says, you have to look at the actual policies that he carries out. And of course, part of that is who are the people that are around him? And it's going to be very interesting to see who are the key national security advisors around him if he wins in November, which I think he probably is going to.

Is there a single person in American politics with real purchasing power that can lay out the types of guiding principles Reagan did in his speech?

PS: I don't know if there's one single person I can point to. I mean, there are elements of it you see in different places, and part of it is I think because this notion of fusionism, classical liberal libertarianism with a more hawkish foreign policy, it's hard to find those people. So, for example, there's some things I really like that Rand Paul says about the domestic economy and the need for deregulation and decentralization. I would not agree with him on foreign policy issues. So, I don't think there's a single person. But look, I would raise this optimistic point.

If you look at the first Trump term in terms of what expectations were and in terms of what he actually delivered, I think it was a very successful administration in terms of policy. And as Reagan always said, "Policy is about people." And I do think that when it comes to the foreign policy advisors, you're probably going to get people like Robert O'Brien or Mike Pompeo. That seems to be the approach that I think Trump is going to take. The other thing I would say in terms of Trump that I think goes underappreciated, and this is where an area where I would say Trump, a little bit better than Reagan is, Trump doesn't mind being unpopular. He doesn't mind being criticized. He doesn't mind being attacked. He doesn't mind the mainstream media telling him he's a horrible person.

Ronald Reagan probably in part because of Nancy Reagan, but he didn't like that. He did not like that. He was prepared to be tough when he needed to, but it was really hard for him to do it. The famous story, of course, was William French Smith, who was his personal attorney and then joined him in the Reagan administration. The story goes that in 1980, one of the maids that was working at Reagan's house, I think it was in Bel-Air was apparently stealing from him, but Reagan didn't have the heart to fire her. So, he had William French Smith, his personal attorney fired her.

Donald Trump would've had no problem firing that person. And I would say that's a virtue, especially in the rough and tumble of politics where we have all seen good, solid fire-breathing conservatives go in, whether it's on the Supreme Court or in the Senate, and they get seduced and they kind of fall into line because they want to be part of the in-crowd. I think that's one of Trump's virtues. He doesn't mind if he's not in the in-crowd as far as DC is concerned.

How do we get Americans to care about the threat posed by China, Russia, and Iran to the United States?

PS: For people who think that threat is far off and affecting this distant country, no, it's affecting the United States directly. And I would argue that we're already at war with China in a lot of respects. And the question is the next administration has to stand up on that. And I think part of the test, part of the question Marc is are the American people prepared to pay some economic costs? Because when it comes to dealing with China, part of the problem is going to be dealing with the issue of we get all these cheap pharmaceuticals from China, we get so many of our renewable energy products from China, we get so many other critical goods, medical supplies from China. That's going to have to change.

That is a major strategic vulnerability, and that's going to end up costing people. It's probably going to increase the cost of goods in various areas, and you need to prepare to do that, and you need to have a president who is prepared to do that. I think Trump is, I think that in the last administration, Trump met with Xi, and Xi said, "We'll deal with fentanyl. We'll stop sending the precursors." Trump applauded him. And of course, he never did that. I think Trump believing that he could by the force of personality, get Xi to do things, I think that myth Trump realizes he doesn't want to repeat it.

So, I think China to me is the biggest threat. That's not to minimize what's going on in the Middle East or what's going in Russia, but if something is going to rise the concern and the ire of the American people, I think it's a threat from China because it's not in a far-off distant land like so many threats seem to me in the eyes of ordinary Americans. It's something that actually tangibly affects us here in a very real and fundamental way.

How do we convince people America is worth fighting for when so many on the left criticize America and its history every chance they get?

PS: I think we need to rip the veneer off and we need to challenge them on that because I'm sorry, that's just total bullshit. That is total bullshit, that you love your country, but you think it's foundationally racist and everything. Why on earth would you love a country like that if you actually believe it? So, I think we need to push back and challenge them on that.

Read the transcript here.

SHOWNOTES

A Time for Choosing Speech, October 27, 1964 (Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum)

When ‘A Time for Choosing’ Became the Time for Reagan (Karl Rove, National Review, Nov 14, 2019)

A Defining Statement of Modern Conservatism (Rich Lowry, National Review, Nov 15, 2019)

The myth of MAGA isolationism (Marc Thiessen, WAPO, June 25, 2024)

Ronald Reagan’s Enduring Legacy (Mike Pence, National Review, June 5, 2024)

Americans agree: It’s time to return to Reagan’s timeless principles (Marc Thiessen, WAPO, Dec 8, 2023)

Retrospective Approval of JFK Rises to 90%; Trump at 46% (Jeffery Jones, Gallup, July 17, 2023)

Restore Reagan’s Military ‘Margin of Safety’ (Roger Zakheim, Wall Street Journal, August 28, 2022)

Reagan’s War: The Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism (Walter Russell Mead, Foreign Affairs, November 1, 2002)

Reagan's Triumph (Steven F Hayward, Claremont Review of Books, Winter 2002/2003)