The Working Class Republican

by Henry Olsen

  2. Reagan, An American Life, 287.

  3. Ronald Reagan, first inaugural address, 20 January 1981, accessed at https://reaganlibrary.archives.gov/archives/speeches/1981/12081a.htm. All subsequent quotes and paraphrases of this speech come from this source.

  4. Ronald Reagan, Nationally Televised Address to the Nation on the Economy, 5 February 1981, accessed at https://reaganlibrary.archives.gov/archives/speeches/1981/20581c.htm. All subsequent quotes and paraphrases of this speech come from this source.

  5. Ronald Reagan, Address before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Program for Economic Recovery, 18 February 1981, accessed at https://reaganlibrary.archives.gov/archives/speeches/1981/21881a.htm.

  6. See Reagan, An American Life, 235.

  7. Reagan’s first words to Nancy after the shooting were, “Honey, I forgot to duck.” He also asked his surgeon before going under if he was a Republican. “Today, Mr. President,” the surgeon replied, “we are all Republicans.” Reagan, An American Life, 260–61.

  8. Douglas Brinkley, ed., The Reagan Diaries (New York: Harper Perennial, 2007), 21. Thus did he “reluctantly” include something he had proposed over two decades prior. See Reagan, An American Life, 286.

  9. Reagan, An American Life, 285.

  10. Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Program for Economic Security, 24 September 1981, accessed at https://reaganlibrary.archives.gov/archives/speeches/1981/92481d.htm.

  11. Ibid.

  12. William Greider, “The Education of David Stockman,” The Atlantic, December 1981, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/12/the-education-of-david-stockman/305760/. All subsequent quotes and paraphrases are taken from this source.

  13. Roosevelt used the phrase “leak through” to describe “trickle down” in his 1932 Democratic Convention acceptance speech. He used “trickle down” directly in an October campaign speech in Detroit (see www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=88393) and also used it in subsequent Fireside Chats.

  14. Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters, 212.

  15. Ibid., 341.

  16. Ibid., 318.

  17. Ibid., 617.

  18. Ibid., 318.

  19. See Reagan, speech to the California Fertilizer Association. All three specific items mentioned in this paragraph were mentioned in that talk.

  20. Reagan, An American Life, 231.

  21. Cannon, President Reagan, 69.

  22. Reagan, 1961 speech to Phoenix Chamber of Commerce.

  23. Ibid.; 1958 Speech to California Fertilizer Association (approves of a different Herlong-sponsored tax bill).

  24. David Stockman, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), 50.

  25. Cannon, President Reagan, 197.

  26. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Campaign Address at Detroit, Michigan, 2 October 1932, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=88393.

  27. Reagan, An American Life, 242.

  28. Ibid., 255.

  29. Ibid., 272.

  30. Ibid.

  31. Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters, 401.

  32. Reagan, An American Life, 315–24.

  33. Ibid.

  34. Kurt Anderson, “Thunder on the Right,” Time, 16 August 1982, http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/printout/0,8816,950722,00.html.

  35. Ibid.

  36. Bill Peterson, “Viguerie Leaves Crane, Enters Connally’s Camp,” Washington Post, 8 August 1979, www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/08/08/viguerie-leaves-crane-entnrs-connallys-camp/a0392210-99f3-44e5-b2b7-50ac063d79e9/?utm_term=.f7d62b35c070.

  37. Brinkley, Reagan Diaries, 94–95.

  38. Ibid., 96.

  39. Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters, 294. Writing to the San Diego Republican congressman Clair Burgener, Reagan said he opposed Kemp’s idea of a tax cut without spending cuts. Americans would not believe, he wrote, that “lower taxes alone would generate additional funds and solve our deficit problems.”

  40. Ibid., 332 (letter to Mr. Lennie Pickard).

  41. See Anderson, “Thunder on the Right.”

  42. Ibid.

  43. Brinkley, Reagan Diaries, 99.

  44. Ibid., 120–21.

  45. Ronald Reagan, address to members of the British Parliament, 8 June 1982, accessed at www.heritage.org/research/reports/2002/06/reagans-westminster-speech. All subsequent quotes and paraphrases from that speech come from this source.

  46. Steven F. Hayward, The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution, 1980–1989 (New York: Crown Forum, 2009), 256.

  47. Reagan’s diaries include three separate entries for 1983 and 1984 in which he notes that his staff directly or indirectly pushed him to increase taxes. Stockman is mentioned in each. See Brinkley, Reagan Diaries, 153, 210, 283.

  48. “Legislative History: Summary of P.L. 98–21 (H.R. 1900), Social Security Amendments of 1983—Signed on April 20, 1983,” prepared by the Social Security Administration, Office of Legislative and Congressional Affairs, 11/26/1984, www.ssa.gov/history/1983amend.html.

  49. Fewer than half of the Republicans in the House backed the compromise on final passage, with the future presidential hopefuls Newt Gingrich, Jack Kemp, and Ron Paul all voting no or abstaining. See Social Security Administration, “Vote Tallies: 1983 Amendments,” www.ssa.gov/history/tally1983.html.

  50. Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters, 625.

  51. Reagan, An American Life, 324–25.

  52. Frank Newport, Jeffrey M. Jones, and Lydia Saad, “Ronald Reagan from the People’s Perspective,” Gallup Organization, June 7, 2004, www.gallup.com/poll/11887/ronald-reagan-from-peoples-perspective-gallup-poll-review.aspx.

  53. “Gallup Presidential Trial-Heat Trends,” Gallup Organization, www.gallup.com/poll/110548/gallup-presidential-election-trialheat-trends-19362004.aspx#4.

  54. Reagan, An American Life, 326.

  55. Reagan, Remarks at a Ceremony Commemorating the Fortieth Anniversary of the Normandy D-day Invasion, 6 June 1984, accessed at https://reaganlibrary.archives.gov/archives/speeches/1984/60684a.htm. All quotes and paraphrases of this speech are taken from this source.

  56. George W. Bush, transcript of remarks aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, 1 May 2003, CNN.com, www.cnn.com/2003/US/05/01/bush.transcript/. All subsequent quotes and paraphrases of that speech are taken from this source.

  57. Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, 26 January 1982, accessed at https://reaganlibrary.archives.gov/archives/speeches/1982/12682c.htm. All quotes and paraphrases are taken from this source.

  58. Ronald Reagan, “The Agenda Is Victory,” address to the ninth annual CPAC conference, 26 February 1982, accessed at http://reagan2020.us/speeches/The_Agenda_is_Victory.asp.

  59. Ronald Reagan, 1983 State of the Union Address, 25 January 1983, accessed at https://reaganlibrary.archives.gov/archives/speeches/1983/12583c.htm. All quotes and paraphrases of this speech are taken from this source.

  60. “Gallup Presidential Trial-Heat Trends,” Gallup Organization, www.gallup.com/poll/110548/gallup-presidential-election-trialheat-trends-19362004.aspx#4.

  61. Ibid.

  62. Ronald Reagan, Acceptance Speech at the Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas, 23 August 1984, accessed at https://reaganlibrary.archives.gov/archives/speeches/1984/82384f.htm. All quotes and paraphrases of this speech are drawn from this source.

  63. Ronald Reagan, “Losing Freedom by Installments,” address to the Conservative League of Minneapolis, 29 January 1962, listened to at RPL, July 2016. All subsequent quotes from or paraphrases of that speech comes from this source.

  64. Brinkley, Reagan Diaries, 65.

  65. Reagan, An American Life, 328.

  66. Ibid., 329.

  67. “Debating Our Destiny: 1984: There You Go Again . . . Again,” Public Broadcasting System and McNeil/Lehrer Productions, https://web.archive.org/web/20001212070100/http://www.pbs.org/newshour/debatingourdestin
y/dod/1984-broadcast.html.

  68. Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, 21 January 1985, accessed at https://reaganlibrary.archives.gov/archives/speeches/1985/12185a.htm. All quotes and paraphrases of this speech come from this source.

  69. Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, 6 February 1985, accessed at https://reaganlibrary.archives.gov/archives/speeches/1985/20685e.htm. All quotes and paraphrases of this speech are taken from this source.

  70. Reagan, speech to Phoenix Chamber of Commerce.

  71. Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters, 348.

  72. Reagan, speech to California Fertilizer Association.

  73. Congressional Research Service, “H.R. 3838 (99th): Tax Reform Act of 1986,” 18 September 1986, GovTrack, www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/99/hr3838/summary#libraryofcongress.

  74. Ronald Reagan, Remarks on Signing the Tax Reform Act of 1986, 22 October 1986, accessed at www.reagan.utexas/.edu/archives/speeches/1986/102286a.html. All quotes and paraphrases of this speech are taken from this source.

  75. Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Federal Budget and Deficit Reduction, 24 April 1985, accessed at https://reaganlibrary.archives.gov/archives/speeches/1985/42485b.htm. All quotes and paraphrases of this speech are taken from this source.

  76. Reagan had opposed farm subsidies consistently throughout his early speeches. See, for example, his speeches to the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce and the Conservative League of Minneapolis.

  77. Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, 4 February 1986, accessed at https://reaganlibrary.archives.gov/archives/speeches/1986/20486a.htm. All quotes and paraphrases of this speech.

  78. Stockman, Triumph of Politics, 14.

  79. For Stockman’s Marxism, see ibid., 21–23; for his embrace of supply-side libertarianism, see ibid., 49.

  80. Ibid., 8.

  81. Ibid.

  82. Ibid., 11.

  83. Ibid.

  84. Ibid., 11.

  85. Ibid., 49–50.

  86. Ibid., 49.

  87. Ibid., 49–50.

  88. Ronald Reagan, address to the National Association of Evangelicals, 8 March 1983, accessed at http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/speech-3409.

  89. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ReaganBeginsBombingRussia.ogg.

  90. Reagan, An American Life, 612.

  91. Ibid., 614–15.

  92. Ibid., 636.

  93. Ibid., 641.

  94. “Crude Oil Prices—70 Year Historical Chart,” 2 March 2017, Macrotrends LLC, www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart.

  95. See Reagan, An American Life, 675. (Gorbachev tells Reagan the USSR reneged on a deal to buy American wheat “because of falling oil prices, which meant fewer Soviet dollars for wheat.”)

  96. Ibid., 664.

  97. Ibid., 677.

  98. Ibid.

  99. Ibid., 678.

  100. Ibid., 686.

  101. Ibid., 683.

  102. Ibid., 696.

  103. See the 22 May 1987 issue of National Review, available at www.unz.org/Pub/NationalRev-1987may22.

  104. Lee Edwards, William F. Buckley, Jr.: The Maker of a Movement (ISI Books, 2014). See also Reagan’s written reply to Buckley in Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters, 418 (“I have not changed my belief that we are dealing with an ‘evil empire’”).

  105. Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters, 384.

  106. For Gorbachev’s sincerity, see ibid., 386; for Gorbachev being different, see ibid., 414.

  107. Ibid., 414–15.

  108. Ibid., 420.

  109. Rudy Abramson, “Senate Approves INF Treaty 93–5,” Los Angeles Times, 28 May 1988, http://articles.latimes.com/1988-05-28/news/mn-3390_1_senate-democrats.

  110. Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters, 387.

  111. The Right Honorable Theresa May, Speech to Conservative Party Conference, 5 October 2016, accessed at http://press.conservatives.com.

  Chapter 8: The Time Is Now: Reagan

  1. Ronald Reagan, Explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger Address to the Nation, 28 January 1986, accessed at http://history.nasa.gov/reagan12886.html.

  2. See “In Their Own Words: Obama on Reagan,” New York Times, www.nytimes.com/ref/us/politics/21seelye-text.html.

  3. Trends in Party Identification, 1939–2014, Pew Research Center, 7 April 2015, accessed at www.people-press.org/interactives/party-id-trend.

  4. CNN National Exit Poll, accessed at CNN.com, www.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls.

  5. See state-level exit polls at CNN.com, www.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls/wisconsin/president; www.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls/pennsylvania/president; and www.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls/michigan/president.

  6. The classic skit can be listened to at www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tVzdUczMT0.

  7. See William Schneider, “An Insider’s View of the Election,” The Atlantic, July 1988, www.theatlantic.com/past/politics/policamp/insider.htm.

  8. Bill Clinton, 1995 State of the Union Address, accessed at http://millercenter.org/president/clinton/speeches/speech-3440.

  9. William J. Clinton, “Text of Clinton Government Shutdown Address,” 14 November 1995, CNN, www.cnn.com/US/9511/debt_limit/11-14/transcripts/clinton.html for his statement announcing the government shutdown.

  10. David Horowitz, “I’m a Uniter, Not a Divider,” Salon, 6 May 1999, www.salon.com/1999/05/06/bush_2/.

  11. Richard Oppel and Jim Yardley, “The 2000 Campaign,” New York Times, 20 March 2000, www.nytimes.com/2000/03/20/us/2000-campaign-texas-governor-bush-calls-himself-reformer-record-shows-label-may.html.

  12. Stephen Buttry, “Candidates Focus on Christian Beliefs,” Des Moines Register, 15 December 1999, accessed at http://archives.cnn.com/1999/ALLPOLITICS/stories/12/15/religion.register.

  13. “Newspaper: Butterfly Ballot Cost Gore White House,” 11 March 2001, CNN.com, www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/03/11/palmbeach.recount.

  14. Jeanne Sahadi, “Bush’s Plan for Social Security,” CNN/Money.com, 4 March 2005, http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/02/retirement/stofunion_socsec/.

  15. Sean Sullivan, “The Most Aired Campaign Ad of the Past Decade,” Washington Post, 8 April 2014, www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/04/08/watch-obama-hit-mccain-in-the-single-most-aired-campaign-ad-of-the-past-decade/?utm_term=.f5c1b7b322de.

  16. Barack Obama, “Keynote Address 2004 Democratic National Convention,” 27 July 2004, www2.gwu.edu/~action/2004/demconv04/obama072704spt.html. All quotes and paraphrases of this speech are taken from this source.

  17. See 2008 exit poll, accessed on CNN.com, www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=USP00p5.

  18. Statewide election results are available on CNN.com: www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=IAP00p1 (Iowa); www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=MIP00p1 (Michigan); www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=NHP00p1 (New Hampshire); www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=INP00p1 (Indiana).

  19. See 2008 election poll results on CNN.com, www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=OHP00p2.

  20. The next four paragraphs are taken from Henry Olsen, “Obama’s Young Garden,” National Review, 23 January 2017. This material is used with permission.

  21. Jackie Calmes, “Spotlight Fixed on Geithner, a Man Obama Sought to Keep,” New York Times, 12 November 2011, www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/us/politics/spotlight-fixed-on-geithner-a-man-obama-fought-to-keep.html.

  22. The three candidates I have in mind are Sharron Angle in Nevada, Ken Buck in Colorado, and Christine O’Donnell in Delaware.

  23. Henry Olsen, “Day of the Democratic Dead,” National Review Online, 1 November 2010, https://eppc.org/publications/day-of-the-democratic-dead/.

  24. See “A Roadmap for America’s Future: The Challenge, The Responsibility, The Opportunity,” accessed at www.wispolitics.com/1006/_080521_Ryan_roadmap.pdf. All subsequent discussion of the plan’s details c
ome from this source.

  25. “A Roadmap for America’s Future 2.0,” January 2010, p. 44 (copy on file with author).

  26. See www.taxhistory.org/thp/presreturns.nsf/Returns/9F81699BC7D6DE238525798F0051C35F/$file/M_Romney_2011.pdf.