COMMENTARY: A course correction

In 1964, Ronald Reagan gave a speech on behalf of the Barry Goldwater campaign that has become immortalized as “A Time for Choosing.” It has many poignant anecdotes, but one in particular has occupied my mind considerably as of late.

Near the beginning of the speech, Reagan brought up the seemingly age-old question of whether to choose the political left or right…and he rejected that choice. He declared, “There is no such thing as a left or right.” Instead, he said, “there’s only an up or down — up to man’s old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.”

He warned that “regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.” The reason this quote has weighed heavily on my heart is because I’m increasingly concerned that the state of politics in America is presenting a choice of down or down.

One need only take a passing glance at the state of our major political parties to recognize that two forces have come to monopolize party power in America: progressivism and populism. We have come to define these opposing forces through our traditional prism of left vs. right. But neither truly reflects the things we traditionally viewed as representing the left and right of American politics.

Progressivism is not liberalism, and populism is not conservatism. Neither progressivism nor populism is all too concerned with the bedrock principles of the American nation. Liberty, equal justice, federalism, constitutionally limited governance, checks and balances on power, the rule of law … increasingly the national debate is not about how to secure such values but upon which grounds such things should be abandoned.

The progressive radicals have adopted a host of views on America as a nation that, most generously, can be considered critical theories but when honestly examined amount to a rejection of the American heritage … a denial that the American project has anything of value to be desired or conserved. The 1619 Project; critical race theory; diversity, equity and inclusion; #DefundPolice … there is no shortage of programs, theories and treatments deriving from leftist thinkers and activists whose goals involve the dismantling of the American mythos and ethos, of challenging a status quo they characterize as inequitable, as awash in oppressive structures.

They wish to transform and refound the American nation into something more akin to the Nordic model, a social democracy with an extensive welfare state offering positive liberties at the expense of traditional liberty and concerned with creating state-established equity to displace the free market, individual freedom and equal opportunity.

Not to be outdone, the populist radicals have embraced an increasingly overt form of statism and post-constitutionalism of their own. The most aggressive populist activists openly deride the Constitution, dismiss the traditions of conservatism, and voice their desires for a “Red Caesar,” specifically in the person of Donald Trump.

And to be sure, the president is wielding executive power to whole new levels, most obviously as he essentially attempts to reorder the world economy through executive fiat as Congress watches on like a hapless spectator. Under the slogan “we can’t afford to be nice anymore,” many populist activists assert that the niceties and principles of traditional conservatism are ill-equipped to fight fire with fire in a culture war that demands absolute victory or else “we don’t have a country anymore.”

And anyone who fails to climb on board of their aggressive, statist project, or at least fails to remain silent and compliant, gets accosted by the host of terms that have come to dominate the populist lexicon of derision: RINO, NeverTrumper, Cuckservative, etc.

In 1964, Reagan offered us a choice: up or down. And that time of choosing helped to launch a conservative movement that 20 years later culminated in a 49-state embrace of a project of American renewal. Now, we similarly find ourselves in an era that very much feels like a time of choosing. But the choices on the menu seem less than conducive to the kind of American renewal that Reagan and the early conservative movement offered the country.

Despite Americans voicing again and again and again in the past decade of election cycles that they want a course correction, the choices offered by the major parties have become down or down. And so, we have found ourselves stuck in a vicious cycle of dysfunction seemingly without a party that can offer us a path back up, upward once more to “man’s old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order.”

And until we allow ourselves to break free of the corralling effect of the left-right “choose your side” way of thinking that has allowed progressivism and populism to supplant liberalism and conservatism — which has led to support for radical ideologies from Americans who think they’re still supporting the traditional sides of the left-right political divide — we will continue getting only the choices of down or down.

In the year we commemorate the 250th anniversary of our independence, let us hope we can find a way to break free into intellectual independence and discover the wherewithal and backbone to decry radicalism wherever we find it, both on the left and on the right, and choose a different path, an upward path to the renewal of the American dream and the restoration of a constitutional republic.

Justin Stapley is the state director of the Utah Reagan Caucus, a signatory to the Freedom Conservatism statement of principles and a visiting fellow in higher education at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity.