Reagan Conservatism Is Alive and Well

Donald Trump could check the box on almost all of Reagan’s principles.

The alleged death of Regan conservatism, proclaimed even by many on the right, is not just greatly exaggerated — it’s outright wrong. It has to be wrong because Reagan conservatism is true conservatism, and conservatism conserves the time-tested principles, values, and traditions that are, well, true. Ronald Reagan himself put it this way:  Conservative wisdom and principles are derived from willingness to learn, not just from what is going on now, but from what has happened before. The principles of conservatism are sound because they are based on what men and women have discovered through experience in not just one generation or a dozen, but in all the combined experience of mankind. Subscribe to The American Spectator to receive our fall 2024 print magazine, which includes this article and others like it. Reagan there was speaking almost verbatim from conservatism’s preeminent philosophical spokesman, Russell Kirk (1918–1994), who had quoted G. K. Chesterton on that combined wisdom. Kirk called conservatism not an ideology but an attitude. Conservatives endeavor to conserve what Kirk and Edmund Burke (1729–1797) described as an “enduring moral order.” Think about that: a moral order that endures. Sure, a country and culture and its corrupt people can leap off a cliff and descend to hell in a handbasket, but an enduring moral order nonetheless remains, rooted in the timeless traditions of biblical and natural law that the conservative conserves. Reagan conservatism is genuine conservatism. If it isn’t winning today for Republicans, well, that’s not the fault of conservatism; that’s the fault of the conservatives. The problem isn’t the message but the messenger. This article is taken from The American Spectator’s fall 2024 print magazine. Subscribe to receive the entire magazine. Sure, I’m the first to acknowledge that certain such principles, especially those related to eternal teachings on matters like marriage, family, life, and gender, are now rejected by wide...