Can Politics Be Noble Again?

Simi Valley, Calif. – “I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph and there is purpose and worth to each and every life.”

Those words from President Ronald Reagan appear above where he and his beloved Nancy’s earthly remains rest, here at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. There to pray before National Review Institute’s annual Buckley Prize dinner, I unexpectedly found his words a little jarring. What leading politician believes such things anymore? It seems more as if they — and everyone on social media and in every political discussion — think more like, A man might be okay if he agrees with me and says so, and often.

Despair is absolutely a temptation for those longing for security and normalcy. I’m fairly certain we missed most of the possible enduring lessons of the coronavirus pandemic, and the insistence on normalcy and security were chief among those lost opportunities. Often it’s hard to even get people to agree on the existence of evil as a foundation upon which we can see a clear counter for the good. What’s good? Can there be evil, or is it just another lifestyle choice? If we do see something as clear evil — mass shootings come to mind — we seem to think that we can outlaw those specific evils with the right legislation. As president under the Soviet threat he worked to dismantle, Ronald Reagan didn’t have the luxury of believing such utopians delusions.

If you’ve ever been to this library, you know that the beauty of the rolling hills in the valley seems to give glory to God. At the groundbreaking of the library, Reagan said:

The journey has not just been my own. It seems I’ve been guided by a force much larger than myself, a force made up of ideas and beliefs about what this country is and what it could be. The story that’ll be told inside the walls that are yet to be built here is the story not only of a presidency but of a movement — a determined movement dedicated to the greatness of America and faith in its bedrock traditions; in the essential goodness of its people; in the essential soundness of its institutions; and, yes, faith in our very essence as a nation.

With his typical humor, Reagan raised a challenge during his presidential farewell address in 1989, emphasizing the importance of family and the choices Americans make daily:

Let me offer lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven’t been teaching you what it means to be an American, let ’em know and nail ’em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.

If Americans don’t know there is something to cherish and protect and defend and nourish about America, we will lose it.

In a 1983 speech to the National Association of Evangelicals, President Reagan quoted this observation by Alexis de Tocqueville: “Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the greatness and the genius of America. America is good. And if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

At that NRI dinner, economist Larry Kudlow, who most recently worked in the Trump administration, said that religion must always be a part of who we are. He acknowledged that the Trump’s style is not Reagan’s. But I myself worry that style is more important than we realize. My late friend Andrew Breitbart at this point might warn me that we are at “war.” The phrase “culture war” is all too familiar. It tends to refer to the most contentious issues — especially abortion. But the family is the most important thing there is in America. How do we value it? How do we cherish it? How do we support it? How do we ensure that children know that while there is evil in the world, man is born good?

Sitting in the Reagan Library with conservatives who worked for Trump alongside those who didn’t vote for him — who all share common histories and principles — I wondered whether we might get our act together again. Not just with those who are more conservative, but with Americans who share a common history. I talked with an Uber driver from Nigeria in the last week who works six months in the D.C. area every year and then spends a few months back home. Is it worth it, I asked him? “What are you crazy? America is where there is hope.”

Ronald Reagan had faith in that, in a confident and aspirational way. As president, he had a plaque that read “It can be done” on his desk. Those of us who don’t want to live in ideological silos should take it as a nudge from a man who helped tear down a monumental wall in Berlin (a piece of which is at his library). It’s work for the dinner table and a de-cynicization (a nonce word that should be a word) of politics, which should be some of the most noble work for the common good we have.

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.