In today’s segment—the fifth and final segment—of the Uncommon Knowledge interview with James Piereson, author of Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism, Dr. Piereson explains the the enduring liberal disarray.
Democrats and the liberals have been looking now for 45 years for someone to pick up the mantle of John F. Kennedy—someone who is optimistic about America and an attractive figure whom they can be proud of. But I’d suggest that the person who really picked up the mantle from John Kennedy was Ronald Reagan. It was Ronald Reagan who began to re-moralize the Cold War. It was Reagan who said, as JFK had said, that this was a struggle between freedom and tyranny.
The great liberal hero has already had a worthy successor. He was the great conservative hero.