Hart, Son of McGovern

Democrats in Washington who are climbing on the Hart bandwagon are now saying that his ideas are not so much “new” as they are syncretistic, reconciling the older liberalism of the New Deal with the newer, popular conservative Reaganism. FDR was the thesis, Reagan is the antithesis, and Hart is the synthesis. Reading Hart this way clears two hurdles: 1) His ideas are not, palpably, new. 2) Viewed as a synthesizer, Hart becomes moderate, agreeably reasonable, centrist; and so Mr. Reagan is pushed off to the fringe.

The problems with this view are manifold, not the least of them being that Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy is certainly not the antithesis of FDR’s. Quite the opposite: Mr. Reagan is the legitimate and lineal heir of FDR and Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy, continuing their bipartisan, internationalist doctrine and approach. It makes sense for Reagan to quote Kennedy’s speeches, because they hold the same view of what the United States represents in today’s world—defender of mankind’s freedom—and what the Soviets are—advocates and purveyors of totalitarianism.

JM

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John McLaughlin

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Ronald Reagan

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Democrats in Washington who are climbing on the Hart bandwagon are now saying that his ideas are not so much “new” as they are syncretistic, reconciling the older liberalism of the New Deal with the newer, popular conservative Reaganism. FDR was the thesis, Reagan is the antithesis, and Hart is the synthesis. Reading Hart this way clears two hurdles: 1) His ideas are not, palpably, new. 2) Viewed as a synthesizer, Hart becomes moderate, agreeably reasonable, centrist; and so Mr. Reagan is pushed off to the fringe.

The problems with this view are manifold, not the least of them being that Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy is certainly not the antithesis of FDR’s. Quite the opposite: Mr. Reagan is the legitimate and lineal heir of FDR and Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy, continuing their bipartisan, internationalist doctrine and approach. It makes sense for Reagan to quote Kennedy’s speeches, because they hold the same view of what the United States represents in today’s world—defender of mankind’s freedom—and what the Soviets are—advocates and purveyors of totalitarianism.