Rebuilding Conservatism #6: Reagan on Conservatism

 Introductory comments from Ray Keating

Speech by President Ronald Reagan

The Keating Files – February 4, 2021

 

(Editor’s Note: Much damage has been inflicted on conservatism, conservative thought, and the conservative movement in recent years. The effort to heal and rebuild conservatism promises to be a difficult, but necessary undertaking. The Keating Files will regularly weigh in to help that process. This is our sixth “Rebuilding Conservatism” column.)

 

When it comes to where the conservative movement, and to some degree the Republican Party, might be headed, four main camps seem to dominate the discussion – of course, with some differences within each camp and some agreement across lines. One group believes that Donald Trump and his populism are the future. Others believe that what’s needed is a return to the conservatism made manifest and popular during the time Ronald Reagan was president and for many years after. Another group tries to dress up Trumpism, arguing that Trump and Reagan actually were part of the same movement. And then there is a group that recognizes differences between Trumpism and Reaganism, that is, between populism and conservatism, but they believe that the two can somehow be fused into a coherent philosophy. 

In my view, a Trump populism is doomed to failure, since fear and anger, which are the roots of populism, do not make for a coherent, lasting political movement, never mind offering coherent political thinking. Also, if you understand the American-style conservatism that Reagan largely subscribed to and spoke of, then it should become clear that Trumpism isn’t just another version of Reaganism, and populism cannot coexist in the same school of political thought as such conservatism. If you doubt these points, consider the following speech by President Ronald Reagan at the Conservative Political Action Conference dinner on March 20, 1981 (courtesy of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum), one of many in which Reagan spoke about America and conservatism. Anyone who thinks such musings could come from a populist, or from Donald Trump, is simply choosing to fool oneself for whatever reason, of which in politics there could be many. – Ray Keating

 

…But let us also, tonight, salute those with vision who labored to found this group -- the American Conservative Union, the Young Americans for Freedom, National Review and Human Events.

 

It's been said that anyone who seeks success or greatness should first forget about both and seek only the truth, and the rest will follow. Well, fellow truthseekers, none of us here tonight -- contemplating the seal on this podium and a balanced budget in 1984 -- can argue with that kind of logic. For whatever history does finally say about our cause, it must say: The conservative movement in 20th century America held fast through hard and difficult years to its vision of the truth. And history must also say that our victory, when it was achieved, was not so much a victory of politics as it was a victory of ideas, not so much a victory for any one man or party as it was a victory for a set of principles -- principles that were protected and nourished by a few unselfish Americans through many grim and heartbreaking defeats.

 

Now, you are those Americans that I'm talking about. I wanted to be here not just to acknowledge your efforts on my behalf, not just to remark that last November's victory was singularly your victory, not just to mention that the new administration in Washington is a testimony to your perseverance and devotion to principle, but to say, simply, ``Thank you,'' and to say those words not as a President, or even as a conservative; thank you as an American. I say this knowing that there are many in this room whose talents might have entitled them to a life of affluence but who chose another career out of a higher sense of duty to country. And I know, too, that the story of their selflessness will never be written up in Time or Newsweek or go down in the history books.

 

You know, on an occasion like this it's a little hard not to reminisce, not to think back and just realize how far we've come. The Portuguese have a word for such recollection -- saudade -- a poetic term rich with the dreams of yesterday. And surely in our past there was many a dream that went a glimmering and many a field littered with broken lances.

 

Who can forget that July night in San Francisco when Barry Goldwater told us that we must set the tides running again in the cause of freedom, and he said, ``until our cause has won the day, inspired the world, and shown the way to a tomorrow worthy of all our yesteryears''? And had there not been a Barry Goldwater willing to take that lonely walk, we wouldn't be here talking of a celebration tonight.

 

But our memories are not just political ones. I like to think back about a small, artfully written magazine named National Review, founded in 1955 and ridiculed by the intellectual establishment because it published an editorial that said it would stand athwart the course of history yelling, ``Stop!'' And then there was a spritely written newsweekly coming out of Washington named Human Eventsthat many said would never be taken seriously, but it would become later ``must reading'' not only for Capitol Hill insiders but for all of those in public life.

 

How many of us were there who used to go home from meetings like this with no thought of giving up, but still find ourselves wondering in the dark of night whether this much-loved land might go the way of other great nations that lost a sense of mission and a passion for freedom?

 

There are so many people and institutions who come to mind for their role in the success we celebrate tonight. Intellectual leaders like Russell Kirk, Friedrich Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, Milton Friedman, James Burnham, Ludwig von Mises -- they shaped so much of our thoughts.

 

It's especially hard to believe that it was only a decade ago, on a cold April day on a small hill in upstate New York, that another of these great thinkers, Frank Meyer, was buried. He'd made the awful journey that so many others had: He pulled himself from the clutches of ``The God That Failed,'' and then in his writing fashioned a vigorous new synthesis of traditional and libertarian thought -- a synthesis that is today recognized by many as modern conservatism.

 

It was Frank Meyer who reminded us that the robust individualism of the American experience was part of the deeper current of Western learning and culture. He pointed out that a respect for law, an appreciation for tradition, and regard for the social consensus that gives stability to our public and private institutions, these civilized ideas must still motivate us even as we seek a new economic prosperity based on reducing government interference in the marketplace.

 

Our goals complement each other. We're not cutting the budget simply for the sake of sounder financial management. This is only a first step toward returning power to the States and communities, only a first step toward reordering the relationship between citizen and government. We can make government again responsive to people not only by cutting its size and scope and thereby ensuring that its legitimate functions are performed efficiently and justly.

 

Because ours is a consistent philosophy of government, we can be very clear: We do not have a social agenda, separate, separate economic agenda, and a separate foreign agenda. We have one agenda. Just as surely as we seek to put our financial house in order and rebuild our nation's defenses, so too we seek to protect the unborn, to end the manipulation of schoolchildren by utopian planners, and permit the acknowledgement of a Supreme Being in our classrooms just as we allow such acknowledgements in other public institutions.

 

Now, obviously we're not going to be able to accomplish all this at once. The American people are patient. I think they realize that the wrongs done over several decades cannot be corrected instantly. You know, I had the pleasure in appearing before a Senate committee once while I was still Governor, and I was challenged because there was a Republican President in the White House who'd been there for several months -- why we hadn't then corrected everything that had been done. And the only way I could think to answer him is I told him about a ranch many years ago that Nancy and I acquired. It had a barn with eight stalls in it in which they had kept cattle, and we wanted to keep horses. And I was in there day after day with a pick and a shovel, lowering the level of those stalls, which had accumulated over the years. [Laughter] And I told this Senator who'd asked that question that I discovered that you did not undo in weeks or months what it had taken some 15 years to accumulate.

 

I also believe that we conservatives, if we mean to continue governing, must realize that it will not always be so easy to place the blame on the past for our national difficulties. You know, one day the great baseball manager Frankie Frisch sent a rookie out to play center field. The rookie promptly dropped the first fly ball that was hit to him. On the next play he let a grounder go between his feet and then threw the ball to the wrong base. Frankie stormed out of the dugout, took his glove away from him and said, ``I'll show you how to play this position.'' And the next batter slammed a line drive right over second base. Frankie came in on it, missed it completely, fell down when he tried to chase it, threw down his glove, and yelled at the rookie, ``You've got center field so screwed up nobody can play it.'' [Laughter]

The point is we must lead a nation, and that means more than criticizing the past. Indeed, as T. S. Eliot once said, ``Only by acceptance of the past will you alter its meaning.''

 

Now, during our political efforts, we were the subject of much indifference and often times intolerance, and that's why I hope our political victory will be remembered as a generous one and our time in power will be recalled for the tolerance we showed for those with whom we disagree.

 

But beyond this, beyond this we have to offer America and the world a larger vision. We must remove government's smothering hand from where it does harm; we must seek to revitalize the proper functions of government. But we do these things to set loose again the energy and the ingenuity of the American people. We do these things to reinvigorate those social and economic institutions which serve as a buffer and a bridge between the individual and the state -- and which remain the real source of our progress as a people.

 

And we must hold out this exciting prospect of an orderly, compassionate, pluralistic society -- an archipelago of prospering communities and divergent institutions -- a place where a free and energetic people can work out their own destiny under God.

 

I know that some will think about the perilous world we live in and the dangerous decade before us and ask what practical effect this conservative vision can have today. When Prime Minister Thatcher was here recently we both remarked on the sudden, overwhelming changes that had come recently to politics in both our countries.

 

At our last official function, I told the Prime Minister that everywhere we look in the world the cult of the state is dying. And I held out hope that it wouldn't be long before those of our adversaries who preach the supremacy of the state were remembered only for their role in a sad, rather bizarre chapter in human history. The largest planned economy in the world has to buy food elsewhere or its people would starve.

 

We've heard in our century far too much of the sounds of anguish from those who live under totalitarian rule. We've seen too many monuments made not out of marble or stone but out of barbed wire and terror. But from these terrible places have come survivors, witnesses to the triumph of the human spirit over the mystique of state power, prisoners whose spiritual values made them the rulers of their guards. With their survival, they brought us ``the secret of the camps,'' a lesson for our time and for any age: Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid.

 

That's why the Marxist vision of man without God must eventually be seen as an empty and a false faith -- the second oldest in the world -- first proclaimed in the Garden of Eden with whispered words of temptation: ``Ye shall be as gods.'' The crisis of the Western world, Whittaker Chambers reminded us, exists to the degree in which it is indifferent to God. ``The Western world does not know it,'' he said about our struggle, ``but it already possesses the answer to this problem -- but only provided that its faith in God and the freedom He enjoins is as great as communism's faith in man.''

 

This is the real task before us: to reassert our commitment as a nation to a law higher than our own, to renew our spiritual strength. Only by building a wall of such spiritual resolve can we, as a free people, hope to protect our own heritage and make it someday the birthright of all men.

 

There is, in America, a greatness and a tremendous heritage of idealism which is a reservoir of strength and goodness. It is ours if we will but tap it. And, because of this -- because that greatness is there -- there is need in America today for a reaffirmation of that goodness and a reformation of our greatness.

 

The dialog and the deeds of the past few decades are not sufficient to the day in which we live. They cannot keep the promise of tomorrow. The encrusted bureaucracies and the engrained procedures which have developed of late respond neither to the minority or the majority. We've come to a turning point. We have a decision to make. Will we continue with yesterday's agenda and yesterday's failures, or will we reassert our ideals and our standards, will we reaffirm our faith, and renew our purpose? This is a time for choosing.

 

I made a speech by that title in 1964. I said, ``We've been told increasingly that we must choose between left or right.'' But we're still using those terms -- left or right. And I'll repeat what I said then in '64. ``There is no left or right. There's only an up or down:'' up to the ultimate in individual freedom, man's age old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with an orderly society -- or down to the totalitarianism of the ant heap. And those today who, however good their intentions, tell us that we should trade freedom for security are on that downward path.

 

Those of us who call ourselves conservative have pointed out what's wrong with government policy for more than a quarter of a century. Now we have an opportunity to make policy and to change our national direction. All of us in government -- in the House, in the Senate, in the executive branch -- and in private life can now stand together. We can stop the drain on the economy by the public sector. We can restore our national prosperity. We can replace the overregulated society with the creative society. We can appoint to the bench distinguished judges who understand the first responsibility of any legal system is to punish the guilty and protect the innocent. We can restore to their rightful place in our national consciousness the values of family, work, neighborhood, and religion. And, finally, we can see to it that the nations of the world clearly understand America's intentions and respect for resolve.

 

Now we have the opportunity -- yes, and the necessity -- to prove that the American promise is equal to the task of redressing our grievances and equal to the challenge of inventing a great tomorrow.

 

This reformation, this renaissance will not be achieved or will it be served, by those who engage in political claptrap or false promises. It will not be achieved by those who set people against people, class against class, or institution against institution. So, while we celebrate our recent political victory we must understand there's much work before us: to gain control again of government, to reward personal initiative and risk-taking in the marketplace, to revitalize our system of federalism, to strengthen the private institutions that make up the independent sector of our society, and to make our own spiritual affirmation in the face of those who would deny man has a place before God. Not easy tasks perhaps. But I would remind you as I did on January 20th, they're not impossible, because, after all, we're Americans.

 

This year we will celebrate a victory won two centuries ago at Yorktown, the victory of a small, fledgling nation over a mighty world power. How many people are aware -- I've been told that a British band played the music at that surrender ceremony because we didn't have a band. [Laughter] And they played a tune that was very popular in England at the time. Its title was ``The World Turned Upside Down.'' I'm sure it was far more appropriate than they realized at that moment. The heritage from that long difficult struggle is before our eyes today in this city, in the great halls of our government and in the monuments to the memory of our great men.

 

It is this heritage that evokes the images of a much-loved land, a land of struggling settlers and lonely immigrants, of giant cities and great frontiers, images of all that our country is and all that we want her to be. That's the America entrusted to us, to stand by, to protect, and yes, to lead her wisely.

 

Fellow citizens, fellow conservatives, our time is now. Our moment has arrived. We stand together shoulder to shoulder in the thickest of the fight. If we carry the day and turn the tide, we can hope that as long as men speak of freedom and those who have protected it, they will remember us, and they will say, ``Here were the brave and here their place of honor.''

 

- President Ronald Reagan

 

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Other articles in the Rebuilding Conservatism Series…

 

“Rebuilding Conservatism #5: Reagan on the Importance of Immigration to America”

 

“Rebuilding Conservatism #4: Lessons in Economics, Part II – Understanding the Economics of Monopoly and Antitrust”

 

“Rebuilding Conservatism #3: Lessons in Economics, Part I – Thinking about Trade”

 

“Rebuilding Conservatism #2: Free Trade Rocks and Protectionism Sucks”

 

“Rebuilding Conservatism #1: What is Conservatism?”

 

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Ray Keating is a columnist, novelist, economist, podcaster and entrepreneur.  His new book Vatican Shadows: A Pastor Stephen Grant Novel is the 13th thriller/mystery in the Pastor Stephen Grant series. Get the paperback or Kindle edition at Amazon, or signed books at www.raykeatingonline.com.

 

The views expressed here are his own – after all, no one else should be held responsible for this stuff, right?

 

You also can order his book Behind Enemy Lines: Conservative Communiques from Left-Wing New York  from Amazon or signed books  at RayKeatingOnline.com. His other recent nonfiction book is Free Trade Rocks! 10 Points on International Trade Everyone Should Know. 

 

One of the best ways to enjoy Ray Keating’s Pastor Stephen Grant thrillers and mysteries is to join the Pastor Stephen Grant Fellowship! For the BEST VALUE, consider the Book of the Month Club.  Check it all out at https://www.patreon.com/pastorstephengrantfellowship

 

Also, tune in to Ray Keating’s podcasts – the PRESS CLUB C Podcast  and the Free Enterprise in Three Minutes Podcast  

 

Check out Ray Keating’s Disney news and entertainment site at www.DisneyBizJournal.com.

Guest Column: What Happens on January 6th

 by U.S. Senator Ben Sasse

The Keating Files – January 3, 2021

 

(Editor’s Note: This piece was originally published on Senator Sasse’s Facebook page.)

 

In November, 160 million Americans voted. On December 14, members of the Electoral College – spread across all 50 states and the District of Columbia – assembled to cast their votes to confirm the winning candidate. And on January 6, the Congress will gather together to formally count the Electoral College’s votes and bring this process to a close.

Some members of the House and the Senate are apparently going to object to counting the votes of some states that were won by Joe Biden. Just like the rest of Senate Republicans, I have been approached by many Nebraskans demanding that I join in this project. 

 

Having been in private conversation with two dozen of my colleagues over the past few weeks, it seems useful to explain in public why I will not be participating in a project to overturn the election – and why I have been urging my colleagues also to reject this dangerous ploy. 

 

Every public official has a responsibility to tell the truth, and here’s what I think the truth is – about our duties on January 6th, about claims of election fraud, and about what it takes to keep a republic.

 

1. IS THERE A CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS FOR CONGRESS TO DISMISS ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTES? 

 

Yes. A member of the House and the Senate can object and, in order for the vote(s) in question to be dismissed, both chambers must vote to reject those votes.

But is it wise? Is there any real basis for it here? 

 

Absolutely not. Since the Electoral College Act of 1887 was passed into law in the aftermath of the Civil War, not a single electoral vote has ever been thrown out by the Congress. (One goofy senator attempted this maneuver after George W. Bush won reelection in 2004, but her anti-democratic play was struck down by her Senate colleagues in a shaming vote of 74-1.)

 

2. IS THERE EVIDENCE OF VOTER FRAUD SO WIDESPREAD THAT IT COULD HAVE CHANGED THE OUTCOME OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION?

 

No. 

 

For President-Elect Biden’s 306-232 Electoral College victory to be overturned, President Trump would need to flip multiple states. But not a single state is in legal doubt. 

 

But given that I was not a Trump voter in either 2016 or 2020 (I wrote in Mike Pence in both elections), I understand that many Trump supporters will not want to take my word for it. So, let’s look at the investigations and tireless analysis from Andy McCarthy over at National Review. McCarthy has been a strong, consistent supporter of President Trump, and he is also a highly regarded federal prosecutor. Let’s run through the main states where President Trump has claimed widespread fraud: 

 

* In Pennsylvania, Team Trump is right that lots went wrong. Specifically, a highly partisan state supreme court rewrote election law in ways that are contrary to what the legislature had written about the deadline for mail-in ballots – this is wrong. But Biden won Pennsylvania by 81,000 votes – and there appear to have been only 10,000 votes received and counted after election day. So even if every one of these votes were for Biden and were thrown out, they would not come close to affecting the outcome. Notably, Stephanos Bibas (a Trump appointee) of the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled against the president’s lawsuit to reverse Biden’s large victory, writing in devastating fashion: “calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.” 

 

* In Michigan, which Biden won by 154,000 votes, the Trump team initially claimed generic fraud statewide – but with almost no particular claims, so courts roundly rejected suit after suit. The Trump team then objected to a handful of discrepancies in certain counties and precincts, some more reasonable than others. But for the sake of argument, let’s again assume that every single discrepancy was resolved in the president’s favor: It would potentially amount to a few thousand votes and not come anywhere close to changing the state’s result. 

 

* In Arizona, a federal judge jettisoned a lawsuit explaining that “allegations that find favor in the public sphere of gossip and innuendo cannot be a substitute for earnest pleadings and procedure in federal court,” she wrote. “They most certainly cannot be the basis for upending Arizona’s 2020 General Election.” Nothing presented in court was serious, let alone providing a basis for overturning an election. (https://www.azcentral.com/.../federal-judge.../6506927002)

 

* In Nevada, there do appear to have been some irregularities – but the numbers appear to have been very small relative to Biden’s margin of victory. It would be useful for there to be an investigation into these irregularities, but a judge rejected the president’s suit because the president’s lawyers “did not prove under any standard of proof” that enough illegal votes were cast, or legal votes not counted, “to raise reasonable doubt as to the outcome of the election.” (https://www.8newsnow.com/.../judge-no-evidence-to.../)

 

* In Wisconsin, as McCarthy has written, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled against President Trump, suggesting that President-Elect Biden’s recorded margin of victory (about 20,000 votes) was probably slightly smaller in fact, but even re-calculating all of the votes in question in a generously pro-Trump way would not give the president a victory in the state.

 (https://www.nationalreview.com/.../biden-won-wisconsin.../)

 

* In Georgia, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation complete audit of more than 15,000 votes found one irregularity – a situation where a woman illegally signed both her and her husband’s ballot envelopes. 

 

At the end of the day, one of the President Trump’s strongest supporters, his own Attorney General, Bill Barr, was blunt: “We have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.” (https://apnews.com/.../barr-no-widespread-election-fraud...)

 

3. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CLAIMS OF THE PRESIDENT’S LAWYERS THAT THE ELECTION WAS STOLEN?

 

I started with the courts for a reason. From where I sit, the single-most telling fact is that there is a giant gulf between what President Trump and his allies say in public – for example, on social media, or at press conferences outside Philadelphia landscaping companies and adult bookstores – and what President Trump’s lawyers actually say in courts of law. And that’s not a surprise. Because there are no penalties for misleading the public. But there are serious penalties for misleading a judge, and the president’s lawyers know that – and thus they have repeated almost none of the claims of grand voter fraud that the campaign spokespeople are screaming at their most zealous supporters. So, here’s the heart of this whole thing: this isn’t really a legal strategy – it’s a fundraising strategy. 

 

Since Election Day, the president and his allied organizations have raised well over half a billion (billion!) dollars from supporters who have been led to believe that they’re contributing to a ferocious legal defense. But in reality, they’re mostly just giving the president and his allies a blank check that can go to their super-PACs, their next plane trip, their next campaign or project. That’s not serious governing. It’s swampy politics – and it shows very little respect for the sincere people in my state who are writing these checks. 

 

4. WAIT, ARE YOU CLAIMING THERE WAS NO FRAUD OF ANY KIND THIS YEAR?

 

No. 160 million people voted in this election, in a variety of formats, in a process marked by the extraordinary circumstance of a global pandemic. There is some voter fraud every election cycle – and the media flatly declaring from on high that “there is no fraud!” has made things worse. It has heightened public distrust, because there are, in fact, documented cases of voter fraud every election cycle. But the crucial questions are: (A) What evidence do we have of fraud? and (B) Does that evidence support the belief in fraud on a scale so significant that it could have changed the outcome? We have little evidence of fraud, and what evidence we do have does not come anywhere close to adding up to a different winner of the presidential election.

 

5. BUT ISN’T IT IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST TO INVESTIGATE THESE CLAIMS MORE THOROUGHLY? DOESN’T IT HELP GUARANTEE THE LEGITIMACY OF OUR ELECTORAL PROCESS?

 

I take this argument seriously because actual voter fraud – and worries about voter fraud – are poison to self-government. So yes, we should investigate all specific claims, but we shouldn’t burn down the whole process along the way. Right now we are locked in a destructive, vicious circle:

 

Step 1: Allege widespread voter fraud. 

Step 2: Fail to offer specific evidence of widespread fraud. 

Step 3: Demand investigation, on grounds that there are “allegations” of voter fraud.

 

I can’t simply allege that the College Football Playoff Selection Committee is “on the take” because they didn’t send the Cornhuskers to the Rose Bowl, and then – after I fail to show evidence that anyone on the Selection Committee is corrupt – argue that we need to investigate because of these pervasive “allegations” of corruption. 

 

We have good reason to think this year’s election was fair, secure, and law-abiding. That’s not to say it was flawless. But there is no evidentiary basis for distrusting our elections altogether, or for concluding that the results do not reflect the ballots that our fellow citizens actually cast. 

 

6. DO ANY OF YOUR COLLEAGUES DISAGREE WITH YOU ABOUT THIS?

 

When we talk in private, I haven’t heard a single Congressional Republican allege that the election results were fraudulent – not one. Instead, I hear them talk about their worries about how they will “look” to President Trump’s most ardent supporters. 

 

And I get it. I hear from a lot of Nebraskans who disagree with me. Moreover, lots of them ask legitimate questions about why they should trust the mainstream media. Here’s one I got this morning: “We live in a world where thousands and thousands of stories were written about the Republican nominee’s alleged tax fraud in 2012, but then when Harry Reid admitted – after the election – that he had simply made all of this up, there were probably three media outlets that covered it for thirty seconds. Why should I believe anything they say?” As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who has watched for four years as lies made up out of whole cloth are covered as legitimate “news” stories, I understand why so many of my constituents feel this in-the-belly distrust. What so much of the media doesn’t grasp is that Trump’s attacks are powerful not because he created this anti-media sentiment, but because he figured out how to tap into it. 

 

Nonetheless, it seems to me that the best way we can serve our constituents is to tell the truth as we see it, and explain why. And in my view, President-Elect Biden didn’t simply win the election; President Trump couldn’t persuade even his own lawyers to argue anything different than that in U.S. federal courts. 

 

…WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

 

The president and his allies are playing with fire. They have been asking – first the courts, then state legislatures, now the Congress – to overturn the results of a presidential election. They have unsuccessfully called on judges and are now calling on federal officeholders to invalidate millions and millions of votes. If you make big claims, you had better have the evidence. But the president doesn’t and neither do the institutional arsonist members of Congress who will object to the Electoral College vote.

 

Let’s be clear what is happening here: We have a bunch of ambitious politicians who think there’s a quick way to tap into the president’s populist base without doing any real, long-term damage. But they’re wrong – and this issue is bigger than anyone’s personal ambitions. Adults don’t point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government.

 

We have a deep cancer in American politics right now: Both Republicans and Democrats are growing more distrustful of the basic processes and procedures that we follow. Some people will respond to these arguments by saying: “The courts are just in the tank for Democrats!” And indeed the President has been tweeting that “the courts are bad” (and the Justice Department, and more). That’s an example of the legitimacy crisis so many of us have been worried about. Democrats spent four years pretending Trump didn’t win the election, and now (shocker) a good section of Republicans are going to spend the next four years pretending Biden didn’t win the election. 

 

All the clever arguments and rhetorical gymnastics in the world won’t change the fact that this January 6th effort is designed to disenfranchise millions of Americans simply because they voted for someone in a different party. We ought to be better than that. If we normalize this, we’re going to turn American politics into a Hatfields and McCoys endless blood feud – a house hopelessly divided.

 

America has always been fertile soil for groupthink, conspiracy theories, and showmanship. But Americans have common sense. We know up from down, and if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. We need that common sense if we’re going to rebuild trust.

 

It won’t be easy, but it’s hardly beyond our reach. And it’s what self-government requires. It’s part of how, to recall Benjamin Franklin, we struggle to do right by the next generation and “keep a republic.”

 

____________

 

 

Ben Sasse is a Republican U.S. senator from the state of Nebraska.

 

Guest Column: Lighthizer Interview Should Be Required Reading for Econ Students

 by Bryan Riley

The Keating Files – December 18, 2020

 

A recent BBC interview with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer should be required reading for economics students. Amb. Lighthizer conveniently repeats several major misconceptions about international trade.

 

For example, according to Amb. Lighthizer, “We want strong communities in the United States. And if that means that T-shirts cost another nickel, then T-shirts will cost another nickel.” 

 

That may sound good in theory, but it is not remotely close to how things work in the real world.

 

If it is more affordable to buy an imported T-shirt than one made in the U.S., the money that Americans save is spent or invested elsewhere in our economy. On top of that, the dollars Americans spend on imports are either used to buy U.S. exports or to invest in the United States.

 

Denying American families and businesses the freedom to buy affordable goods does not create strong communities. It simply empowers the federal government to pick winners and losers within the economy based on who has the most political clout.

 

Amb. Lighthizer: "We're proud of what we have done.... what we tried to do was reorient the purpose of international trade more towards working people in the United States and less towards outsourcing and corporations." 

 

The 8.5 million Americans who work for foreign-owned corporations probably have a more positive and realistic view of the impact of global investment and corporations. Since 2009, jobs created by foreign corporations choosing to invest in the United States increased by 44 percent. Americans would benefit from more international investment, not less.

 

Moreover, as Pulitzer Prize-winning business and economics columnist Steven Pearlstine wrote in 2012: “Those savings and those extra profits [from outsourcing] aren’t put under the mattress. Most of it is spent or invested in the United States in ways that are hard to track but have surely created hundreds of thousands of jobs in other companies and other industries. Those who hold those jobs would have no reason to know that they are beneficiaries of the process of outsourcing and globalization. But in a very real sense, they are.”

 

Amb. Lighthizer: "We had lost millions of manufacturing jobs, we had enormous trade deficits, not just with individual countries... but with the whole world, going up every year to the point where it was $800bn, and really something that's not sustainable.” 

 

From 2010 to 2019 the United States added nearly 1.4 million new manufacturing jobs, a trend that began years before President Trump took office. After China joined the World Trade Organization, U.S. manufacturing output increased and manufacturing layoffs declined. According to economist Michael Hicks, “[t]here are major misunderstandings among the public and the media about the manufacturing sector. The U.S. manufacturing base is not in decline, and we have recovered from the recession. Nor are jobs being outsourced because American manufacturing can’t compete internationally.”

 

Because the Trump administration failed to comprehend the cause of trade deficits, its efforts to reduce them through tariffs were doomed from the start. According to the Congressional Research Service, “[r]ecent empirical research studying tariff adjustments in a panel of countries supports this theoretical framework and finds no significant evidence of tariffs improving a country’s trade balance.”

 

The Peterson Institute’s Gary Hufbauer and Zhiyao (Lucy) Lu explained the economics: “[T]he United States is bound to run an overall trade deficit with the rest of the world when combined U.S. savings of the household, business, and government sectors are negative, as they have been for some years. To finance the trade deficit, the United States is obliged to borrow or attract investment from the rest of the world, making a global U.S. trade deficit inevitable.”

 

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as economist Walter Williams pointed out: “Our nation has registered current account deficits throughout most of our history, from 1790 right up to our modern period. Over that interval, we went from being a poor, relatively weak nation to the richest and most powerful nation in the history of mankind.”

 

Amb. Lighthizer: "China has a very clear plan. They have a state controlled economy, and they do what's in China's interest."

 

Many U.S. trade actions have also been in China’s interest, whether it was quitting the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), picking trade fights with our allies in Europe and North America, or, most recently, threatening to impose tariffs on Vietnam, thereby discouraging companies from relocating from China.

 

Amb. Lighthizer: "There's pretty much a bipartisan consensus that we're moving in the right direction. I think that the Democrats as well as the Republicans realise that we needed to shift the paradigm on trade more in the direction of working people in the United States.”

 

That might surprise many of the country’s hard-working farmers, who have been forced to depend on unprecedented federal support payments to offset trade war-related losses.

 

It’s true that there is a bipartisan consensus on trade. That consensus is overwhelmingly in support of trade. See for example Gallup’s Lydia Saad: “Trade enjoys strong bipartisan support in the U.S. today, with roughly eight in 10 Democrats (82%) and Republicans (78%), in addition to 76% of independents, seeing it as more of an opportunity for growth than a threat from imports.”

 

History will show that the Trump administration failed to shift the paradigm on trade. Instead, it demonstrated how a failure to understand basic economics can inflict significant harm on Americans.

 

____________

 

 

Bryan Riley is Director of the NTU’s Free Trade Initiative. This column was originally published here.

 

Bryan also was a guest on the PRESS CLUB C Podcast.

Trump, Biden, the Pandemic and the Polls

 by Ray Keating

The Keating Files – November 1, 2020

 

If you think this long, exhausting, painful and often-ridiculous presidential campaign between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden – two crazy, unsavory old guys – is going to be over on Tuesday night, well, I hope you’re right. But don’t be surprised if we don’t get a final call on the race until Thursday.

 

It also pays to keep in mind that when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S., the task before President Donald Trump wasn’t that hard. Well, it wouldn’t have been hard for almost anyone other than Mr. Trump.

The message should have been straightforward and simple. It should have gone something like this: “My fellow Americans, we need to come together to beat this pandemic. We need to care, support and look out for each other. We can do that by listening to the medical community; and by taking common sense precautions, like wearing masks and practicing social distancing. As best as we can in these troubled time, we need to support the small businesses who are the backbone of our economy. We need to show our appreciation for the people who are on the frontlines caring for others, and for those who are working hard to find effective vaccines and therapeutics. We can find strength from our respective faith communities. We need to pray for each other and for our country. The strength of this nation and our people will shine through. God bless you, and God bless America.”

 

If that were the consistent message from the president, as opposed to bizarre, self-promoting, conflicting, self-absorbed, dishonest, conspiracy-dabbling rants, the polls heading into Election Day likely would be quite different. After all, Americans usually aren’t too keen on changing horses in the middle of an emergency, unless that horse is erratic and cannot be trusted. For good measure, it pays to be reminded that when a president runs for re-election, the race overwhelmingly is about that incumbent.

 

Given these realities, what are we looking at in terms of the polls heading into this Tuesday, with the understanding that this is an unprecedented election with vast numbers -some 93 million people – having voted already?

 

The national polling continues to show former Vice President Joe Biden holding a rather stunning lead over President Trump. The latest polls put Biden up by 5 to 12 percentage points, with the polling averages putting Biden’s lead in the 7-to-9 points range, with Biden earning 51 percent to 52 percent of the vote. When a candidate scores about the 50 percent mark, and has a lead that large, it spells big trouble for the opponent.

 

But we need, of course, given what happened in 2016, to look at the presidential race in state-by-state contests, with the outcome resting in the Electoral College. So, let’s take a final look at the battleground states.

 

Arizona (11 electoral votes). The race is an effective dead heat, with Biden holding a slight lead.

 

Florida (29 electoral votes). Florida also falls into the toss-up category, with Biden, again, holding the slight edge.

 

Michigan (16 electoral votes). Biden holds a healthy lead in the polls – with the poll average putting him up by about eight points. Plus, Biden is pulling in above 50 percent in most polls.

 

Minnesota (10 electoral votes). Trump has been campaigning in the state, and as he does, the polls seem to pushing further in favor of Biden. The former vice president holds a nine-point lead in the poll average, and is coming in above 50 percent.

 

North Carolina (15 electoral votes). The state is an effective dead heat. While Biden holds a slight lead in the polling average, the latest polls are a mix of Trump or Biden being slightly ahead.

 

Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes). The polling average has Biden up by five points and coming in above 50 percent of the vote. But the race remains tight. 

 

Wisconsin (10 electoral votes). Biden holds a solid lead of eight points among the polling average, and he is consistently running above 50 percent of those polled.

 

Ohio (18 electoral votes). Ohio is a toss-up, with Biden showing a slight move up. But this race is a straight-up tie.

 

Iowa (6 electoral votes). Iowa remains an effective dead heat, with Trump holding the slightest edge.

 

Georgia (16 electoral votes). Georgia is a dead heat – amazing given how Republican this state has been.

 

Nevada (6 electoral votes). The polling average puts Biden up by four points in Nevada. And he has held a consistent lead. But this is another tight race.

 

Texas (38 electoral votes). In this weird year, Texas, another traditional Republican state, remains a dead heat, with some polls putting Trump up slightly and others Biden. (See my take on Texas apparently going Purple.)

 

My prediction puts Biden at 342 Electoral College votes, with 270 needed to win. In a Blue wave scenario, that tally could go as high as 393.

 

No matter the outcome, like 2016, one gets the feeling that this is yet another election in which many people are voting against a candidate, rather than for one. In the end, perhaps most troubling is the unfortunate reality that whoever wins will present far more problems and negatives for the nation – though in quite different ways – rather than solutions or positives.

 

By the way, if anyone cares, I’ll be voting the same way I did in 2016, that is, writing in Ben Sasse for president.

 

__________

 

Recent and Related Columns by Ray Keating…

 

“Get Serious on Polling: No, Reagan Really Didn’t Trail Carter in 1980”

 

“Is Trump Turning Texas Purple?”

 

“A Flood of Bad Economics on Tech and Immigration”

 

“Polls Before the Dreaded Presidential Debates”

 

“Voting Your Conscience Isn’t Wasting Your Vote”

 

“Character-Rich Sci-Fi: Take the Netflix Journey with ‘Away’”

 

“Applaud, Don’t Attack, Robinhood”

 

“Sports Are Back But Americans Aren’t Happy”

 

“Should We Take Our Ball and Go Home When Pro Athletes Disagree with Us?”

 

“‘Greyhound’ Ranks as Strong Storytelling – Even on a Smaller Screen”

 

__________

 

Ray Keating is a columnist, novelist, economist, podcaster and entrepreneur.  You can order his new book Behind Enemy Lines: Conservative Communiques from Left-Wing New York  from Amazon or signed books  at RayKeatingOnline.com. His other recent nonfiction book is Free Trade Rocks! 10 Points on International Trade Everyone Should Know. The views expressed here are his own – after all, no one else should be held responsible for this stuff, right?

 

Pre-order the forthcoming Vatican Shadows: A Pastor Stephen Grant Novel. Signed books at https://raykeatingonline.com/products/vaticanshadows and the Kindle Edition at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08L1HLRP3

 

Also, choose your 2021 TO DO List planner today, and enjoy the pre-order sale! Perfect for you and as Christmas gifts. Choose between The Lutheran Planner 2021: The TO DO List Solution, The Film Buff’s Planner 2021: The TO DO List Solution, and The Disney Planner 2021: The TO DO List Solution. Get more information at https://raykeatingonline.com/t/todolistsolutionplanners

 

Keating’s latest novel is  The Traitor: A Pastor Stephen Grant Novel, which is the 12thbook in the series. The best way to fully enjoy Ray Keating’s Pastor Stephen Grant thrillers and mysteries is to join the Pastor Stephen Grant Fellowship! For the BEST VALUE, consider the Book of the Month Club.  Check it all out at https://www.patreon.com/pastorstephengrantfellowship

 

Also, tune in to Ray Keating’s podcasts – the PRESS CLUB C Podcast  and the Free Enterprise in Three Minutes Podcast  

 

Check out Ray Keating’s Disney news and entertainment site at www.DisneyBizJournal.com.