“I believe this is still the most extraordinary country on the face of the earth,” Jeb Bush said at the beginning of Wednesday night’s debate. “And it troubles me that people are rewarded for tearing down our country … I can’t do it. I just don’t believe that this country’s days are going to be deeply — you know, going down. I think we’re on the verge of the greatest time, and I want to fix the things to let people rise up.”
Thanks to Bush’s very poor overall performance in the debate, it is likely that few will remember this part of his message. They are more likely to remember how Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., deftly parried his attack.
But either way, Bush was still right about this particular theme. And the Republican nominee — whether it is Bush, Rubio, or even Donald Trump — must be right about it, too.
It’s not just that Republicans need a nominee with a positive and optimistic vision of America. It’s also that all Americans need a president who has such a vision. This was one great service Ronald Reagan rendered his country when he took the presidency, overcoming the malaise, cynicism and economic turmoil of the era.
To be sure, Reagan did not hesitate to point out the problems America faced in the Carter era — nor can any concerned citizen in his own time. But with every word Reagan spoke, it was equally clear that he believed America was fundamentally good and could, by virtue of its goodness, overcome whatever problems beset it. He did not try to turn the top one percent or new immigrants into scapegoats for all of America’s problems.
If voters seem especially dissatisfied and cynical about politicians today, perhaps it is partly because so many of them talk about this country constantly as if it were the Titanic. Many politicians whip up and build up support by portraying their country as a veritable dystopia, beset with hopeless and intractable problems. Things just ain’t what they used to be — oh, woe is us.
The entire Democratic field does this with its tired and fallacious discussion of income inequality, and its frenzied and millennarian rhetoric over the (very much unknown) future effects of climate change.
And Republicans often employ their own brand of this dour “hell-in-a-handbasket” theory of America. Some find scapegoats instead of weighing serious solutions; others wring their hands over the popularity of “free stuff” instead of talking about how economic freedom can help the poor improve their lot. This is the wrong approach. It could not be further from what Reagan gave the American people.
The voters are not idiots. They recognize the recent economic stagnation and the disappointments of the Obama era, but they also see from experience that living standards are rising (the public seems to recognize this even if one oft-cited statistic does not). They are at least vaguely aware that crime has fallen to historic lows. They experience both in their homes and in the workplace the rapid technological development that is making greater productivity and more leisure possible than ever in times past.
And they believe that America is an honorable country whose society is open and honest. Despite recent bad experiences, they generally believe that America’s intentions on the world stage, when it pursues its interests, are noble and not selfish or destructive.
Whomever Republicans nominate, he or she should be someone who appeals to the public’s best hopes, not its worst fears; to its confidence rather than its doubts. That’s what Reagan did.
