At my alma mater, there’s a statue of Ronald Reagan on what we call the Liberty Walk. It sits across from Margaret Thatcher and is only a short distance from Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Frederick Douglass. These are the titans of conservatism, the heroes we hail.
And each of them failed just as often, if not more than they succeeded.
Tuesday afternoon, the Atlantic broke a story about Reagan and comments he made to former President Richard Nixon on the phone in 1971. It’s devastating. In the audio recording, then-Gov. Reagan can be heard venting his frustration to Nixon about African delegates who sided against the U.S. in a United Nations vote to recognize the People’s Republic of China.
“Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television as I did,” Reagan said, “to see those, those monkeys from those African countries — damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!”
I had hoped for some kind of rational explanation: Perhaps something was taken out of context, his words were misinterpreted, or they were unintentionally ignorant. But there is no justification or suitable explanation for what Reagan said. There is only ugliness.
As his daughter Patti Davis wrote for the Washington Post, the Reagan in that tape was not the Reagan she knew or the Reagan that stands tall on the Liberty Walk. But they were his words nonetheless. Now, conservatives must confront and reconcile the moral failings of a man with the good he did throughout his presidency and life, not just for conservatism but for the nation and the world.
What do we do when our heroes fail us? When the shiny statues we erect in their honor begin to crack? When the legacy we’ve set on a pedestal begins to stain? Reagan is hardly the only conservative idol with moral failings: Thomas Jefferson, author of the great emblems of liberty the U.S. treasures, kept human beings in chains, as did George Washington. Look in the closets of each great figure, and you’ll uncover skeletons and sins worthy of condemnation.
These past wrongs are both a lesson and a reminder. Our heroes must fall, sometimes from a great height, so that we can learn from their mistakes and not have to fall ourselves. When they do fall, let’s be reminded of a simple truth central to conservatism, a truth that Reagan, and those who fell before him, would have us remember: Human beings are fallible creatures capable of great wrong, but through them, great good can be wrought.
Jefferson and Washington failed to live up to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. But because of them, the U.S. is the freest nation in the world for every man, woman, and child, regardless of skin color or religion. Reagan similarly failed in his conversation with Nixon — a conversation that stands in stark contrast to the way he lived his life, as his daughter notes. But because of him, liberty and equality were reinvigorated not just in the U.S., but in parts of the world that had long been held in the firm grip of communism and totalitarianism.
This does not excuse the sins of our heroes. But it does grant us the chance to show grace to those who earned it.
