In Today’s GOP, the Party of Reagan Endures

The Republican Party’s nomination of Donald Trump and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as its presidential ticket has caused many to declare that the party of Ronald Reagan is gone. Permit me to state an unpopular opinion: It isn’t.

That view is unpopular because many of those who say they espouse Reagan’s values don’t really understand what those values were. And that’s the point: Reagan’s enduring influence isn’t what many of his self-appointed devotees thought it was, and that influence is far more powerful in today’s GOP than those adherents realize.

We’re Living in Reagan’s World

Ronald Reagan captured the hearts and minds of Republicans with his stirring, visionary oratory. He revived old traditions of freedom, family and self-government at a time when the ongoing march of centralized government seemed inevitable. Stemming that tide and reinvigorating the moral value of initiative and innovation was a massive accomplishment, one that Democrats even today must at least pay lip service to.

Reagan also revamped the global order in his image. He revived the Western alliance and gave it a new purpose. Not only would America and its friends resist the advance of Soviet communism; together they would spread a gospel of democratic peace and capitalistic prosperity. The Soviet Union’s rapid and unexpected collapse starting in 1989, less than a year after Reagan left office, confirmed his vision and enabled the subsequent unprecedented global spread of his ideals.

This legacy also remains, even in a Republican Party that increasingly calls aspects of it into question. European nations have awakened from their long slumber to fight Russian aggression at the same time as historically pacific post-war Japan is rearming to resist Chinese communist aggression. Democrats and most independents are committed to Reagan’s vision, and polls show even a majority of Republicans broadly share his ideas, even as they question modern-day applications of that approach.

Even those most disappointed in the populist turn of today’s GOP must acknowledge these facts. Reagan’s world may be under challenge, but we still live in it.

Reagan Was No ‘Reaganite’

Those depressed at the Republican Party’s seeming ideological turn tend to focus on some ways in which its values are simply no longer unquestioned dogma. Free-market fundamentalism—a belief that says government action in the economy or in domestic policy is almost always wrong—has been displaced. The belief that no global power is so strong that it cannot be met with America’s greater might has been supplanted by the idea that even America’s power has limits. And the implicit—and sometimes express—belief that America’s social virtue stems from a robust endorsement of traditional Christianity has been thrust aside for a less theological expression of shared values.

They’re right to believe that Trinitarian creed is no longer in GOP hymnals. They’re wrong, though, to think that this is a rejection of Reagan’s ideals.

Reagan himself did not share any of these supposedly Reaganite ideals. Reagan criticized government social planning and wanted a dramatically smaller government, but he was no free-market fundamentalist. He expressly supported social programs that prevented poverty and was unafraid to support new programs when he was convinced they were necessary. He was willing to raise taxes when needed, and he even imposed tariffs and other restrictions on international trade when he thought it was in America’s interests.

In short, Reagan favored a robust private sector economy tempered by necessary regulations and social programs to ensure the bounty of growth was shared by all.

Reagan was also not a neoconservative in foreign policy. He favored robust national defense and a resolute defense of freedom, but he rarely committed American military might. He criticized the Vietnam War in the 1960s from the right because there was no strategy for victory. One cannot say with certainty what Reagan would have done about Iraq or Afghanistan after the September 11 terrorist attacks. One can say that he would not have favored the endless deployment and squandering of military might in engagements that were intentionally meant to produce stalemate.

Nor did Reagan believe America’s virtue rested primarily upon Christianity. He increasingly spoke with respect and honor for Judeo-Christian virtues as his presidency progressed, but he more often attributed America’s national character to its founding and institutions. In Reagan’s telling, Americans could be a great and free people if they recalled their own history rather than primarily looking to religious beliefs.

No one will mistake Donald Trump for a visionary leader. But while he rarely expresses the broad sentiments Reagan loved to discuss, there’s little in his rhetoric that breaks with Reagan’s core tenets.

Nor is J.D. Vance’s worldview inconsistent with Reagan’s. He, too, places his faith in America’s working men and women and believes that faith and family are values that undergird America’s way of life at least as much as capitalism.

A Shift Reagan Would Approve Of

Why Reaganites lost sight of Reagan’s own vision is a long and complicated story. But one clue is found in the defining feature of the Trump-Vance ticket: its reliance on the virtues of the working class.

Reagan always placed his movement squarely behind what he called “simple souls.” He frequently spoke of the wisdom and dignity of the average American. Reagan’s America was not great because it allowed the great to rise; it was great because it allowed the average to thrive.

Trump and Vance have recommitted the GOP to that vision. Like Reagan, they oppose socialists’ government direction of society and extol the virtues of faith, family and community. Like Reagan, they are willing to break with orthodoxy to represent the true interests of the forgotten Americans.

This emphasis is frequently absent from the paeans of the self-appointed Reaganites. Their faith in constantly reducing the marginal tax rates for the richest among us and their near-worship of the entrepreneur is a clear window into their mindset. For them, the great and the ambitious are to be valued above all others. That was never Ronald Reagan’s view, and their failure to understand that is a large reason why they were never able to build upon Reagan’s political achievements and make the Republican Party America’s natural majority.

That may be changing. Gallup data shows that Republicans and independents who lean Republican outnumbered Democrats in 2022 and 2023. That’s the first time this has occurred in the 30-plus years that Gallup has calculated this data. Historical data from the Pew Research Center shows that more Americans have said they are Democrats than Republicans for almost the entire century since the Great Depression. One can debate why a century-long trend is reversing now, but one cannot deny that it is happening at precisely the time when the GOP is less identified with ideological dogmatism.

Reagan would be delighted with this shift. He decried ideology in his seminal 1977 address to the annual CPAC gathering. His “New Republican Party” would be one where the working man and woman would not only feel at home but would share in the party’s highest councils. That clearly did not happen after his departure, but it is clearly what Trump and Vance have in mind should they win.

The Republican Party Trump and Vance look poised to create will be one of principled American conservatism, not an ideological Christian internationalist libertarianism. Some will be disappointed by this, but they can join the Libertarian Party and compete for Americans’ allegiance. The vast bulk of Republicans, and the millions of former Democrats who have been taking a new look at the GOP over the last decade, eagerly await this bright future—one that is firmly and truly Reaganesque.