The Party of Reagan ...

How did conservatism go from where it was in the 80's with The Party of Reagan to where it is today?

I can't really call myself a true conservative, but I am definitely conservative-friendly. Every online political survey I've ever taken has labeled me somewhere right of center to varying degrees, but I find less and less alignment with our national conservative leaders.

I just read an opinion piece by conservative political commentator, Adam Kinzinger, on Why Republicans are turning against aid to Ukraine. Mr Kinzinger is a USAF veteran of Iraq & Afghanistan and was also a Republican member of Congress from 2011 through January of this year. In his piece he says:

Gone is the party of Reagan, which was steadfast in its stand against tyranny. In its place is rising a GOP that seems immune to the world’s need for American leadership and uninterested in the suffering of a country we should aid until the fight is over.

Obviously, Mr Kinzinger in his essay and I in my post here are talking about Ukraine and Russia. One is led by an authoritarian tyrant who invaded the other, a fledgling democracy trying to shed the systems and institutions put upon it after decades of Soviet rule.

The Party of Reagan would not have taken a nanosecond to decide who to support in this conflict. Sure, they would've approached Ukraine about cleaning up some things (which they are doing), but none of that would have deterred The Party of Reagan from supporting Ukraine to the successful end of this conflict.

So, to my conservative friends ... Help me understand the thinking here? And in your explanations, please avoid the words Trump and/or Biden. Both of them are short-term blips in the history of this great country and in the development of western civilization & democracy.

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room101 · 56-60, M

My fellow Brit and all round solid political analyst @Burnley123, has used the word neoliberalism a couple of times in his comments. I’ll start by saying that I hate that word. There is nothing new (ie neo) about this ideology and, the only thing that’s free (ie liberal) about it, is freedom from consequence and responsibility. I prefer to call it by what it is ie Monetarism.

That’s the economic ideology that Milton Freidman espoused. That’s the ideology that was implemented by both Reagan in the USA and Thatcher in the UK.

What’s that got to do with Ukraine and the argument posited by @sarabee1995 I hear you ask.

Well, it’s true that both Reagan and Thatcher were anti-Russia. Or were they? They were, in fact, anti-USSR. Not the same thing as Putin’s Russia of the 21st century. It’s not even the same thing as what some suggest is Putin’s ultimate aspiration. No, Putin’s aspiration is the Imperial Russia of the Tsars.

For the last forty years or so, Russia has become the land of the oligarch. To the critical observer of global economics, this is more in-line with Monetarism than it is with anything else. Unfettered Capitalism where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle class all but vanishes.

So I ask myself, what would Reagan and Thatcher do if they were in office today? Would they be the anti-USSR of old or, would they be no different to the Republicans of today?

I doubt that they would be as rabid as the MTG’s etc but, in my not so humble opinion, they would see the similarities between their Monetarist ideologies and Putin’s oligarch system and act accordingly.

One final point, it never ceases to baffle and amaze me that so many Americans bang on about Reagan as if he was some kind of saint. He was not! Thankfully, we Brits don’t see Thatcher in the same vein. Neither do we continue to espouse the imagined virtues of Monetarism. In fact, the last British PM who tried to resurrect this completely debunked economic system was Liz Truss. She was booted out in six weeks……….by the “Party of Thatcher”.