In America’s genius lies in its respect for rebellion, Fareed Zakaria, writing for WAPO, opined:
2022 has ushered in enormous economic and geopolitical uncertainty. The world is confronting ravaging inflation, an energy crisis, high interest rates and a possible recession. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sent international tensions sky-high. And yet, when you sit back and examine it carefully, the country that looks most capable of navigating these murky waters is the United States of America.
So why does the United States show so much promise at a time when others are struggling? Behind the economic data, there does seem to be in America a spirit of innovation that is unusual and powerful.
A mixed, but on-balance positive celebration of American Individualism, without actually mentioning individualism.
One negative sticks out, though: The author refers to the elections of "Nixon and Reagan [as] a desire to take America back, not forward." But they couldn't be more opposite. Nixon expanded the welfare state, crippled the economy with wage/price controls, and expanded the regulatory state. His policies, following Lyndon Johnson’s, contributed to the stagflation of the 1970s.
Reagan celebrated business and innovation, and "greased the skids" for the Microsofts, Intels, and Apples—and the entrepreneurial restructuring of the U.S.. economy—with pro-producer tax rate, regulatory, and antitrust cutbacks. Whereas Nixon oversaw the decline of America’s economy, Reagan contributed to a reversal that set America, and ultimately the world, on a better course.
Reagan was the most pro-entrepreneurial president of the last century. He was supportive of, not resistant to, America's rebellious spirit. In word and deed, he pushed America forward. His policies of reducing government impediments—”getting the government the hell out of the way”—though limited in scope, were progressive, not regressive.
Reagan didn’t create America’s rebellious, or entrepreneurial, spirit. It has been there since the beginning. He understood it. Embraced it. Called it out. Productive Americans—the “men and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and heal us when we're sick -- professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truckdrivers,” as Reagan put it in his First Inaugural Address—did the rest.
Related Reading:
The Resurrection of Ronald Reagan
Jeb Bush’s Tax Plan, Hoover, and Reagan
Did the New York Times Just Vindicate Reaganomics?
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