Tag: Reagan

No, Mr. Trump, You Are Not Ronald Reagan

  

In an attempt to legitimize Donald Trump’s candidacy in the eyes of conservatives, both Trump and his supporters like to say that his metamorphosis politically into a Republican is the same as Ronald Reagan’s. This is a comparison that doesn’t survive even the most casual scrutiny. The only similarity is that both were Democrats. I would argue that Trump, essentially, still is a Democrat, but masquerading as a Republican. A fuller treatment of that thesis may be forthcoming. For today,… Read more »

“The Witness & the President” Comes to the Reagan Ranch Center

  

My book, The Witness and the President: Whittaker Chambers, Ronald Reagan, and the Future of Freedom, has been out now since early November. I’ve had the opportunity to speak about it before a number of groups locally. It documents the impact Chambers had on Reagan as the latter read Chambers’s masterful autobiography, Witness. Chambers helped Reagan understand why people would be attracted to communism, and spurred him on to take on communism, which ultimately led to the breakup of the… Read more »

Remembering Nancy Reagan

  

Nancy Reagan passed away Sunday at the age of 94. It’s like the end of an era. The students I teach now were born after Ronald Reagan left office; they have no personal knowledge of him or how he impacted our country. Lacking knowledge of perhaps the greatest president of the twentieth century, they obviously know nothing about his wife either. Nancy Davis was a Hollywood actress in the late 1940s who was falsely accused of being a communist, her… Read more »

Will Scalia’s Legacy Be Honored?

  

News of the death of Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia stunned the political world over the weekend. Scalia, a stalwart defender of the Constitution, will be sorely missed, especially in this era of constitutional ignorance and/or apathy. His firm conviction that one must look to the Founders’ words and their original meaning kept the Court from straying more often than it did. Nominated to the Court by Ronald Reagan and confirmed by the Senate unanimously, Scalia was considered a legal… Read more »

Introduction to Chambers-Reagan

  

For those of you who have been thinking about buying my new book on Ronald Reagan and Whittaker Chambers, yet haven’t quite made the commitment, let me provide you with an excerpt from my introduction: Any author should ask himself certain questions before attempting to write a book. Some immediately come to mind when considering the topic of this book: Are there not enough books on Ronald Reagan? Why add another one to the ever-increasing supply? Why focus on Whittaker… Read more »

Reagan: The Principled & the History Makers

  

Yesterday, I wrote about my new book on Ronald Reagan and Whittaker Chambers. Both men are as relevant to our day as they were to theirs. As we near the end of another year, and as we consider the challenges that loom, some select quotes from Reagan may help us focus on our responsibilities. There are some quotes from Reagan with which many people are familiar, but I’ve chosen to pull out some that are less well known, yet just… Read more »

Genesis of Chambers-Reagan

  

What led me to write my new book The Witness and the President: Whittaker Chambers, Ronald Reagan, and the Future of Freedom? Here’s the background. It was not until after my graduation from college in 1973 that I began to pay serious attention to politics. Of course, it was hard not to know what was going on that year–the Watergate controversy overshadowed all political discussion. Over the next year and a half, I watched as the Nixon presidency collapsed. The… Read more »