People, if you have any interest in the Conservative point of view on the phenomenon that was Ronald Reagan, you must read this essay Sullivan wrote in 2002 on the occasion of Reagan's 90th birthday. Nothing else I've seen comes close.
If you're a liberal, read it anyway, because you'll get more insight into Conservative thinking in 10 minutes than in 10 hours of reading most sources.
I don't know where to begin quoting it. Taking two paragraphs almost at random:
And if he was right about taxation and the role of government, he was also right about the other great question of his day: the Soviet Union. "Detente," he remarked in a 1975 speech. "Isn't that what a farmer has with a turkey until Thanksgiving?" I will never forget the moment I heard his "evil empire" speech. It was broadcast on Radio Four in snippets, festooned with sceptical British commentary about this inflammatory and dangerous new president, this cowboy who knew nothing about geo-politics or the complexities of late-Communism. But for all the criticism, what came through to my teenage brain was an actual truth. Yes, the Soviet Union was evil. Who now doubts that? But who in a position of power said so when it mattered? Barely no-one but Reagan. He alone saw that communism was destined to be put on the "ash-heap of history," as he told the House of Commons. And he helped put it there. His achievement in this respect was so monumental that a whole generation of former peaceniks now take it for granted. Think of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. In the 1980s, they were nuclear freeze supporters. And yet both now thoughtlessly enjoy the soft and easy fruits of a greater man's courage.The critics harp on the enormous deficits of the Reagan era, and see them as an indictment of all he stood for. But the truth is, federal revenues boomed on Reagan's watch. Tax cuts didn't destroy public finances they helped them. What created the deficits was an unprecedented increase in defence spending the bargaining chip that eventually forced the Soviets to surrender. And you could easily argue that this was a price worth paying for an early end to an extremely expensive conflict. Thanks to the peace dividend of the post-Cold War world, and the free market expansion that Ronald Reagan initiated, America is now enjoying record surpluses. Even the straggling defenders of perestroika now concede that Reagan's intransigence and skill speeded the collapse of the Soviet empire. The deficits, from the standpoint of history, were therefore a fiscal bargain. In the long run, they paid for themselves.
I obviously can't vouch for the ultimate correctness of these points, but I've never seen them stated so well.
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