Bush, Reagan, FDR and The Change of Parties

As I have been listening these past few years to liberals bash the current President Bush, as they did Reagan, I have reflected on what it is about these two Presidents which inspires and arouses such rage on the left. I think what sets them apart from, say, Ford or Bush 41, is their principled stances and determination to use the legitimate power of their office as it was designed. In that, they are merely in the mold of FDR, Truman, and even, to some extent, Johnson.

When I was growing up, an saying that was fairly common went something like,

"Elect a Democratic President, and go to war."

Republican Senators of the 1960s were largely pacifists and isolationists. Much like their forbearers in the 1930s, in the face of FDR's steady move toward international engagement.

Which more or less prompted Ronald Reagan to note, when this former union president (SAG) switched parties to run for Governor of California and, then, President, as a Republican, that he was an FDR Democrat, but the party had moved away from FDR, while he, Reagan, had not abandoned the icon. And I think, now that this is perhaps a most important facet of Reagan, and Bush 43.

Reagan governed as he spoke. Like FDR, confidently, decisively, and some would say, imperiously and without concern for criticism. So does the current president Bush.

I now think that either one, Reagan or the younger George Bush, would be completely comfortable in the Democratic party of FDR. They espoused serious concern for basic citizen welfare, engagement in the world at large, and legitimate use of the presidential power to push for necessary international action. I think it's Scoop Jackson who is turning in his grave right now, not Frank Church.

No, today's Democrats are the neo-isolationist Republicans of yesteryear. The worm has turned.

That, I believe, is why Democrats now scream that Bush is wrong, or arrogant, or obstinate. To the point of planning various witch hunts and hoped-for impeachments for the next two years. Exercise of office is now seen to be questionable, ex post, if the other party decides they didn't like the results. Ironically, though, those Presidential behaviors are the hallmarks of their modern former-icon, FDR. Remember the NRA, court-packing, and the bank holiday? You think a modern Congress would not threaten impeachment over such actions today?

Of course, today's Democrats don't mention FDR or Truman much, anymore. Johnson has never been acknowledged for his style- only for the immense gravy train he started rolling with his "Great Society." No, today's Democrats hail, of course, Clinton. Carter was too milquetoast and, honestly, failed in Iran.

It leaves the left to decry anyone who would be a strong President, because they have been on the outside for 8 straight years, and 20 of 28 (Reagan, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush 43, Bush 43). I'm not sure living Democrats can even remember as far back as Johnson, let alone Truman and FDR.

From this perspective, it's easy to see why the liberal Democrats so hate Bush 43. They simply have no stomach for a President who is confident of his stand on foreign affairs, or economic policy, and says so. It seems that such self-confidence is out of favor with the Democratic Party brought up on Clinton's endless public "triangulations."