NRO: Our Two-Party System Isn’t Going Anywhere (Book review of Michael Barone’s How America’s Political Parties Change (and How They Don’t).
Category: History
America’s Veterans, Then and Now
Holding Coalitions Together, Today and in 1840s Britain
You Can’t Ignore Politics in Impeachment
A Squeaker in 2020? Not Likely
The Court-Packing Peril
Raider of the Lost Constitution
What the Electoral College Saves Us From
How Often Is One State Decisive in the Electoral College?
Rethinking President Grant (Part Two)
Rethinking President Grant (Part One)
History Doesn’t Favor Republicans Recovering the House under Trump
America’s Biggest Battle, 100 Years On
Constitutional Originalism Requires Birthright Citizenship
Understanding Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 73 Years Later
Revenge for Merrick Garland?
Brett Kavanaugh Should Get a Vote Before the Midterm Elections
The Christian America Paradox
Save the Crusader
NRO: Save the Crusader
My half-doomed effort to save the Holy Cross College mascot.
Tim Kaine Is Wrong about America and Slavery
Flag Protests and the Power of Symbols
Dunkirk Is A Horror Movie
Anti-Radical Muslims Need to Organize and Draw Lines
NRO: Anti-Radical Muslims Need to Organize and Draw Lines
Also up at Fox Nation.
We Should Have Heeded This Warning From Ronald Reagan
Yes, The Attorney General Can Have Privileged Conversations With The President
A Myopic View Of Robert E. Lee
Here’s How Congress Can Fix the Way We Investigate Presidents
Sean Spicer Steps in a Hitler Mess
It Doesn’t Matter That Garland Didn’t Get a Hearing
The Garland Precedent Should Not Stop Gorsuch
Trump and the Emoluments Clause
My latest NR magazine piece: Foreign Entanglements, on Trump and the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause.
Following Up On The Foreign Emoluments Clause and Gerrymandering
The Real Reason Trump Won: Part 2 of 4
NRO: The Real Reason Trump Won: Part 2 of 4, looking at how Trump performed in the battleground states by historical standards for post-incumbent challengers.
The Real Reason Trump Won: Part 1 of 4
NRO: The Real Reason Trump Won: Part 1 of 4, looking at how Trump performed nationally by historical standards for post-incumbent challengers.
Hillary Clinton: President of California
Congress Should Let General Mattis Serve as Secretary of Defense
History is Forgotten If We Don’t Keep It Fresh
The Real Reagan Record on AIDS
Reagan On The Auction Block
The Declaration of Independence: A Demand for Accountability
‘Borking’ Shows Why Senators Matter
Re-Imagining Russell Kirk
How Bad Are Trump’s National Polls? Some History.
A Few More Words About Zachary Taylor and Donald Trump
Politico Sells Zachary Taylor Short
No, Ronald Reagan Didn’t Launch His 1980 Campaign in Philadelphia, MS
RS: No, Ronald Reagan Didn’t Launch His 1980 Campaign in Philadelphia, MS

One of the wearying things about arguing with liberal/progressives is that they never stop trying to rewrite history; a bogus claim that is debunked only stays debunked if you keep at debunking it year after year after year. So it is with the hardy perennial effort to tar the reputation of Ronald Reagan by claiming that his 1980 presidential campaign and subsequent two-term presidency was tainted from the outset by having kicked off his campaign with a speech about “states’ rights” in Philadelphia, Mississippi – Nation editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel was retailing this one on ABC’s Sunday show The Week just two weeks ago, trying to compare Reagan to Donald Trump:
There’s all this nostalgia about Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan announced his candidacy in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the site for where three civil rights workers were killed by white supremacists.
There are many other sources that assert this as fact – see, for example, this Huffington Post column from April by Nicolaus Mills, Professor of American Studies, Sarah Lawrence College:
[I]n going to Patchogue, Long Island this coming Thursday to speak at a controversial Republican fundraiser, Trump is taking a page out of the Ronald Reagan playbook. He’s following the path that Reagan took in 1980 when he began his presidential campaign at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
Long Island? Forget it, he’s rolling. More examples from one presidential cycle to the next can be found from David Greenberg at Slate, William Raspberry in the Washington Post, Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert in the New York Times, and so on. Wikipedia even has a page for “Reagan’s Neshoba County Fair “states’ rights” speech”.
Where to begin? This particular canard has so many things wrong with it, I feel obligated to set them all down in sequence. Hopefully, doing so here should – at least for a little while – collect the context in one place.
Continue reading No, Ronald Reagan Didn’t Launch His 1980 Campaign in Philadelphia, MS
Remember Joseph Warren This Memorial Day
RS: Remember Joseph Warren This Memorial Day
Warren had every reason to seek safety, being the widowed father of four, but instead sought the most dangerous location on the Bunker Hill field of battle and fought in the ranks until he ran out of ammunition, at which point he was shot in the head and his body hacked to pieces by redcoats with bayonets. His body was not discovered by his brothers until the following April, after the siege of Boston was raised, and identified by Revere by dental analysis.
Do Not Weep for Andrew Jackson
This Is Not 1980, And Donald Trump Is Not Ronald Reagan
RS: This Is Not 1980, And Donald Trump Is Not Ronald Reagan
Every piece of evidence we have about the 2016 general election and the world around us points in the same direction: if nominated, Donald Trump would lose, and likely lose badly. The fact that Trump has defied expectations in the primary and survived numerous incidents (seemingly almost daily) that would end any other political career has given pundits and analysts an almost superstitious, gunshy awe of predicting failure for him – thus the “lol nothing matters” response you often get when you discuss both Trump’s obvious, glaring weaknesses and his pitiably weak standing in the polls. But the one straw commonly grasped by Trump supporters when confronted by the evidence is Gallup’s polling from early 1980 showing that Ronald Reagan was some 30 points behind Jimmy Carter, who of course he went on to demolish in the fall.
The Gallup 1980 polls are a weak analogy, for several reasons.
Continue reading This Is Not 1980, And Donald Trump Is Not Ronald Reagan