Virginia Postrel on the Gipper

There were some great tributes to our 40th President in the blogosphere, but I hope nobody missed Virginia Postrel's Dynamist Blog: IN MEMORIAM: RONALD REAGAN

A funny thing happened during the Reagan era. Young people became Republicans. Not all of them, of course, but a plurality. It was strange. After all, everyone knows you're supposed to be liberal and idealistic when you're young. You're supposed to vote for people like Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale.

This one is not about how kind or optimistic or courageous he was. She writes about what the 70s were like and how Reagan's polity improved everything.

The policies Nixon and Ford tried didn't work, and Carter told us that was just the way the world was. We should get over our selfishness, our materialism, and make do with less. The problems of the world were our fault, a sign of our fallen nature, as individuals and a nation. Oh yes, and while we were addressing our crisis of meaning, we needed oil import quotas and a SynFuels Corporation.

No wonder Reagan attracted the young.

Posted by jk at June 8, 2004 09:59 AM