By james art 
SACRAMENTO — While skimming through a recent Sunday opinion section, I noticed a column headline by my friend and colleague Larry Wilson that made me spit out some of my coffee: “Reagan Wasn’t That Great, Really.” Looking at the final days of an unusually pointless presidency race, I’m left with the opposite impression. Reagan was indeed a great president. Any sane person would be thrilled to have someone like him on Tuesday’s ballot.
Reagan’s greatness came not from his academic brilliance (although he was far smarter than critics gave him credit for), but from his ability to communicate important philosophical truths in a way that resonated with the American people. Wilson’s column focuses on a new 800-page biography of the late president that I have yet to read. But a 2008 biography of Reagan, The Education of Ronald Reagan, captures a key reason Gipper remains such an inspirational figure.
Author Thomas W. Evans pointed to Reagan’s eight years at General Electric, where he toured the country and spoke to 250,000 employees: As GE’s “traveling ambassador,” Reagan “met such diverse thinkers as von Mises, Lenin, Hayek, and Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu . He read and reread Henry Hazlitt’s Practical Economics. He quotes Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton. He perfected his philosophy and learned how to convey it.
He embraced a philosophy of freedom that informed his policies, ranging from deregulation to immigration to taxes to dealing with the totalitarian Soviet empire. Reagan fought a Democratic Party devoted only to the expansion of government—a disposition it still holds today. Unfortunately, Reagan’s own party is now led by a man who shows no sign of having read any great thinkers of freedom while promoting ideas that are anathema to Reagan’s free-market, anti-authoritarian legacy.
One of my favorite Reagan quotes: “I’ve talked about the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I’ve ever fully conveyed what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city… teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city of free ports, bustling with commerce and creativity. And if there were to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open for anyone with a will and a heart to get here. Contrast this with the modern GOP rhetoric about eating cats and tariffs.
Of course, even as he heads to the center of the election, Vice President Harris is promoting an agenda of endless federal intervention, higher taxes, more regulation, increased spending and other big government aggressions. So it’s easy to get discouraged about the state of the philosophy of freedom in America today. There aren’t many political alternatives, with the Libertarian Party — in addition to its usual ineffectiveness — torn apart by its own MAGA-related divisions.
What can a libertarian do regardless of which wrong candidate wins the election? It is a dire predicament, although the nation has seen worse. Reagan famously said, “Freedom is never more than a generation away from extinction. We have not passed it on to our children through the bloodstream. Must fight for (and) defend. But what exactly do we do when freedom is not on the ballot – and when the choice is between gastroenteritis and dysentery?
The political world is unpredictable, so it’s hard to strategize. I never thought I’d see Reagan’s party turn into Pat Buchanan’s party. It’s hard to imagine the incredible rise of Donald Trump. I found it inexplicable that Bernie Sanders almost won the 2020 Democratic nomination. or that Joe Biden would have picked Harris for vice president. It’s even stranger that Biden has been kicked out of the race — or that Harris will run a campaign that tries to appeal to some Republicans.
Most politically minded people would encourage us to spend even more time focusing on candidates and elections. Obviously, one cannot ignore politics, as it certainly will not ignore us. But in my ideal libertarian world, government would be so limited that we could go about our days without worrying about the latest nonsense our governor spews or the latest regulation our president is considering.
Unfortunately, that’s not the world we live in. We may not be able to change the political dynamics of the nation, but we can be happy warriors who avoid government interference, mind our own business, treat others fairly, exercise self-control, and build a culture that recognizes the blessings of our freedom.
“Whatever else history may say of me when I am gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes rather than your worst fears; of your confidence, not of your doubts,” Reagan said when he left public life. “My dream is that you travel the road ahead with the lamp of liberty guiding your steps and the hand of opportunity supporting your path.” He may not have been a great president, but he sure knew how to sound like one.
Steven Greenhut is the Western Region Director of the R Street Institute and a member of the Southern California News Group Editorial Board. Email him at [email protected].