The Reagan Consensus Part Two

Or:  The Enemies of the Reagan Consensus and Why We Should Not be Afraid of Them -

The enemies of the Reagan Consensus ( established since at least 1990, I say) are nothing if not absurd but sometimes sublime. The absurd both in substance and in form has to be shallow, demagogic, dissonant Joe Biden. He is the less apparently noxious specimen of the "moderate" Left. They only attack the Consensus if they know it is "unpopular" and only in incremental steps that can be dangerous only if you let it go so far.

 Perfect example: Biden announced that, while Trump's reduction in the US corporate tax rate from 35% (where by the way it had been even during Reagan's time) to 21% was "disastrous", it would be just right, Goldilocks, if it was at, say..., 28%. Notice that is so arbitrary as to literally be a trial lawyer's "splitting of the difference" to settle a fact that only 3 years ago was the "consensus": that the US should have a 35% corporate tax rate. This tells us one narrow thing and one broad thing. The narrow is that the so-called policy "ratchet" that Thatcher warned about can actually work in our favour and was in fact what the Reagan Consensus did - to change the way we are required to look at major areas of economic, financial and government policy fundamentally and hopefully forever (more on that later).

The broad thing it teaches us is that our opposition works with fear. It uses it to try to get its way on a wide range of issues from Climate Change to Gun  Control to COVID. But those who fearmonger are themselves the captive of fear. This leads to my first point about why the New Consensus will last long - its enemies are generally afraid to challenge it as they still perceive it is too unpopular to do so. As long as we mount a decent defence of the Consensus and remind people why they like it 24/7, we've nothing to fear from our fearful opponents for the most part.

That brings us to the more sublime enemies of the Consensus whose insidious, subtle attack on it is far more dangerous to us in the long run. They often come from academia or the media or the "expert class", the fabulously wealthy or, worst of all, the PONGO class. Above all, they present themselves as "apolitical" to cover for some pretty far out ideas. Examples include Bill Gates, Arletty, the French economist, the editorial boards and producers of most media as well as most of the pertinent and even impertinent faculties of most major colleges. The most recent example - the plaintive cry, in scheduling the World Economic Forum in Davos, in 2021, for a "Reset" of world economic and government policies. Translation - the general adoption of their pet unpopular socialistic and post-capitalist policies for controlling us more under the cover of COVID.

Their greater threat comes from the fact that they are not accountable to anyone but themselves (and sometimes, in light of their lifestyles of unchecked capitalism, conspicuous consumption and garish carbon emissions, not even themselves). The "Fear Factor" therefore of being timorous about implementing or even proposing radical changes is non-existent (witness how much more socialist an ex-politician, even one who was supposed to be a conservative, becomes once they leave office). It is also harder to fight this element of the opposition as it is ever more exclusive in admitting or tolerating those of a truly different political attitude into or in their precincts and indeed have exiled many who have transgressed against their evermore detailed PC code.

How to fight them? Well, one way is to keep the pressure on the elected and remind them how dangerous it will be politically to go against the Consensus. We need to campaign for, organize for and ultimately run as candidates who will guard and build on the Consensus. But candidates can come and go and ask you to :"read their lips"!

That is why another method is to fight for our causes and to organize our own forums and that is historically at a great peak compared to other eras. Before the 1950's, there were no conservative magazines. Before the 1960's, there were no conservative politicians. Before the 1970's, there were no conservative thinktanks. Before the 1980's, there was no conservative radio and before the 1990's, no conservative TV. We now have a great network of all these elements on our side although still outnumbered by the Left, especially in academia and the media. Worse, all these too can be ephemeral and thus may not always guard against the Left's threat to the Consensus (witness the apostasy of the likes of Bolton, Crystal and Kasich).

The real answer is Insulation. No, I am not talking about installing asbestos around Donald Trump. I am saying that the Consensus has survived as long as it has because it has certain in-built conditions and developments many of which no one, including Reagan, could have predicted that have ensured we never go back to confiscatory taxes, nationalization, wage and price controls and other extreme regulation and even re-regulation. These include:

1. Low inflation. Ironically, the excuse the governments used for controls was due to a phenomenon they helped to stoke through profligate fiscal policy. The Great Moderation removed this issue and thus the premise for intervening in the first place. It never came back even as taxes were slashed which many of the same "experts" said would also ramp up inflation. It also has undermined the rationale for related reregulations (for example, when energy was deregulated, the price of oil and gas went down);

2. The coming of the Computer Age. This sector has been critical to the renovation of the Rustbelt economies, to prosperity and improvement of the standard of living generally and for the most part has never been broadly regulated. Indeed, it has only known the New Consensus economically. As long as this is the case for it and most every other sector that depends on it (which is now practically every sector and industry and activity), the New Consensus will abide with this massive ally;

3. The same can be said for Telecomms and Social Media (also like Computing, areas of the economy that arguably would not be what they are today or even exist at all but for the New Consensus). Our lives have been changed and liberated irretrievably and in a good way that will be hard if not impossible and painful for a state to undo (yes, I'm going to use the cliche - the GENIE IS OUT OF THE BOTTLE!);

4. The collapse of the Soviet Union and thus the end of a huge and pervasive moral, intellectual and even material support for the enemies of the New Consensus around the World;

5. The crushing of poverty, disease and starvation worldwide mainly sue to the capitalistic and innovative forces unleashed by the New Consensus. In turn, this has also ushered in an extended period of peace; and,

6. The lack of a world crisis that invites the so-called "resetting" of the Consensus. And no, the "Great Recession" and COVID and Climate Change did not and will not do it. They are all materially and existentially far less threatening than the Great Depression, the World Wars and the Cold War that were all used to one degree or another to justify the Old Consensus, that is state intervention. Deep down even the most publicly committed to trying to alter the Consensus know that these are only perceived threats at best that will not compel people to return to the Old Consensus that not only is proven not to work BUT does not even have a relevant application to whole parts of our lives today.

There are many more reasons for the "immunity"of the New Consensus to the "virus" of its' enemies efforts to kill it. But over all, while many of us long for the "Good Old Days" or rail at "Social Injustice" as if it were invented in 2001 or 2017, we still live lives that are incomparably better, safer and more enjoyable and agreeable than any we had before the new Consensus was built. That is why our politicians will always (except incrementally which must still be definitely fought hard) back off substantively changing it as long as we stand up to them and get the right people to protect the Consensus and the freedoms it has given us all.

In short, Reagan's warning, that we can lose in a generation the freedom and prosperity it took centuries to build, still holds. Complacency and not improving (for instance, deregulating MORE areas of the economy and real tax reform) is not an option for us no matter how comfortable we are.  But, as long as we remain diligent, we're never going to go back to truly "Big Government" anymore than we are going back to platform shoes, bellbottom pants and disco.