While Friedrich Nietzsche was often critical of Judaism, he was also a virulent opponent of the rising anti-Semitic political movement in Germany. For example, he wrote the following in a letter to his sister because he objected to her relationship with Bernhard Förster, whom she later married:
It is a matter of honor to me to be absolutely clean and unequivocal regarding anti-Semitism, namely opposed, as I am in my writings… I have been persecuted [pursued; verfolgt?] in recent times with letters and Anti-Semitic Correspondence sheets; my disgust with this party … is as outspoken as possible, but the relation to Förster, as well as the after-effect of my former anti-Semitic publisher Schmeitzner, always bring the adherents of this disagreeable party back to the idea that I must after all belong to them…
Nietzsche was well aware of the potential and often expressed his fear that his radical ideas would be expropriated by anti-Semites after his death. And they were. Which brings me to Ronald Reagan and the right’s current relationship to him. As Steven Hayward notes in today’s Washington Post:
Sarah Palin invokes him. Mitt Romney glorifies him. The “tea party” movement hopes to recapture him. And the Republican Party still can’t get over him.
Six years after his death, and almost a century since his birth, conservatives are more transfixed than ever by Ronald Reagan, so much so that I fully expect a Gipper anxiety disorder to appear in the next edition of the psychiatrists’ diagnostic manual.
It’s hardly controversial that the Bush administration ordered ‘enhanced interrogation techniques,’ some of which were in violation of both law and treaty. Despite insisting that ‘America doesn’t torture,’ the Bush administration did precisely that, and under the attempted cover of law. Despite this, it is hard to find any elected official or aspiring politician in the Republican Party who will condemn those actions, let alone call for any accountability for them. Rather, it is more common to hear Republicans complain that we’re being too soft on terrorists, reading them their Miranda rights, and serving them orange-glazed chicken with two kinds of fruit. Yet, Ronald Reagan said the following upon delivering the Convention Against Torture to the Senate for ratification:
The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.
The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called “universal jurisdiction.” Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.
[h/t to Glenn Greenwald]
I could surely use those words to say that Ronald Reagan would be for the prosecution of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for authorizing the torture. I might be wrong about that, but I might not be. We can all pick and choose what we want to remember about Ronald Reagan and use that in the service of whatever argument we are currently advancing. I do think I would be safe in arguing that Reagan would have had some serious qualms about seeing the treaty he successfully ushered through the Senate being violated a mere fifteen years later by a Republican administration.
Hayward, however, seems to think that Ronald Reagan would be right at home not only with the modern version of the GOP, but with the extreme fringe Tea Bagging crowd. And, he thinks he would love Sarah Palin.
Right now the leading candidate is undoubtedly Palin, whom Reagan would probably have cheered on and surely would have had no problem voting for should she secure the GOP presidential nomination. Like Reagan, she has enormous charisma and a populist style. At her best, such as on the “Tonight” show last week, she shares his self-assurance and ease in front of a crowd. Like Reagan, she hails from outside the political establishment and does not crave the approval of the elite; rather, she seems to thrive on their disapproval.
Like Reagan, Palin consciously speaks in ways appealing more to principle than to party. And like Reagan, she divides people across the political spectrum.
I might add, that like the Palinists and Tea Baggers, Reagan abhorred big government (at least rhetorically). But Reagan was much more complicated than the current right-wing caricature of him let’s on. Despite his disengaged style of governance, his ideas were developed of a long period of time and after careful consideration, and he put many of his ideas down in writing:
Most of Reagan’s original writings are pre-presidential. From 1975 to 1979 he gave more than 1,000 daily radio broadcasts, two-thirds of which he wrote himself. They cover every topic imaginable: from labor policy to the nature of communism, from World War II to the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, from the future of Africa and East Asia to that of the United States and the world. They range from highly specific arguments to grand philosophy to personal stories…
…Reagan, In His Own Hand presents this vision through Reagan’s radio writings as well as other writings selected from throughout his life: short stories written in high school and college, a poem from his high school yearbook, newspaper articles, letters, and speeches both before and during the presidency. It offers many surprises, beginning with the fact that Reagan’s writings exist in such size and breadth at all. While he was writing batches and batches of radio addresses, Reagan was also traveling the country, collaborating on a newspaper column, giving hundreds of speeches, and planning his 1980 campaign.
It’s impossible to imagine Sarah Palin doing any of those things, and Hayward wants us to believe that Reagan wouldn’t have cared about that or seen her as unqualified and unserious.
Virtually all the criticisms of Palin — calling her an anti-intellectual lightweight who can’t name a magazine she reads or a founding father she admires — were lobbed at Reagan before and during his time in the White House, and the critics hailed from both sides of the aisle.
Yet, Reagan’s critics were either unaware or dismissive of Reagan’s intellectual heritage. Reagan used a populist form of conservatism that is echoed in today’s conservative movement, but he wasn’t an empty shell (until senility caught up with him). He was a showman, like Palin, but he had substance. The best that can be said for Palin, by comparison, is that she shares many of Reagan’s faults. She was disinterested in the day-to-day details of governance, she has blinkers on in regard to some pressing issues facing the county (Reagan on AIDS, Palin on climate), she has too much tolerance for personal corruption, and she advances an ideology that is hostile and harmful to good government.
It’s funny that a column in the Washington Post could motivate me to rise to Reagan’s defense, as I saw and still see him as a very poor president whose rhetoric and goals bequeathed our nation a legacy of horrors. But, as much contempt as I have for Reagan, I hate to see his ideas, like Nietzsche’s, twisted out of all context, stripped of all decency, and used to further a hate-filled, destructive movement.
