The Heirs of Reagan’s Optimism « Fareed Zakaria
Role reversal: the Democrats are the ones celebrating America’s promise
By Fareed Zakaria
One perennial prediction about American elections remains likely to hold this November. The winning party will be the one that is more optimistic about America—even in the midst of a struggling economy. “American civilization, from its beginnings,” writes historian Daniel Boorstin, “had combined a dogmatic confidence in the future with a naive puzzlement over what the future might bring.”
This confidence has not been confined to one party. Both Republican Theodore Roosevelt and Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt had it, as did John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
Optimism in this sense is not a philosophy but more of a temperament, a comfort with the country’s eternal potential and a faith in its virtues. …
Today it is the Republican Party that often seems angry with America. Read the best-selling books by conservatives these days, watch Fox News or attend a Tea Party rally. They are filled with rage, often combined with a powerful nostalgia for an America that has gone away. …
Anger and nostalgia are at the heart of the Tea Party. … The Tea Partyers love America, but it’s an America that is an abstraction or a memory. The nation of today—with its many immigrants, liberated women, increasingly liberated gays, myriad government programs, open trade and a Spanish-language option on every phone menu—seems to scare them. …
At some point, the changes became part of the fabric of the country. Can you love America and hate so much about it?
The Republican Party has an important and powerful economic message for America today. But to sell it, it needs to convince voters that it understands and appreciates today’s America.