In his first inaugural on January 20, 1981, Ronald Reagan addressed the country’s economic malaise saying: "Government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem." This principle was at the core of the Reagan Revolution.
In this sense, the Reagan Revolution was based on a fundamentally cynical view of government. Government could not be, and could never be trusted. Therefore, we should get rid of it, or make it as small as possible.
Reagan thus "otherized" government. Government was something separate and different from ordinary Americans. History had shown that government could not be of the people, for the people and by the people. So we might as well just give up. Big government was bad government. (Except apparently when it comes to a woman’s uterus.)
Republicans have propagated this essential cynicism for almost 30 years. They managed to stay in power doing so because people, so distrustful of government, removed themselves from it giving politicians absolute power. Which, of course, proved to corrupt absolutely.
November 4, 2008 marked the end of this era of cynicism. The end of the Reagan Revolution. A man named Barack Obama, and the movement for change that he has inspired, has brought a new hope that government can be about us again. It can be BY the people.
Those $5 donations, those millions of volunteers knocking on doors and calling strangers, that age-old American creed sung and acted upon by millions, Yes We Can–-all established that ordinary people can bring extraordinary political change, not only by choosing their government but also by BEING their government.
The opposition’s worn-out arguments about "tax and spend," "big government" liberals–-all based on Ronald Reagan’s cynicism–-fell flat. Their desperate attempts to hang on for dear life to Ronald Reagan, even going so far as characterizing a government by the people as "socialism," "radical" and even "terror," rang hollow this time.
Because, finally, this is our time.
On November 5, 2008, "the morning after", I was watching CNN. A Republican talking head was asked about the sorry state of the Republican party. The head stated that the party was in disarray and that it needed to get back to being the party of Reagan. I thought this was incredibly out of touch. The head had totally missed the point of America's election of Barack Obama, and the change it represents.
Reagan is not the solution to the Republicans’ problems; Reagan is the problem.