And specially what was then a somewhat obscured demographics, what the pollsters called some college, people with technical, vocational or community college. This group was large by a third of the voters and headed track record. The group synonymous with the working class was and is important. Henry shows how workingclass americans transcending left and right providing key of success. Henrys book is basically divide intoed two parts, one on understanding the beliefs of the true reagan, getting reagan right in henrys words and the other appointed critique of how conservatives and modern gops have lost their way and what they do to recover it. Bios are online so i wont provide introductions. Henry will speak about 20 minutes and then we ask Craig Shirley, author of four best sellers on reagan including reagan rising, decisive years, 1976 to 1980 comment on henrys understanding of the true reagan. Craig will speak for ten minutes. Then we will turn to bill who will moderate the second half of todays discussion on the future of the gop. We are very fortunate to have aei resident fellow, jona goldberg and the center for American Progress to comment on the future of the gop. Ruy has a book and you will be able to purchase copies of craigs and ruys books in addition. This is an embarrassment of riches. We have a very tight timetable this afternoon so lets get started, please join me in welcoming henry olsen. [applause] i would like to thank aei and cspan to cover this event. Its like real birth but without the pain of real birth. Today i would like to start by making ronald reags last words my first. This is what you can see in gravestone as they sit over beautiful valleys in Southern California that he so deeply loved. I know in my heart that the man is good and theres worth purpose to each and every human life. My book is little more than extended essay on the meaning of those words and how important they were to Ronald Reagan and how incorporation and the conservative movement lots its soul, rather than following the real reagan, the man who can say those real words, words that he wants us to remember him by, they have false reagan. Someone who was in love with an abstract sense of liberty without no bounds and man who instead of being somebody who would be pragmatic to make sure that blessings to america will flow to everyone in the economy as the poor value of economic advancement. As a result my argument is that the Republican Party have failed to meet Ronald Reagans vision that he set out in 1977 speech to the convention of a new Republican Party. A Republican Party where the cop, the farmer, working man would have a seat at the Republican Party table that would combine conservatives of all stripes, culture, fiscal, defense conservatives into one Majority Party. The Republican Party remains today despite reagans advances what its since great dpecion. Americas second place party. Has fewer people that say they will belong to or support they ideals and say they will support the Democratic Party even as the gap has narrowed in the years after reagan. Approach to which that means one should take to government that Ronald Reagan actually exhibited in his life. The reagan point is the most controversial, the high priest of reaganism that Ronald Reagan is little more than Barry Goldwater and the man dedicated of the overthrow of the new deal as goldwater and are todays libertarians. In fact, nothing can be further from the case. From the earlier days of conservative Ronald Reagan, exhibited fidelity to the core innovations of the new deal in the sense that government at local and state level, if necessary, but in federal level possible that a federal level if necessary should ensure that americans have hand up in American Life and that everyone has a chance to live a life of their own choosing even if it requires government assistance. I will move to the second part, explaining why republicans have lost their way and how it is that in a very odd sense donald trump has recaptured some, not anywhere all, but some of the original reagan insight and consequently its no surprise that Ronald Reagan and donald trump are the only two people who were republican nominees in the last 40 years to win dramatically among whites without a College Degree and in the midwest and winning the states that determine who becomes president and the states and the constituencies that since 1896 have determined which party run it is American National government. So why do i say that reagan was not an antinew deal conservative . Well, its because thats what he basically was telling people from the moment he stepped out on to the political sphere. Now, most people who have studied reagan know that he began life as an ardent democrat. He inherited love and added youthful admiration of Franklin Roosevelt. He was new dealer and rem miezed reagans memorizes roosevelt s fire side chats. He continued to be a democrat. He supported the democrat nominee against Richard Nixon in 1950 and continued to support new deal democratic ideals in private conversation well in 1950s going so far to calling him a fascist sob when he first met goldwater who were friend of his seconds wives parents in phoenix in early 1950s. He moved over to the right as he became aware that the Democratic Party was leaving ideals as he understood them behind. He understood those ideals as using government to help the average person but you instead began to see the Democratic Party was interested in power for its own sake, a centralizing vision that made government and socialization of america animating goal rather than providing assistance to people who needed assistance to overcome obstacles or petty tyranny in their private or public lives. Reagan was a very smart man and he was somebody who read and somebody who read when he was a child and on movie sets and read when he was working for General Electric and he developed his own philosophy, which is best expressed as one that said that he was for government that would help people have a hand up. He was for Social Security. He was for labor unions. In fact, at a time that right to work was a major cause among the american right. He opposed right to work. He opposed right to work in 1958 when it was in the california ballot and when he ran for governor in 1966, he made clear that he opposed efforts to make right to work a law of the california land. He said in 1958 that past few decades the government and america had been engaged in great adoption of welfare projects that became and he did not want and thought that no thinking individual would want to repeal them regardless of the cost they represented forward thinking on his part on our part. He doesnt reference the new deal but what else could he have had in mind . He supported eisenhower twice while National Review was withholding endorsement because he was to wedded to the new deal and supported nixon in 1960, National Review withholding their endorsement because nixon was too enthused with the new deal. Even as reagan matured, reagan continue to adhere to this philosophy, he told audience that no one should be denied health care because of lack of funds and he repeated that statement in 1964 when he was giving his television address for Barry Goldwater which made him a national star. He continued as when he ran for governor to express similar sentiments talking about we would try and engage as governor the private initiative and bureaucratic control, but that didnt mean that we were going to do away with the extensive programs and supports that had been adopted in those years when he became governor rather than make a frontal assault on welfare or medicaid which was then only a year old as some as he called them ultra conservatives urged him to do. He pushed through a record tax increase to make sure the budget was balanced. He always claimed that he he wanted to do was make sure that aid went through no fault of their own deserved to own and not to people that could get by by government support. The very use of that phrase indicates intellectual hertance. This continued all the way through presidency that reagan continued to tell people, tell americans that he supported what he called a social safety net the great pressing problem of his time. People who genuinely needed assistance which included people on medicare, medicaid, Social Security and a whole social programs would remain exempt from cuts so long they were genuinely and needy and that group was a very large group, indeed. He quoted from fdr in his life. Not only in the ways that are not acknowledged but in way that is are acknowledged. His depth was so his intellectual depth was so great that he would quote roosevelt at the drop of a hat without even acknowledging it in 1980 he went off script at the Republican Convention to ask, can you join me as we begin our crusade together, can we join together in a moment of silent prayer . He had just become the first republican nominee to even mention hated roosevelt citing the speech calling for new deal but only the oldest would remember that Roosevelt Speech concluded also for joining together in a crusade to save america to return it to its people. The famous line to close 1980 debate, are you better off than four years ago, not only adapted but next paragraph or more where he asked americans questions, are you better off, is it easier to find a job, this whole section from roosevelts fifth fire site fire side chat where he answered his critics. Regular rein indebted roosevelts vision in a limited sense that america should not return to wilderness of liberty where he opposed what had happened was had happened that the Democratic Party party believed increasingly interested in party for his own sake, he said over and over again in his speeches, only about 10 or 20 of Senior Citizens genuinely can afford medical care, federal funds to create programs and more must money were needed but since advocates of what became medicare continue today push for one size fits all program regardless of need, he felt that they were interested in something else. They were interested in socialized medicine or socialized Society Since you could legitimate meet human needs through a must lech intrusive and much less command and control system. The Republican Party no longer talks this language. It talks the language of apply side economics, a phrase that reagan refused to adopt for himself. Talk it is language of the entrepreneur, when in fact, when reagan was running for president he never mentioned the phrase entrepreneur, the only time he mentions nit a major address from when he enters the race in 1979 until 1981 in his first inaugural address where he lists the entrepreneurs, one of Many American heros and he lists after the shop the consumer, the farmer, the cop on the beat. Reagan believed in a bottom up economy which everybodys incentives matter and everybodys work was worthy. After Ronald Reagan whether hurry better walker bush or people nominated fail today attract people particularly nonevangelical christians that didnt see supportive or found interesting, they didnt see anybody that found that balance that had individual opportunity and individual security that they ascribed to the new deal and they we wanted to see america. They wanted america that gives them the hand upened not america that treats them with hands off or america that lays hands too heavily in the form of government direction. Donald trump is many things and not all of them good. One thing he did when he entered political life as serious politician in 2015 was operate as a laseralabama focus on needs and wants of those people, he told them that they understood the pain and that heart work mattered and that he had their back and that meant he was going to fight for trade deals that might hurt people on the coast but return jobs, he was for that and that sense he was a part from reagan in theory but remarkably similar to reagan in practice as reagan put trade sanctions on japan time and time again to fight unfair trade practices and one of reagans proudest achievements, whenever you see a Harley Davidson motorcycle driving around is because Ronald Reagan stopped them from being put out of business when they were being unfairly competed with by subsidized japanese import. When he talks about immigration, reagan scientist, he felt that we were losing control of our borders and amnesty was necessary in order to make sure it was necessary not to have too many migrant workers. Economic migrants, we can never take all of them because we never have room for them, america was so rich that it could never accommodate all of the people that would want to live here and take advantage of its bounty. Donald trump was on something and he was on to the missing link that the Republican Party in talk of entrepreneurship and disregard all too often for the realities of the way that government has provided individual security through entitlement programs. He was onto something that the Republican Party has not and consequently he became the first republican to win the five mid western dominated states, state that had are dominated by regan democrats, iowa, ohio, michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin. The first person since Ronald Reagan in 1984 to take all five of those states. The only way forward for the Republican Party if it wants to remain a center, is to make the coalition solid and expand by attracting back the republicans whom the negative aspect of donald trump pushed away from that party. That party is Ronald Reagans new Republican Party. That party is a combination of republicans and conservatives of all faiths and backgrounds, one that has an ability to speak to people of all creeds classes and genders and one that gives people hand up in American Life while still continuing the task of reducing tax that is are necessary giving deregulation and added spur and restoring competition to americas public services. Its one that interprets Franklin Roosevelt new deal rather than opposes it. Its one that will legitimately returns america on the path which its been on well over a century, one that allows us to accommodate economic competition and modern life while enduring freedom. Its a hard row to hoe. Its one that would be difficult for republicans to adopt but i believe we can do it and i believe we can do it because in our hearts thats where most of us already are. Its where the voters are, its what they said in the 2016 primary but overwhelming they rejected the reaganism high priest and rejected candidates that were running on the platform that had been adopted in favor of the new look of the old reaganism that donald trump was proposing. I would just like to conclude by asking you a question, do you think that as the Republican Party and conservative Movement Continues to do what its been doing for the last eight to ten years that it continues to do those things for the next ten years that we will be better off . Do you think that taxes will be lower and regulations would be smaller . Do you think that traditional values would be more respected in American Public institutions and do you think that we would be more respected do you think we would have attracted more people to our cause for the First Time Since 1932, more people will tell spol pollsters that they are republicans than they are democrats. Do you think those things will happen . I dont. I think we have been on the wrong course since Ronald Reagan. If we had followed the course, we would have been where he expected us to be. In fact, i think we would fulfill what he told the columbus day audience in 1988 when he was in one of the political speeches, he spoke to a group of italian americans, im going to tell you something ive never said before, he said the ole party of harry truman and fdr isnt dead. The little secret is when the left took over the Democratic Party, we took over the Republican Party. If that isnt true, the old party of Franklin Roosevelt and harry truman, people that wanted security and opportunity had genuinely found a place in the Republican Party, the entire history of america would have lasted 20 years, would have been different. I think this is now our last best hope to make Ronald Reagans dream come true and finally put america on the path where conservatism is the full governing philosophy of america and consequently make america the shining city on a hill that reagan always dreamed