Republicans: Return to the basics and Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment.
America’s center has collapsed. But it can be restored if Republicans return to their roots.
Both political parties have gravitated toward their extremes but given my background and experience over the past 70-plus years of working to foster, grow and protect true conservatism, my focus is squarely on protecting truth and standing up against a twisting of that truth.
Many now suggest that those who developed the conservative movement and built the party associated with it were not “real” conservatives or have somehow “sold out” the “true” conservative movement.
But the fact is that the current embodiment of Republicanism is an incoherent form of populism — sometimes leaning right, sometimes left.
Give it a name, support it if you feel you must, but be aware: It isn’t the responsible, conservative party America needs.
GOP should not abandon these five core tenets
Members of Our Republican Legacy, who include many who served for decades in their states and in Washington and around the globe, represent all who built the framework of conservatism as a structural institution.
We stand firm in the belief that a responsible, conservative party in this country can be and in fact still is defined by five key principles that Republicans – including such legacy leaders as Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan - have historically championed, whatever their other differences.
The party in its current manifestation has turned these five bedrock tenets upside down, yet they remain the defining cornerstones of our party’s foundation.
They are:
- The rule of law. True Republicans embrace the fact that we are a country of laws, not men. The U.S. Constitution establishes checks and balances to prevent the concentration and abuse of government power, vesting the power to tax, spend and impose tariffs in Congress, not in the president. The Bill of Rights protects the people against a government that punishes critics and wreaks retribution on opponents.
- Unity. The true Republican Party is the party of Lincoln. Just like him, at the core of our corporate “soul” is a determination to unite, to hold America together as one indivisible nation. “A nation divided against itself cannot stand.” Period. Identity politics that inflame the passions of grievance and resentment are no longer the sole property of any one political party. Using mass condemnation to pressure those of certain faiths, races or ideologies to select “correct” words or live “correct” lives, even to accept the binary judgment that they are either social offenders or victims of “the elites” – this is a grave threat to all of us. Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment – “Thou shalt not speak ill of fellow Republicans” – today might best be surrendered back to the commandment from whence it came: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”
- Fiscal responsibility. The true Republican Party opposes large and persistent federal deficits. The national debt increased nearly 40% in the first Trump administration, and under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, it will grow over the next decade by more than $3 trillion. Our current fiscal trajectory isn’t greatness. It is weakness, and we are accelerating toward that end.
- Limited government. The true Republican Party insists that the private sector, not an overreaching federal government, is the source of America’s strength. Governmental control, once the province of progressive Democrats, has now become the hallmark of current Republicans. They impose high tariffs and propose government ownership stakes in corporations. And no administration should direct what universities can teach, where law firms can practice, or whom comedians can mock.
- Strong national defense. The true Republican Party is the party of Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, which since World War II has protected the West against Russian aggression, whether communist or totalitarian. We support a national defense that is second to none, and we encourage reliable alliances among democracies that protect our national interests overseas. We are under no illusions about Vladimir Putin’s intentions, and support providing Ukraine with the weapons it needs to defend itself.
Present party establishment is not conservative or Republican
Disagreement has always been healthy. But, let me make this clear.
The Republican principles espoused by the current personification of the GOP and those of Reagan’s GOP are not merely distinguishable. They are incompatible.
Some may elect to call them “Republican” or “conservative,” but they are in fact something else.
Far better to be honest and give them their own name, rather than claim they are what they are not.
Mack F. Mattingly is a founding member, along with Founder, former Missouri U.S. Sen. John Danforth, former Defense Secretary Bill Cohen, former Vice President Dan Quayle and others, of Our Republican Legacy. Mattingly served as a U.S. senator from Georgia from 1981 to 1987.
