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“The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is an 80 percent friend and not a 20 percent enemy” ~Ronald Reagan

Kari Lake is the US candidate for Senate in Arizona. Trump is the candidate for President. Arizona is a critical swing state for the national election, and the Senate seat is also essential in this state.

If Trump can win with a substantial margin, Republicans could take a working majority in the Senate.  This will be very important to the new incoming President if he is to accomplish significant things in his second and final term.  In addition, a solid win in Arizona might be enough to carry Lake across the finish line.

Trump could be the first President since Grover Cleveland to win a term, lose, and then win a second nonconsecutive term. As such, he is a lame duck to start with, and so if the MAGA agenda is to continue after his final term, other Republicans will have to carry it forward.

However, for Kari Lake and Trump to win, the divisions within the Republican Party need to heal.  Trump is leading the state in most polls, but Lake is behind.  How can that be?  Because many Republicans and Independents are not entirely behind Lake.

Some remnants of the McCain political machine are still upset with her because of her primary election victories. However, to their credit, Karrin Taylor Robson and former Governor Doug Ducey have endorsed Lake.

We say to their credit because they have put hurt feelings aside for the benefit of their party and country.  They are applying the 80% Reagan rule.

However, during Reagan’s time, there were considered to be three legs to the “conservative” stool: the religious right and social conservatives, the more libertarian, free-market-oriented budget balancers, and the anti-communist foreign policy interventionists.

They did not always see eye to eye, and seeing the apparent stress in the movement, in the 1960s, a long-time leader of the conservative movement, Frank S. Meyer, coined the term “fusionism.”  This means that while each of the legs had its agenda, there was enough common ground for conservatism to unite toward common goals.

That fusionism reached its apex with Ronald Reagan’s election, who promoted the 80% principle, as noted in his quote, which began this essay.

However, after the success of bringing down the Soviet Empire, conservatism, to an extent, lost the fusionist glue that kept the movement together.

To be frank, Conservatism never really succeeded in rolling back the government and returning more power to the states. It never succeeded in balancing the budget. In fact, multiple Republican Administrations ran up deficits or signed on to the Democrats’ deficits with only a modicum of resistance.

The muscular international anticommunism morphed into neo-conservative interventionism based on the idea of spreading democracy to those who had not chosen it.  For a time, it put up resistance to radical Islamism as well.  However, since the war on terror had a large component of religious disagreement, many conservatives fell away from the fight because they were not well grounded in the major religions of the West or simply didn’t want to anger a billion Muslims. They also were not prepared for a new ideological war against troublesome elements of Islam.

The result has been the general failure of Conservatism after the fall of Soviet Communism—not just failure but also confusion. For example, large elements of the Republican leadership supported the de-industrialization of the US and participated in the very profitable rise of China.

The libertarian wing argued that free trade with China would democratize China and other countries.  In a sense, they had as much romance about spreading democracy through markets as foreign policy interventionists believed military force could do.

Both were wrong.  China has turned back to militant Maoist communism with a huge arms build-up, free trade partner Mexico is turning into a socialist narco-state, and Canada has veered sharply to the left both politically and socially.

Ideas supporting freedom are in retreat throughout much of Europe and the Americas.  And the once-feared enemy of  Soviet communism, while dealt a terrific blow with the fall of the Soviet Union, has made a comeback in US domestic politics, which is genuinely frightening.

Conservatism became pretty much a holding action.  Looking over the past 30 years, it has not held very well at all.  Except for some progress on defending the Second Amendment, School Choice, and confirming some critical Supreme Court appointments, it is hard to think of any significant conservative victories.

Frustrated by this “retreat with dignity” approach, the Conservative movement undertook a realignment. It started with the Tea Party movement coalescing around an unlikely blue-collar billionaire, Donald Trump.

His style was brash, and he had no political experience.  In a bruising primary, he eliminated one rival after another, insulting many established party functionaries along the way.

This “new conservatism” has become less tolerant of constant defeat and wants candidates to fight rather than be polite.  This includes tax cuts, immigration control, a muscular military, de-regulation, originalist judges, and the reorienting of policy to put the interests of America and American citizens first.

On social issues, they want reasonable controls on abortion when the baby can feel pain or is viable.  They do not embrace CRT, DEI, ESG, and extreme environmentalism and want to see these programs and approaches removed from government.  Private individuals and organizations are free to behave according to these ideas, but not the government, which uses force and compulsion.

Some conservatives do not like this new MAGA agenda because some proponents can be rude and assertive.  They don’t like this “style” of politics but prefer the older, more refined. They also do not like the idea of pulling away from “free trade” and embracing tariffs.

Speaking for ourselves, we think this group believes by defending the lopsided “managed trade” regime, they are helping “free trade.”  We think they are wrong on this.  In an ideal world, if there were no existential enemies, if there were no government subsidies or industries, and all nations traded without tariffs, we would prefer the principles of free trade. However, free trade clearly does not describe the real world as it operates today.

Still, others do not like Trump’s lack of spending control in his first term and his unwillingness to reform Social Security and Medicare through entitlement reform. Yours truly falls within this camp. Remember the call to “repeal and replace” Obamacare?  Calls for gutting Obamacare and moving towards a balanced budget are rarely heard today either among Republican Party old timers or the new MAGA advocates.

Given the two parties’ proximity, repeal of ObamaCare or entitlement reform must wait. We just don’t have the votes. It’s better to accomplish something than nothing, like secure the border, de-regulate, and get CRT and DEI out of the military and FEMA.

Turning back to the Arizona Senate race, Kari Lake satisfies the 80% Reagan rule.  For the most part, she has embraced the MAGA agenda.  To not support her wholeheartedly because of pique over the primaries or her rhetorical bombast misses the point.  She supports the MAGA agenda, which is now transcendent within the Republican Party.

If you don’t vote for her, you get Reuben Gallego, a hard leftist.  Yes, Kari Lake can be abrasive, but take a look at who backs Gallego.

Therefore, never-Trump Republicans need to adhere to the Reagan 80% rule and get on board.  It will be a very narrow election.  Every right-of-center vote from disgruntled Republicans and Libertarians is needed.

Once Trump is elected, he will serve only one term. You will be able to exercise your voice once again to shape the party, but you will have no influence at all if the Democrats win.

You say you admire Reagan.  Good, now act like him.