OPINION:
Are Republicans too comfortable with losing? After a resounding defeat in 2020, Republicans again trotted out weak candidates in 2022 who mistook bombast for vision, the politics of grievance for a winning platform. We will lose again if we don’t learn from that mistake.
More than political score-settling is at stake. At issue is America’s ability to face down communist China, which threatens our security and prosperity. It is up to Republicans to meet this moment with fresh leadership and a vision for how we will reverse our nation’s drift and take on the Chinese dragon. If we do so, we will not only win elections but also win the central contest of our time, and Dave McCormick’s new book, “Superpower in Peril,” offers a timely and sensible plan of action.
A former CEO and Senate candidate in his home state of Pennsylvania, Mr. McCormick asks the question that should be on every politician’s mind: “China has a plan for global supremacy. What’s ours?”
His answer? A two-pronged plan to rebuild American power at home and confront China abroad.
As Mr. McCormick argues, any sound strategy to preserve the American superpower must contend with a simple fact: Our nation’s adversaries are gaining on us. Communist China has built the military, economic and, crucially, technological power to overturn decades of American global leadership, and it is spreading its techno-totalitarian rules around the world.
While Mr. McCormick’s plan does not address every problem confronting America, it grapples with some of the most difficult challenges. His answer: a new innovation strategy that balances free-market principles with the need to address our supply chain dependencies and technological vulnerabilities; an American vision for a safer digital age that respects individual privacy and freedom of speech; and a revival of the American dream through school choice, civics education and workforce development.
Drawing on his experiences negotiating with the Chinese Communist Party, Mr. McCormick also makes a compelling case for a new economic strategy to confront China. Most notable here is his advocacy for restrictions on U.S. investment in China. As CEO of Bridgewater Associates, he oversaw investments there, and he describes the moral and fiduciary hazard that came with that exposure. The baseline is strong: The U.S. dollar cannot fund China’s military, its technological ambitions, or its pervasive human rights abuses.
So far, so good, but a vision like the one Mr. McCormick outlines requires durable governing majorities or, at minimum, strong presidential leadership. Where will we find that if Republicans can eke out only 50-50 margins and narrow electoral victories — if they win at all. Here, Mr. McCormick looks to his childhood in the late 1970s, and he reminds us that it took only one election to go from malaise to Morning in America.
Republicans are right to have grown weary of “zombie Reaganism” in policy, but we could still learn a thing or two about politics and leadership from the Gipper. The last time America faced a threat on this scale, President Ronald Reagan answered with sunny optimism and a vision for economic rejuvenation and victory in the Cold War.
He marshaled the party together and won resoundingly in 1980 — 44 states — and again in 1984 — 49 states — after which his vice president captured the office with 40 states. In the 12 years of Republican control that followed, inflation fell; the economy rebooted; the Soviet Union fell; and the United States assumed global primacy. It wasn’t always pretty, but Reagan won a mandate to govern that even his Democratic opponents could not deny.
Though his book’s title sounds ominous, Mr. McCormick shares Reagan’s sunny optimism about America, and the book offers a positive agenda for American renewal. Rejecting the victim mentality that has become all too pervasive on the right, he has put forward a template for victory and governance — the two things the GOP needs more than ever.
• Bill Barr is an American attorney who served as the 77th and 85th attorney general in the administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Donald Trump.
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Superpower in Peril: A Battle Plan to Renew America
By David McCormick
Center Street, March 14, 2023
320 pages, $29
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