You can find a plethora of statements as to why Mitt Romney lost the election last week. Most of them tend toward calling Republicans to embrace amnesty for illegal aliens to needing to be more hawkish militarily (I guess we’ve been too timid in our method of forcibly spreading democracy around the world). Others are still longing for the return of a new Ronald Reagan. Therein lies a serious problem.

Peter Leithart diagnoses the problem of wanting to return to the days of Reagan. The problem is that Ronald Reagan is dead. More appropriately, the cut taxes, de-regulate, build up the military and let the deficits be cursed philosophy has died. Let Leithart explain:

”Reagan embodied a creed of three articles—limited government, unapologetic support for the free market, and equally unapologetic faith in the rightness of America. Iraq soured the country on aggressive Reaganite foreign policy, and the recession has done the near-miraculous—it has made Keynes sexy again. Obama didn’t get a mandate on Tuesday, but neither did the nation repudiate his health care plan. The era of big government is back. Obama’s re-election was the funeral for a creed that had been on life support for several years.”