Politics & Power Quote by Mike Pence

“It’s time for conservative Americans to do what Reagan did” is a neat piece of political ventriloquism: Pence throws his voice through a sainted avatar so he doesn’t have to argue policy on the merits. Reagan functions here less as a former president than as a talisman - a shortcut to legitimacy inside a movement that treats the 1980s as scripture. The line is an invitation to stop debating the present and start reenacting a memory.

The specific intent is coalition discipline. By invoking Reagan, Pence signals to skeptical conservatives (especially the ones tired of intra-right civil wars) that there’s a “proper” template for winning: optimism, toughness abroad, tax cutting, and party unity. It’s also a quiet rebuke to the post-2016 right’s taste for humiliation politics and perpetual grievance. Reagan is code for “win the argument without sounding bitter,” and for building a majority rather than feeding a faction.

The subtext is more personal: Pence is positioning himself as the heir to pre-Trump conservatism without naming Trump. That’s strategic ambiguity. He can critique the movement’s current behavior while avoiding a direct confrontation with the movement’s dominant personality. “Conservative Americans,” not “Republicans,” widens the frame, implying a moral constituency bigger than a party and casting dissenters as insufficiently conservative.

Context matters because Reagan nostalgia tends to spike when conservatism feels politically unmoored. When the future is messy - demographic change, cultural backlash, institutional distrust - the past offers a comforting, brand-safe script. Pence is selling a restoration, and the pitch works because within conservative mythology, Reagan isn’t just history; he’s permission.