Daniel M. Rothschild is the Director of the Center for Civics, Education, and Opportunity at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute.
My fellow Americans are enjoying a dalliance at the moment with some ideas that had fallen out of fashion, for good reason, for many years. On the left, self-described democratic socialists seek to bring virtually all aspects of commerce, trade, production and distribution under the watchful eye of the state. On the right, a suite of nationalist, ethnic essentialist and economic isolationist ideas with a far deeper pedigree in continental Europe than in the New World are similarly enjoying a moment in the sun.
It’s undeniable that there is more energy today at the extremes of the American left and right than at the centre. We see this in recent primary elections, where candidates in both parties run on platforms that would have been considered ludicrous a decade ago, and where deep personal failings are portrayed as strengths. Nor is this merely a matter of slogans and affect; many of these candidates are running on some very illiberal, very bad ideas.
These ideas would be harmful to American (and therefore world) growth, innovation and economic opportunity; in their most injurious incarnations, they actively seek to make Americans poorer, less free and more dependent on state benevolence.
These ideas deny American exceptionalism; some of them deny that America can be a force for good at all.
This is cause for concern – but not the panic that has appeared in some quarters.
As the IEA’s Steve Davies has persuasively argued, the dominant political divide globally is shifting from how to order the economy towards questions of national identity and sovereignty. This is undoubtedly true. Still, no matter how politics aligns between the right and the left, most Americans still care deeply about opportunity, a stable economic order, community and a good life for themselves and their families. This cannot be separated from questions of national identity; rather, it’s firmly baked into our conception of what America is and who we are as Americans.
Today, elite preoccupations are disconnected from the concerns of voters. But America has a great Reserve Army of Normies, the people President Reagan once described as “the good, decent, rambunctious, and creative people who raise the families, go to church, and help out when the local library holds a fundraiser; people who have a stake in the community because they are the community”.
These Americans are not on board with the radical ideas occupying so much elite political energy. They want stable prices. They want America to build homes, factories and infrastructure. They want affordable and reliable energy. They want innovation. And they want America economically engaged in the world.
The far left and far right either reject these aims outright or champion policy ideas that run counter to Americans’ preferences.
Take housing. The far left is in thrall to ideas like rent control and public ownership of housing that have failed for two generations, and the hard right sees this as yet another problem that can be fixed by closing our borders.
What the median voter wants is more housing to lower prices – and they’re increasingly getting it. The 2026 Reagan National Economic Survey found that majorities of Americans of all ideological persuasions and demographic groups favour building more homes in their communities to increase affordability. From the recently signed 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act to state capitals in both red and blue states, policymakers have focused on increasing housing affordability by reducing barriers to boost supply. That is, letting markets work.
To conservatives, this is a story about deregulation and letting the price system and private enterprise thrive. To progressives, it’s about equity for families lower on the socioeconomic ladder. And for politicians, it’s about giving the voters what they want, in a manner rooted in federalism and free markets.
In short, the median voter theorem remains underrated as an explanatory force in policymaking. Extremism may win primaries; the median voter still gets the final word on policy.
Our survey data also show that a solid majority of Americans reject the anti-energy policies of the far left – including self-described Democrats and progressives. Overall, Americans have a favourable assessment of virtually every form of energy (only coal polls slightly negatively). Republicans are enthusiastic about an all-of-the-above energy policy (including wind and solar), and Democrats are keen on nuclear and natural gas, in addition to renewables. To most Americans, this is not an ideological matter: it’s a practical one about heating their homes and powering their cars.
Similarly, Americans reject the economic isolationism gaining ground on the right. Only one in nine Americans believes we should reduce our economic ties with Britain, Canada, South Korea, Germany and Taiwan. By a three-to-one margin, Americans believe that our country benefits when we bring in the most talented people from around the world to participate in our economy. Only one in five Americans wants to see a reduction in skilled migration.
Above all, the great mass of Americans want something that has fallen largely out of favour in our political discourse, but that is the common thread from our founding to the present day: freedom. For all the talk about “Zombie Reaganism” from corners of the right, a majority of Americans remain enthusiastic about his economic policies, which treated Americans as agents of their own destiny, not as pieces to be arranged by men of system on a great continent-scale chessboard.
Eight in ten Americans, including two-thirds of Democrats, agree today with President Reagan’s assessment from his 1981 inaugural address: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” This is not a country of docile men and women waiting to be directed by Washington. We are, and remain, a people for whom freedom is not merely a slogan, but an idea woven into the very fabric of our being.
Concern is warranted about the current enthusiasm on both the American left and right for rehabilitating ideas left by previous generations on the ash heap of history. But panic is not. Intellectual fads rise and fall, parties realign, factions wax and wane, and administrations and Congresses come and go.
In the main, Americans show little inclination to jettison progress, close off our country, confiscate wealth or degrow our economy. We remain a country that prizes freedom and gradualism, not servitude and revolution. That shows up both in voters’ policy preferences and in our national character..
Our Reserve Army of Normies will see to it.