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Five ways Ronald Reagan predicted the future, from

weaponized medicine to 'Morning in America'
'He was astonishingly clairvoyant,' biographer Craig Shirley told Fox News Digital
By Kerry J. Byrne Fox News
Published October 4, 2023 4:00am EDT

Reagan Presidential Foundation president says the Reagan Library is ‘the perfect place’ for Wednesday’s GOP
presidential debate
Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation president David Trulio, ahead of Wednesday’s second Republican presidential nomination debate at the Reagan
Library in Simi Valley, California, highlights how the late president’s values ‘are timeless.'

Ronald Reagan ’s famously sunny personal and political optimism was grounded by seeing
the world as it was in its complex, often dark reality.

His buoyancy was boosted by a bedrock belief that foundational American values of faith ,

freedom and individual dignity had the power to make the troubled world a better place.
The rare combination of sunniness in the face of harsh reality and his faith in American
exceptionalism gave the Great Communicator a gift to predict future events with
remarkable accuracy.

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"He was astonishingly clairvoyant," Reagan biographer Craig Shirley told Fox News Digital.

"[Reagan] once said, have seen the conservative future and ‘I it works.’"

West Yellowstone, Montana: Then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan, shown wearing the traditional white hat of the western
"good guy" as he shows up for a press conference in cowboy garb at the Western Governors Conference. (Getty Images)

Reagan had an ace up his sleeve when it came to sizing up the future.

Like a gambler who bet on game, he knew the United States and
a fixed , his leadership,
could tip the direction of world affairs toward a favorable outcome.

"It's still trust — but verify," Reagan said in his 1989 farewell address. "It's still play — but
cut the cards."

Said Shirley, author of the upcoming 2024 biography, "The Search for Reagan," and four
other books about the 40th commander
in chief, "He knew if he controlled events, he could
predict and control the future."

"He was astonishingly clairvoyant." —

Reagan biographer Craig Shirley
"He could control American optimism through leadership. He could bring down
communist walls through leadership."
Added produce growth ,which gave him the tools
Shirley, "He could control the economy to
to successfully defeat Soviet Communism. He could control events to let freedom flourish.
He once said that more important than wanting to be president, he should be president."

Here are five ways Reagan foresaw the future in America.

1.Reagan warned that government would

weaponize medical care
Private citizen Reagan addressed the threats posed by government-run health care in a
public recording in 1961 — five years before he ran for governor of California.

His words have proven to be ominous political prophecy.

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"One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by
way of medicine," Reagan said in a 10-minute speech, recorded into an LP album by the
American Medical Association, which at the time opposed a government takeover of
health care.

Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th president of the United States (1981-1989) and the 33rd governor of California (1967-1975).
(Fox News)

"It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project," he also said.

He believed that "under our free enterprise system, we have seen medicine reach the
greatest heights that it has in any country in the world."

Government would only stifle the quality of care for everyone, in Reagan's view.

Even worse, it would quickly encroach on individual freedom — for both the patient and the
caregiver.

"One of the traditional methods of

imposing statism or socialism on a
people has been by way of
medicine." — Ronald Reagan in 1961

Horrified Americans witnessed Reagan’s dystopian nightmare come true during the
COVID-19 panic in 2020 and 2021.

Medical care was determined by executive or even bureaucratic fiat under the guise of
humanitarianism.

Doctors were afraid to challenge political authorities about questionable and even
erroneous medical advice for fear of their careers being destroyed. And millions of
ordinary Americans were ordered to comply with government medical decisions — or, in
many cases, lose their livelihoods.

Lifelong bureaucrats such as Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,
directed medical care for millions by fiat during the COVID-19 panic. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The devastation suffered in the name of humanitarian public policy may never be known.

But 60 years earlier, Reagan warned of the scenario.

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"Once you establish the precedent that the government can determine a man’s working
place and his working methods, determine his employment, from here it's a short step to
all the rest of socialism — to determining his pay," said Reagan.

"Pretty soon your son won’t decide when he’s in school, where he will go, or what they will
do for a living."

2. Reagan predicted America's shining

that
‘city upon a hill’ would remain a beacon to
the world
The simplistic leftist narrative of today is that the United States was born of sin and must
suffer for the evil of systemic racism.

This narrative soundly refuted by the thousands of people of all races, colors and creeds
is
desperate to move to the United States every single day, legally and otherwise .

In 1964, Reagan gave a televised speech on the eve of an election. He campaigned unofficially throughout 1965 for the
California governership, announcing his candidacy at the end of the year. Here, his supporters reach for a handshake with
the future president. (Getty Images)

To these people from all walks of life, America shines the way Reagan saw it.

He spoke often of the United States as a "city upon a hill," from his earliest political
speeches to his farewell address as he left the White House in 1989.

"As a visionary, Reagan believed happy and productive future. Some politicians
in a
derided the ‘V’ word, but not Reagan. To him, controlling events and thus controlling the
future was the job of a national leader," said Shirley.

"The was a vision to

city upon a hill
Reagan but also the promise of a
reality. Of the reality of the future of
America." — Craig Shirley

"The city upon a hill was a vision to Reagan but also the promise of a reality. Of the reality
of the future of America."

The City Upon a Hill is still shining, as evidenced by the countless throngs still risking it all
every day to scale its heights.

3. called the outcome of the

Reagan boldly
Cold War: ‘We win and they lose’
The world lived with the threat of "mutually assured destruction" for both the United States
and the Soviet Union and their various allies for four decades during the Cold War.

Craig Shirley is Ronald Reagan biographies, plus the upcoming 2024 release, "The Search
the author of four for Reagan."
The 40th president "was astonishingly clairvoyant," said Shirley. (Courtesy Craig Shirley)

This had taken root as an unassailable status quo among geopolitical policymakers on
both sides.

Reagan offered a better solution than living in perpetuity on the edge of nuclear holocaust .

"It is this: We win and they prophetic 1977 conversation with

lose," Reagan said in a
confidante and future National Security Advisor Richard V. Allen. "What do you think of
that?"

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The American intelligentsia did not think much of it. Media, academics and bureaucrats
ridiculed Reagan for a narrative they felt lacked sophistication.

"One had never heard such words from the lips of a major political figure; until then, we
had thought only in terms of managing the relationship with the Soviet Union," Allen wrote
for the Hoover Institution in 2000.

"Reagan went right to the heart of the matter. Utilizing American values, strength and
creativity, he believed we could outdistance the Soviets and cause them to withdraw from
the Cold War or perhaps even to collapse."

President Ronald Reagan addresses the nation on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). (©CORBIS/Corbis via Getty
Images)

Reagan as president tipped the scales in favor of his prediction.

He labeled the Soviet Union the "Evil Empire" in March 1983, challenging Americans and
the Western World to confront the true nature of communism.

Two weeks later he proposed the Strategic Defensive Initiative, dubbed "Star Wars" — a
daring initiative to weaponize space that tore at the Soviet Union’s fragile economy.

"Reagan’s SDI terrified the Soviets."

— Craig Shirley

"Reagan’s SDI terrified the Soviets," said Shirley. "Reagan knew the future. We had the
technology. They didn’t."

And Berlin in 1987, Reagan brazenly dared Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev by name to
in
"tear down this wall" — the Berlin Wall that divided communist East Berlin from democratic
West Berlin and, symbolically, statism from individualism.

The Berlin Wall crumbled less than two years later. The Soviet Union collapsed in
December 1991, freeing hundreds of millions of people from the shackles of the Iron
Curtain.

Ronald Reagan in 1987 made his famous challenge to Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. (Getty Images)

Reagan's unimaginable "we win and they lose" scenario rang true just 14 years after he
called for it.

"Simply put, no president before him had the courage to call the Soviets evil. And they
were," said Shirley.

"Calling the Soviets what they were altered the equation. From
that time on, they were on
the defensive. All of Reagan’s actions brought about the future collapse of the Soviet
Union."

4.Reagan warned that federalized

education would marginalize parents and
shortchange students
Reagan ascended to the White House in January 1981 in the wake of the creation of the
Department of Education as a cabinet agency in May 1980.
"Our traditions of opportunity and excellence in education have been under siege," Reagan
said in a March 1983 speech on education.

On Aug. 23, 1984, in Dallas, Texas, President Ronald Reagan leans over and thanks singer Ray Charles. Charles sang
"America the Beautiful" at the GOP Convention. Nancy Reagan is on the left. (Getty Images)

The bureaucracy had grown into a leviathan with 4,400 employees and a $68 billion
budget by 2022 — greater than the entire budgets for all services of 41 states.

The quality education across the United States has plummeted in the years since, from
of
among the best in the world to among the worst in the industrialized world, according to
the United Nations Education Index.

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Even more sobering: Federal and state education bureaucracies now brazenly tout their
desires to push parents out of the classrooms attended by their own children.

"Reagan insisted that the 1980 GOP platform include the elimination of the Departments
of Education and Energy," said Shirley.

"He knew they were holdover federal boondoggles from the Carter years meant as political
payoffs, not to actually solve any energy or education problems. And they didn’t. Federal
bureaucrats argued constantly to increase the funding for each, but Reagan had his mind
on more important things like defeating an Evil Empire."

Mark Winn Loudoun County, Virginia, faced public reprimand and threats in May 2023 after speaking out against public
of
education officials. Winn is among millions of American parents who have been marginalized by the bureaucratic takeover
of public education at both the federal and state level. (Screenshot/WJLA)

Said Reagan in the same 1983 speech, "We've witnessed the growth of a huge education
bureaucracy. Parents have often been reduced to the role of outsiders … Even God, source
of all knowledge, was expelled from classrooms."

He added, "It's time to face the truth. Advocates of more and more government
interference in education have had ample time to make their case, and they've failed."

He went record. Federal spending on education soared eightfold in the

on, "Look at the
last 20 years, rising much faster than inflation. But during the same period, scholastic
aptitude test scores went down, down, and down."

"Parents have often been reduced to

the role of outsiders … Even God,
source of all knowledge, was
expelled from classrooms." — Ronald
Reagan
Reagan saw parents as the saviors of education, not nuisances to be silenced by
education bureaucrats.

"In hisfarewell speech to the nation, he didn’t call on the Department of Education to teach
America’s children about American history ,but rather called on parents," said Shirley.

"He said in his 1996 GOP convention speech that the most important education took place
in the home."

5. Reagan believed the sun would rise again

over America
Reagan ran on the now-famous "It's Morning Again in America" ad campaign during his re-
lection bid in 1984, after helping lift the U.S. out of the infamous "malaise," as it was
called by his predecessor President Jimmy Carter.

But his buoyant, pro-American optimism was evident even before his first victorious bid
for the White House in 1980.

Then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan wears a cowboy hat during a trail ride on Dec. 5, 1968, at the GOP Governor's
Conference here. (Getty Images)

"Ifind no national malaise, I find nothing wrong with the American people," Reagan said on
Nov. 3, 1980, the eve of the election in which he would sweep to victory by winning 44 of
50 states.

"Oh, they are frustrated, even angry at what has been done to this blessed land. But more
than anything they are sturdy and robust as they have always been."

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Added Reagan, "Together, tonight, let us say what so many long to hear: that America is
still united, still strong, stillcompassionate, still clinging fast to the dream of peace and
freedom, still willing to stand by those who are persecuted or alone."

Said Shirley, "Reagan has a natural wellspring of optimism in him. It was as much a part of
his character as his faith in God. But his optimism was also based on the practicality of
America."

"From the strong fortress of his

convictions, he set out to enlarge
freedom the world over at a time
when freedom was in retreat — and
he succeeded." — Margaret Thatcher

Reagan’s star shines even brighter today

Shirley believes in comparison to state of
American leadership today.
"Reagan’s optimism would be tested by the morose loser Joe Biden and his apocalyptic
thinking," the author said.

President Ronald Reagan greets British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as she arrives by helicopter at Camp David.
(Getty Images)

"Reagan always foresaw the best for Americans; Biden always sees the worst for
Americans. Reagan often predicted a bright new dawn for Americans. Biden’s morose
vision is terrifying because it is based on controlling people, not inspiring people," said
Shirley.

Wrote Reagan political ally and United Kingdom Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, "From
the strong fortress of his convictions, he set out to enlarge freedom the world over at a
time when freedom was in retreat — and he succeeded."

For more Lifestyle articles, visit www.foxnews.com/lifestyle .

Kerry J. Byrne is a lifestyle reporter with Fox News Digital.

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