Description
Book Synopsis On November 4, 1980, American voters gave Ronald Reagan a 41-state Electoral College landslide. The man this mandate carried into the White House was largely compounded of mythology. Like most compelling mythologies, Reagan''s was a synthesis of celebrity as well as emotional, intellectual, and cultural streams. Throughout his eight years in the oval office, the Great Communicator was largely successful in shaping the soul of America to reflect his durable mantra that government is the problem. That same American soul later embraced Donald Trump--a president who, the authors argue, would have appalled Reagan.
Reagan''s myth persists, and by understanding his time in office in the context of American history and of the American presidency, we can understand how a transformative president created more than policy by also shaping culture with the instrumental force of mythology. This book attempts to neither praise nor bury Reagan but to explain him in non-partisan terms o
Table of Contents
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Preface
- 1. Government Is the Problem
- 2. MAGA: Dumbing Down a Stolen Lie
- 3. Crystal Radio
- 4. Holiday
- 5. "A Near Hopeless Hemophiliac Liberal"
- 6. General Electric Theater
- 7. A Speech Is Born
- 8. California Dreaming
- 9. From Dog Whistle to Dogma
- 10. Taxes, Big Government, and Middle-Class Despair
- 11. Pure Tax Magic
- 12. American Lazarus
- 13. PATCO Tamed
- 14. Supply-Side Economics: Under Reagan's Shadow
- 15. Imperial Visions
- 16. In the Twilight of an Idol, the Chickens Come Home to Roost
- Chapter Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
