The Reagan Revolution:

Started With A Trickle...Ended With A Bust


“In the age of Reagan, conservatism had cachet, thus many of us drifted into it easily, without really having to think our way there. The leaders of our generation had been drawn to Washington, rather than New York, where politics, not ideas, are central. Yet we were different as well from past generations who had come to the capital to make their mark. High-minded ideals of public service and journalism were little in evidence, nor was there much concern or compassion for those less fortunate than us. For all our ferocious intensity, our hatred of big government, and big media, our ideology was in a way empty, more an attitude, a kind of playground politics, than a philosophy of government (p.32)…Though the conservative movement operated outside the Republican Party, while seeking influence within it, in the Reagan era, the movement’s agenda – and therefore that of the (Washington) Times – was pretty much Reagan’s militant anti-Communism, tax cuts to benefit corporations and the rich, dismantlement of affirmative action and social welfare programs, deregulation, and union-busting.” (p. 24)

David Brock
Blinded By The Right