Critics complained that Reagan’s policies served the interests of corporations and wealthy individuals and pointed to the sudden widening of economic inequality. As American liberals increasingly embraced a “rights” framework directed toward African Americans, Latinos, women, lesbians and gays, and other marginalized groups, conservative policy makers targeted the regulatory and legal landscape of the United States.
The Reagan administration’s embrace of free markets dispensed with the principles of active income redistribution and social welfare spending that had animated the New Deal and Great Society in the 1930s and 1960s.
The rise of the right affected Americans’ everyday lives in numerous ways. Enduring conflicts over race, economic policy, sexual politics, and foreign affairs fatally fractured the liberal consensus that had dominated American politics since the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, and the New Right attracted support from Reagan Democrats, blue-collar voters who had lost faith in the old liberal creed. Countless ordinary citizens-newly mobilized Christian conservatives, in particular-helped the Republican Party steer the country rightward. Building on the gradual unraveling of the New Deal political order in the 1960s and 1970s (see Chapter 28), the conservative movement not only enjoyed the guidance of skilled politicians like Reagan but drew tremendous energy from a broad range of grassroots activists.
And it could claim increasing credit for Republican electoral successes. More libertarian in its economics and more politically forceful in its conservative religious principles than the moderate brand of conservatism popular after World War II, the New Right had by the 1980s evolved into the most influential wing of the Republican Party. Reagan rode the wave of a powerful political movement referred to by historians as the New Right. Stressing the theme of “national decline,” he nevertheless promised to make the United States once again a glorious “city upon a hill.” 2 In November, Reagan’s vision triumphed. The family garage may have still held two cars, cracked Reagan, but they were “both Japanese and they’re out of gas.” 1 The charismatic former governor of California suggested that a once-proud nation was running on empty. Speaking to Detroit autoworkers in October 1980, Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan described what he saw as the American Dream under Democratic president Jimmy Carter. African American Life in Reagan’s America
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