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How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future
Free Press
February 2009
On Sale: February 3, 2009
288 pages
ISBN: 141659762X
EAN: 9781416597629
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Political
In this provocative new book, award-winning political
journalist Will Bunch unravels the story of how a right-
wing cabal hijacked the mixed legacy of Ronald Reagan, a
personally popular but hugely divisive 1980s president, and
turned him into a bronze icon to revive their fading
ideology. They succeeded to the point where all the GOP
candidates for president in 2008 scurried to claim his
mantle, no matter how preposterous the fit.
With clear eyes and an ever-present wit, Bunch reveals the
truth about the Ronald Reagan legacy, including the
following:
Despite the idolatry of the last fifteen years, Reagan's
average popularity as president was only, well, average,
lower than that of a half-dozen modern presidents. More
important, while he was in office, a majority of Americans
opposed most of his policies and by 1988 felt strongly that
the nation was on the wrong track. Reagan's 1981 tax cut,
weighted heavily toward the rich, did not cause the
economic recovery of the 1980s. It was fueled instead by
dropping oil prices, the normal business cycle, and the
tight fiscal policies of the chairman of the Federal
Reserve appointed by Jimmy Carter. Reagan's tax cut did,
however, help usher in the deregulated modern era of CEO
and Wall Street greed. Most historians agree that Reagan's waste-ridden military
buildup didn't actually "win the Cold War." And Reagan
mythmakers ignore his real contributions -- his willingness
to talk to his Soviet adversaries, his genuine desire to
eliminate nuclear weapons, and the surprising role of
a "liberal" Hollywood-produced TV movie. George H. W. Bush's and Bill Clinton's rolling back of
Reaganomics during the 1990s spurred a decade of peace and
prosperity as well as the reactionary campaign to pump up
the myth of Ronald Reagan and restore right-wing hegemony
over Washington. This effort has led to war, bankrupt
energy policies, and coming generations of debt.
With masterful insight, Bunch exposes this dangerous effort
to reshape America's future by rewriting its past. As the
Obama administration charts its course, he argues, it
should do so unencumbered by the dead weight of misplaced
and unearned reverence.
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