Reagan Factfile

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But was this new hope about to be misplaced?

Ronald Reagan Reagan was the right man in the right Place at the right time. America had suffered economic slump in the 1970s and defeat in Vietnam, now a ‘crusade’ for

Reagan’s domestic policy involved cutting welfare projects, limiting state spending (except on arms) and privatising. He de-regulated Wall St and allowed bankers and speculators to operate with far less supervision from the State. He claimed that “Government can’t solve America’s problems, Government is the problem’ A certain wealthy percentage of the population received generous tax breaks, but these reforms led to the growth of a vast American underclass and the biggest wealth gap since the depression. The policies are known as

REAGANOMICS or NEOLIBERALISM. Reagan brought runaway inflation under control, but at massive social cost, presiding over high unemployment and poverty.

national renewal was needed and who better than a former movie star to give it to them? His TV campaign reassured Americans that it was once more ‘Morning In America’ after the long dark night of the 1970s

So who voted for him? Many of his supporters wanted Reagan to return ‘traditional values’ to America. After a decade where lawlessness, drugs and ‘alternative’ culture seemed on an unstoppable march, a massive conservative backlash was in full swing throughout the 1980s. Also, people who grew up in the 1960s and enjoyed flower power and rock n’ roll had drifted to the right 20 years later Mocked for his bumbling style, Reagan non the less captured the imagination of the American public by appealing to them as being ‘ordinary’, a man they could trust. A scandal erupted of Watergate proportions mid way through his presidency. In order to free hostages taken in Lebanon, America secretly sold weapons to its hated enemy Iran (the paymaster of the kidnappers). The CIA used the proceeds to arm the Contras (and also, it is rumoured, bags of Columbian cocaine) doing everything ‘off the books’ so Congress wouldn’t know. Reagan, of course, pleaded ignorance to the whole affair. America, unwilling to undergo another Watergate, chose to believe him.