Reaganism was a Dark Turn in American history and it is glaringly obvious.
No matter the intentions of individuals, the tribal political culture and human rights backlash unleashed by the Reagan Revolution has mired America.
Publishing note: Photos will no longer be in Sepia due to creative changes. Enjoy!
Ronald Reagan Shaking Hands with Supporters on a Campaign Stop in Indiana. Wikimedia.
Do you think the political backlash to the postwar liberal consensus of the 1940s, 50s, 60s, and 70s would have gone differently if it wasn’t so animated by fear of immigrants, minority communities, and the death of this idea of an open frontier where man overpowers nature?
Our contemporary political realm and body politic are defined by a backlash to government activity whether it be to drafting young men to fight a meaningless war or overtaxing citizens all the way to trying to desegregate communities and thwart racist regenerative structures that held us back in the midcentury global hemispheric struggle known as Cold War.
However, genuine reactions to hidden agendas within all levels and sectors of our collective governments fostered an inevitable conservative backlash defined as the Reagan Revolution. Grifters and neo-segregationists co-opted the ivory tower and academic opposition.
Reagan catered to these forces by campaigning with harmful racial tropes and traveling to the site of a racially motivated domestic terror incident. Gingrich made it a zero-sum game and turned Republicanism into a statement about one’s tribe as America’s face changed.
Yes, it is this toxic right-wing political culture and the onset of Reaganism that has brought this nation to the brink, and personally made my entry into political media full of anti-Black spectacles and programming (known to the world as Fox News).
Reaganism was a regression and we ironically lost international dominance because of tribalistic right-wing characters or their appeasing moderates.
To be fair, there are some who were part of this Reaganism charade and thought the racism would go away or that the world was cruel so might as well make their money and not try and change it.
But this latter-century American selfishness recklessly imperiled the 21st-century body politic for younger Americans.
