Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future
Feb 2009 · Simon and Schuster
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About this ebook
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.
With clear eyes and an ever-present wit, Bunch reveals the truth about the Ronald Reagan legacy, including the following:
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.
Ratings and reviews
4.0
4 reviews
Scott Fisher
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April 2, 2015
I read more and this Authors patrial of the Reagan years in america are yet another attempt of the far left to redefine a period in america, when we as a nation experienced the greatest sustainable growth in the last century! More Americans became middle class, and where many middle-class citizens became millionaires! And as far as the period under Bush 41, who reversed what Reagan proved created wealth by cutting taxes, and Clinton actually experienced what Reagan unleashed by getting government out of the way of the American people, and the millionaires that created the jobs! What better way to take advantage of an uninformed populace,if you are trying to undermine and replace a capitalistic nation with a socialist one is lie about the truth, and promote your own agenda of lies as truth! Truth that has no place with middle America!Proof being in the current progressive leader in the white house! You know I could have respect for your truths if you didn't lie about what you don't believe in!You honestly think that what we have experienced for the last 6 years, proves what you wrote about Reagan and the America of those days, and even after?You better take another look!
A Google user
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March 12, 2012
Excellent read! Factual and doused in reality. You will now understand that Reagan is nothing more than the GOP propped up and pathetic attempt at an answer to the JFK/Camelot presidency that falls way short. You'll also understand his failed (voodoo) supply-side economics that haunts America to this day and is in large part of the big mess President Obama is cleaning up among other republican debacles.
About the author
Will Bunch, currently a senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily News and the author of a popular political blog called "Attytood," which has a progressive bent and a national readership, has been covering presidential races since Reagan’s re-election in 1984. He has won numerous journalism awards, sharing the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for spot news reporting with the New York Newsday staff. He is author of one previous book, and his writings have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, American Prospect, Mother Jones and elsewhere.
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