I am not remotely an expert on 80s culture (though I know a lot of people who were alive at the time) but I’d like to give two bits of evidence that a lot of 80s culture as we know it was already in motion before Reagan:
1. First, Dallas and Dynasty were both conceived well before Reagan took over (Dallas had been running for a few years), which is as good of an example of consumerist culture as any that exists that came well before Ronny. While wealthy inequality wasn’t as bad then as it would be under Reagan, the gap between productivity and pay had already begun and was rising, fueling the upper class and positive depictions of them.
2. Second, a lot of the ethos of results over everything in crime rises as a result of the War on Drugs, which historians almost unanimously agree began under Nixon. The U.S. incarceration rate had begun to notably rise during the 70s, and reports of urban decay were incredibly widespread at the time. Reagan might have escalated this notion, but the causes for the belief of a tougher crackdown on crime are going to exist regardless of him.
As far as 1984, while I don’t know what the author has planned, you have to consider this from a macro point of view:
Since 1932, the GOP has won four presidential elections. All four of those wins have come off of relatively moderate Republicans, the latter of whom needed to commit treason in order to win. Overall, the New Deal consensus is still chugging along. The hard right has now ran a chosen candidate twice and gotten punked in 1964, and while 1980 was closer, they ultimately came away with nothing despite having a better quality candidate and running against a creaky economy. The hard right is still going to be around, but they have proven to be losers and are now without their most effective communicator.
Logically, the GOP’s best bet is to run a moderate who’s going to be able to somewhat kowtow to the right while still mostly coming from the moderate camp, like Nixon or Ford. I think the real question for historical ramifications here is if they settle on someone whose relative moderation is genuine, like Charles Percy, Richard Lugar, or Arlen Specter, or if they choose a chameleon like Connaly, Bush, or Bob Dole.
1. First, Dallas and Dynasty were both conceived well before Reagan took over (Dallas had been running for a few years), which is as good of an example of consumerist culture as any that exists that came well before Ronny. While wealthy inequality wasn’t as bad then as it would be under Reagan, the gap between productivity and pay had already begun and was rising, fueling the upper class and positive depictions of them.
2. Second, a lot of the ethos of results over everything in crime rises as a result of the War on Drugs, which historians almost unanimously agree began under Nixon. The U.S. incarceration rate had begun to notably rise during the 70s, and reports of urban decay were incredibly widespread at the time. Reagan might have escalated this notion, but the causes for the belief of a tougher crackdown on crime are going to exist regardless of him.
As far as 1984, while I don’t know what the author has planned, you have to consider this from a macro point of view:
Since 1932, the GOP has won four presidential elections. All four of those wins have come off of relatively moderate Republicans, the latter of whom needed to commit treason in order to win. Overall, the New Deal consensus is still chugging along. The hard right has now ran a chosen candidate twice and gotten punked in 1964, and while 1980 was closer, they ultimately came away with nothing despite having a better quality candidate and running against a creaky economy. The hard right is still going to be around, but they have proven to be losers and are now without their most effective communicator.
Logically, the GOP’s best bet is to run a moderate who’s going to be able to somewhat kowtow to the right while still mostly coming from the moderate camp, like Nixon or Ford. I think the real question for historical ramifications here is if they settle on someone whose relative moderation is genuine, like Charles Percy, Richard Lugar, or Arlen Specter, or if they choose a chameleon like Connaly, Bush, or Bob Dole.
