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But was this new hope

about to be misplaced?

Reagan’s domestic policy involved

cutting welfare projects, limiting
state spending (except on arms)
and privatising. He de-regulated
Ronald
Wall St and allowed bankers and
Reagan speculators to operate with far less
supervision from the State.
Reagan was
the right
He claimed that “Government
man in can’t solve America’s problems,
the right Government is the problem’
Place at the A certain wealthy percentage of
right time. the population received generous
America had tax breaks, but these reforms led to
suffered the growth of a vast American
economic
slump in the
underclass and the biggest wealth
1970s and gap since the depression.
defeat in The policies are known as
Vietnam, REAGANOMICS or NEO-
now a
‘crusade’ for LIBERALISM. 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.