"}Reagan\u2019s\n victory was supposed to mark a turning point for Republicans, toward a \nconservatism that was \u201coptimistic and popular,\u201d Hemmer writes. Sure \nenough, Republicans still like to invoke Reagan\u2019s name. But Hemmer shows\n that Reaganism as an ideology and an attitude collapsed almost as soon \nas he left office; his name became a mantra without actual meaning. What\n happened, and why did it happen so quickly?
When\n Reagan first ascended to the White House in 1981, what made his \napproach distinct wasn\u2019t his conservatism, with its hodgepodge of \nsmall-government libertarianism (less money for education) and \nbig-government anti-communism (more money for the military). Hemmer \nlocates Reaganism\u2019s core in his particular style: flexible, pragmatic, \nrelentlessly cheerful.
Reagan hated to\n be associated with any policy that was unpopular, retroactively trying \nto pin the blame for slashing the funding for school lunches on a \nbureaucracy that was out to get him (\u201cnone of this was true,\u201d Hemmer \nwrites). He was open to immigration reforms and liked free trade. His \nfaith in the revenue-generating magic of tax cuts was a reflection of \nhis sunny outlook \u2014 tides would rise, boats would lift (only they \ndidn\u2019t, and after cutting taxes inflated a ballooning deficit, he raised\n them again).
While some Republicans \nfound the Reagan presidency winning, others found it infuriating. Hemmer\n reminds us that despite the mythology that has flourished since, Reagan\n got castigated by plenty of conservatives. In 1984, Representative Newt\n Gingrich of Georgia railed against the president for being too focused \non \u201cgoverning\u201d and too enamored of unity, when he should have been \n\u201cforcing a polarization of the country.\u201d A decade later, as the House \nminority whip, Gingrich would engineer a landslide victory for \nRepublicans that would elevate him to speaker of the House.
Morning in America to Kill America to save it