Reagan and Carter, and the real That '70s Show.

The best nutshell description of Rick Perlstein’s REAGANLAND: America’s Right Turn 1976-1980 is “this is the real That '70s Show.” This is the fourth volume of his exhaustive history of the rise to political dominance of modern conservatism in America and its takeover of the Republican Party. His previous books were BEFORE THE STORM, NIXONLAND, and THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE, which recounted the years between 1964 and the summer of 1976, going from Goldwater to Nixon to the nomination battle for the soul of the party between Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. The final book ended at the Kansas City convention in August of ’76 with Ford narrowly triumphing over Reagan on the first ballot, seemingly consigning the former movie star and California Governor to the history books as a has-been who came close and fell just short, and at the age of 65, too old to ever again be a serious contender for the nation’s highest office. At least that is what most of the pundits thought at the time, but Perlstein’s book proves just how wrong they were, and how even the most perceptive of political journalists, not to mention the politicians, had little notion of what was happening in America at the time.

My copy of REAGANLAND comes in at well over a thousand pages, which is good news for those of us, like me, who really enjoy a history book that takes the deep dive into its subject. Perlstein brings back to life the second half of the 1970s in America, a time most who lived through it were glad to move on from and put in the rear view mirror, but his book more than makes the case that what happened during that time laid the foundation for much that followed. That “Make America Great Again” and “A Contract with America” were first heard in the 1980 Presidential campaign is one of the many things I learned in this book. And when I say it’s a deep dive, be prepared to revisit Inflation, Stagflation, the Iranian Revolution and the rise of the Ayatollah, Three Mile Island, the Panama Canal Treaty, the battle to ratify the ERA, the Moral Majority, Billygate, Lancegate, the Camp David Accords, gas lines, the killer rabbit, Proposition 13, Kemp Roth, NCPAC, the “Malaise” speech, Supply-Side economics, “the Miracle at Lake Placid,” Gay rights, Love Canal, the B-1 bomber, the Russian brigade in Cuba, the hostage crisis, Afghanistan, and host of other issues and events that defined the times. There is an incredible cast of characters ranging from idealists, opportunists, incompetents, and zealots, who made their mark. It’s a list that includes Hamilton Jordan, Bert Lance, Phyllis Schafly, Paul Weyrich, Harvey Milk, Dan White, Milton Friedman, Arthur Laffer, Paul Volker, Orrin Hatch, William Safire, Howard Jarvis, Terry Dolan, Billy Carter, George H. W. Bush, John Sears, John Anderson, Richard Viguerie, Anita Bryant, Jerry Falwell, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Ted Kennedy, John Connally, and Jude Wanniski. There’s a trio of serial killers: the Son of Sam, John Wayne Gacy, and Ted Bundy. A trio of Republican operatives who make names for themselves in the years ahead show up: Newt Gingrich, Roger Stone, and Lee Atwater—and a passing mention of Paul Manafort. Two men who would occupy the Oval Office far in the future, Donald Trump and Joseph Biden, make cameo appearances. But the book is dominated by the two main characters, one who held the Presidency, and the other, who very much wanted to take it from him: Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

REAGANAND follows two narrative paths dominated by both men, as one confronts a series of challenges from the White House while trying to hold an ever more fractious Democratic Party together, while the other maneuvers among rivals in the Republican Party and tries to convince a skeptical public that he is up to the job. The majority of the space is given over to Carter, after all, he was the President, and I must say that Perlstein writes one of the most damning accounts of the Carter Presidency I have ever read by an objective observer. He makes a good case that the problem was Carter himself, an honest and well meaning man, but one who’s apparent high intelligence blinded him to the obvious. A devout Christian who possessed a moralistic streak that often led him to look down on what he considered the grubby and demeaning aspects of politics, and those who practiced it, which included a great many of his fellow Democrats. The Carter in Perlstein’s book totally lacks the ability to see things from the point of view of others, an essential aspect of a good leader. He was a micro-manager who expected admiration for how rigorously he used his intelligence to arrive at a decision after looking at all sides first, but the American people had little patience for this public dithering, and he quickly developed a reputation as wishy-washy and indecisive. He got off to a bad start in the awkward and undignified 1976 Presidential campaign, marred by Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz’s racist dirty joke, an epic microphone failure during a debate with Gerald Ford, and Carter’s own unforced error by giving a Playboy interview where he revealed a little too much. The more Americans saw of Jimmy Carter, the less they liked him, and though he won the Presidency by promising to restore honesty and decency to the White House after Watergate, those virtues began to matter less when inflation began driving prices up at the grocery store and gas station, factory assembly lines started shutting down, and foreign enemies openly flouted their contempt for a post-Vietnam America abroad. Carter had the bad luck to encounter an inflationary spiral he was not responsible for, and be handed the ticking time bomb that was the Shah’s Iran, but it was his responsibility to deal with those challenges, and lecturing Americans about “austerity,” “limits,” and “sacrifice” didn’t cut it. In retrospect, Carter’s policies were remarkably pragmatic, his energy program would have made the country self sufficient and off mid east oil before the end of the century. But he lacked the political skills to sell his vision, and didn’t try to hone them so that he could. As a result, he lost the Democratic establishment, which was still enamored with big government New Deal solutions, and was challenged for re-election by the remaining Kennedy brother who promised to make full employment a priority instead of reigning in inflation.

While the Carter White House stumbled from crisis to crisis, the opposition was getting its act together. Phyllis Schlafly led a counter revolution against the feminist movement that stopped the Equal Rights Amendment in its tracks. The increasingly emboldened crusade by homosexuals for equal rights helped prompt fundamentalist Christians to abandon a hundred years of political non-involvement and organize against gay rights initiatives and ordinances anywhere and everywhere they appeared and legalized abortion, not to mention pushing back hard against what they saw as government intrusion on the way they ran their private Christian schools. Thus the Moral Majority was born, and in Jerry Falwell, they had a determined and charismatic leader. The heads of American corporations decided they’d had enough of paying union wages to their workers, taxes to the federal government, and having to comply with regulations that protected the environment and worker safety, and began putting big money behind Republican candidates who vowed to rid them of all three concerns. The Political Action Committee (PAC) became their weapon of choice, and money was soon in the hands of Republican operatives who knew how to put it to good use. A group of conservative economists began preaching the miracle of lower tax rates, and the wonders they would bring. The National Rifle Association, formerly an association of sportsmen, was taken over by a group determined to fight gun control anywhere it raised its head. Hard line Cold Warriors, on the defensive after the defeat in Vietnam and the rise of détente with the Soviet Union, vigorously returned to the public square arguing that America was falling behind and that Communism was on a roll. All these different factions began to walk in lock step; they had money behind them, and an enthusiasm and determination that won them many converts. The status quo, symbolized by Carter and the Democrats who controlled both houses of Congress, were no match for these challengers. The country was changing though few in the media really took notice as working class home owners now came to resent the high taxes they were paying while their standard of living declined. John Wayne passed away and the fictional Texas oilman, J.R. Ewing, from the primetime soap opera Dallas, became a cultural icon. More and more, it was less about the little man and more about the big dogs.

The genial Reagan of Perlstein’s book is less the fabulist of THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE, and more the optimistic reactionary he appeared to be at the time. After he shakes off attempts by his campaign managers to make him appear more moderate, and begins listening to those who said “let Reagan be Reagan.” He becomes the one leader all those far flung groups of conservatives and their various agendas could come together behind. Reagan was comfortable in front of audiences, and he knew how to make a point in plain language, and he didn’t come off like an old man. He disdained Communism, big government, and the high taxes that funded it, and said there was nothing wrong with America that a change of leadership couldn’t fix. He brimmed with good humor and optimism, things Carter sorely lacked, and when he faced the President on a debate stage one week before the country voted in 1980, he mopped the floor with his over confident opponent, who arrogantly thought that the former California governor and ex-movie star, who knew how to present himself well in front of a camera, would be no match his vaunted intelligence.

What I especially liked about REAGANLAND was the forgotten history it revealed, and truths obscured by the passage of time. There were once many pro-life Democrats, and pro-immigration Republicans, Reagan among them. How fundamentalist Christians and cultural conservatives were animated by a hatred of what they saw as tolerance for sexual degeneracy from the beginning; there’s a quote by an Idaho Republican voter from late in the ‘80 campaign that is chilling. How American politics, never as civil as we’d like remember it as being in the past, nevertheless descended to a new level of organized nastiness from which it never again rose above after NCPAC successfully took down a slew of veteran Democratic Senate incumbents in the ‘80s election. How the liberal establishment was simply caught flat footed by the desertion of White working class voters to the Reagan banner; an anecdote of a reporter for a Socialist magazines’ visit to some bars in Macomb County, Michigan, during the Republican convention in Detroit, is most revealing. That Jimmy Carter was taken to task for being “mean” to Reagan on the stump during their campaign. It is absolutely quaint to read what the President said back then when compared what is routinely said in political discourse today. How if Carter’s campaign had just done some decent opposition research against Reagan, something that is Politics 101, they might have fared much better. It’s worth remembering that Reagan’s campaign got off to a rocky start, both in the primaries and the general election before finding its footing.

I’ve come to believe that when America went to vote on Election Day 1980, that they were voting against a status quo which stretched back to the assassination of JFK, seventeen Novembers in the past. In the years since there had been Vietnam, racial and generational strife, Watergate, an energy crisis, the social dislocation of the Women’s and Gay rights movements, and a line of leaders that seemingly couldn’t meet the challenges of their time, and restore stability and prosperity. The Iranian Hostage Crisis and inflation were just the straws that broke the patience of a country that felt like it had put up with a lot. Because of this, the voters handed Reagan to most consequential Presidential victory since FDR vanquished the Depression era Herbert Hoover, whom the defeated Carter would compared to for many years to come. On Inauguration Day in 1981, Ronald Reagan took the oath of office as President before a crowd of ecstatic conservatives as dreams and hopes nurtured since Barry Goldwater’s failed ’64 Presidential campaign now seemed within reach. They were filled with determination, and looked to the future with confidence. That day is quite a contrast when compared with another group of conservative Republicans who descended on the Capital on another January day in 2021. What happened in the intervening years is another story as important as the one told in the preceding sixteen, and I hope a writer as good as Rick Perlstein tackles that story, and produces a book as insightful as REAGANLAND.

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