But also starting in the 1990s, the farthest-right half of our right half, roughly a quarter of Americans, couldn’t and wouldn’t adjust their beliefs to comport with their side’s victories and the dramatically new and improved realities. They’d made a god out of Reagan, but they ignored or didn’t register that he was practical and reasonable, that he didn’t completely buy his own antigovernment bullshit. After Reagan, his hopped-up true-believer faction began insisting on total victory. In a democracy, total victory by any faction is a fantasy, of course.
