Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America

by Nancy MacLean

“A true economic policy revolution” of the size Reagan and the right had requested, David Stockman explained in the wake of its rout, “meant risky and mortal political combat with all the mass constituencies” who looked to Washington for help. They would have to fight “Social Security recipients, veterans, farmers, educators, state and local officials, [and] the housing industry,” with its mass market of middle-class buyers who relied on their mortgage tax deductions. The president could rail all he wanted about “welfare queens” and government “waste,” but Social Security, veterans’ benefits, and Medicare “accounted for over half the domestic budget”—and were dear to his followers. “Minimalist government” would “dislocate and traumatize” not a minority but the vast majority of Americans, in a “ruthless”—indeed, “bone-jarring”—way before delivering any of its promised benefits. And that was the summary not of a critic but of the policy’s primary salesman.26