“Political correctness” was a name for the cultural effect of the basic enforcement powers of civil rights law. Those powers were surprisingly extensive, unexpectedly versatile, able to get beneath the integument of institutions that conservatives felt they had to defer to. Reagan had won conservatives over to the idea that “business” was the innocent opposite of overweening “government.” So what were conservatives supposed to do now that businesses were the hammer of civil rights enforcement, in the forefront of advancing both affirmative action and political correctness?
