Former actor and California governor Ronald Reagan deliberately assumed the mantle of the cowboy. Running for the presidency in 1980, he wore boots and a white Stetson, and warned that only the actions of a few good men were holding back a redistribution of wealth. He championed the idea that America was a land of equal opportunity at the same time that he promoted the myth of the welfare queen, a grasping black woman who sucked tax dollars from hardworking Americans. Once in office, Reagan began to shape policy according to the Movement Conservative view, a process that would gradually
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