It makes more sense to explain Reagan-era conservatism not as a coherent political philosophy, but more pragmatically as a successful effort to dismember the New Deal coalition by deploying the antigovernment message to attract three otherwise disparate constituencies to the Republican banner: first, southern whites opposed to the civil rights legislation that dismantled Jim Crow policies in the states of the former Confederacy; second, evangelical Christians disenchanted by the Roe v. Wade (1972) decision that legalized abortion rights for women; third, corporate executives opposed to the
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