It's About Coalitions Not Purity, Part Twelve

The "Reagan Coalition and the Rise of the American Political Right," Part Four

With the Republican nomination locked up early on, Reagan had to turn his attention to winning over millions of Americans who thought him to be too conservative; after all, not only had he supported staunch conservative Barry Goldwater in 1964, Reagan made television commercials for Goldwater, thus placing himself squarely in Goldwater's corner, a corner that ended up receiving only 38.5% of the vote. John Anderson, a moderate Republican congressman running for president as an independent, tried to capitalize on Reagan's conservative image and attract votes from the still potent moderate wing of the Republican Party, from truly independent voters and from disaffected Democrats. President Carter led most opinion polls for quite a long time, but his lead was soft, as people were not really sold on him for a second term, but Reagan troubled many voters and Anderson faced the skepticism of many independent or third party candidates for president; the strongly held feeling that he could not win and that a vote for him would be wasted.

Democrats and Anderson were quick to remind voters of Reagan's support for Goldwater, but some attitudes since the 1964 election had changed. The role of government in the lives of Americans had come much more into question since Johnson's day, as conservative economists and social policy critics, joined by even moderate Republicans, attacked the policies of former President Lyndon Johnson with quips like, "Johnson declared a war on poverty and poverty won," * and "Government isn't the solution to the problem, government IS the problem." Presenting good slogans in Americans politics almost always works better than presenting good policies. Further, the divisive issue of abortion turned many an eye of southern evangelical Democrats to the Republican side of the ballot, as Reagan was anti-abortion. The American hostages continued to be held in Iran** and the economy, crippled by high gas and oil prices and rising inflation, was shaky, at best. Carter faced the task of trying to hold traditional Democratic voters who saw him as too conservative, and well known actor and staunch Democrat Henry Fonda took to television to plead with Democrats to remain in the fold and vote for Carter.

Just days before the election a televised debate was held between Carter and Reagan in Cleveland. Polls showed the race to be close, but with an edge to Carter. Carter had never, in my opinion, been a terribly inspiring presence or speaker, and while Reagan had taken many a hit for his acting talents (more would come later),*** his presence and demeanor on the public stage made him appear more than adequate to lead the country. With many voters now assured of Reagan's ability to lead, within hours of the debate, polls showed a decisive shift to Reagan, something communicated to Carter by his own pollster. On election night, the returns quickly and decisively gave Reagan a big win, as Carter only carried six states and the District of Columbia, with 49 electoral votes, while receiving only 41% of the vote. Reagan won an electoral landslide of 489 electoral votes, but he received a bare majority in the popular vote of slightly less than 51%. Anderson won no electoral votes and received more than 6% of the popular vote. Democrats were stunned as they lost control of the U.S. Senate for the first time since the mid 1950s, although the collective Democratic popular vote for senators still remained heavily Democratic. Republicans picked up 34 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, but remained in the minority, although conservative Democrats would prove to give Reagan a working majority at times.

American conservatism gradually took control of much of the political agenda, as it became the dominant philosophy.

Next, conservatism and the political right in governing the nation...

* The vast expansion of post World War Two suburbs gradually left mother cities with poorer residents, something that has generally continued to this day. The migration of poor southern black Americans seeking job opportunities in northern, often industrial, cites intensified the move of middle class whites to the suburbs, in what came to be called "white flight," a trend that has subsided to some degree. The decline of manufacturing jobs further limited opportunities for average and poor families. With poorer residents and shrinking revenues, cities struggled to maintain services, which only made more people move to suburbs, including, after a time, many middle class blacks. In the mid 1960s, poverty was strong in many southern states and in northern cities, although the general prosperity of the era had reduced the poverty rate. President Johnson implemented programs to help lift people out of poverty by providing training for jobs, education, and food and financial assistance to those in need. Some programs, like Head Start, are still fairly popular, although such programs have never been popular with the political right, which has essentially dismissed such programs as wasteful and unsuccessful. They have touted economic growth as the answer. The programs and the arguments over these programs would require a whole series of articles to even approach adequately explaining and covering them, but in my own opinion, some programs worked better than others (the poverty rate did decline, but it dropped only so far and basically stagnated), and some programs needed refinement (cash payments to individuals and families, for instance) or rejuvenation. Conservatives have some point about making people dependent on government programs, but their basic opposition has never allowed them to admit that any of these programs have worked to any degree. On the other hand, since Reagan's election, Republican administrations have generally cut or dismantled many of the programs hated by the right, and condemned as "wasteful," only to run huge budget deficits, partially incurred in tax cuts for very wealthy individuals, families, and businesses, a sort of "welfare for the rich." Poverty has increased, with the wealthiest 400 American families now controlling as much of the nation's wealth as the bottom 50% of the population! and the transfer of wealth from low and middle income Americans to the wealthy continues. I have yet to hear the right wingers call any of this "wasteful" or "failed," even with regard to the deregulation and lax regulation of the banking system, a major part of their initiatives, which helped bring about a near depression in 2008. No, they refuse to admit to anything; in fact, blaming Barack Obama for anything and everything, as if the whole situation started on January 20, 2009, the day Obama took the oath. (Note: Part of the conservative philosophy has been to push for deregulation of businesses, but some Democrats have been complicit; that is, they have helped them, so they are not totally innocent.) 

** An attempted secret rescue mission by American military forces in the spring of 1980 had failed.

*** For those unaware, Ronald Reagan had been a Hollywood and television actor for much of his life. Reagan also spent two distinct periods as president of the union for actors/actresses, the Screen Actors Guild. He was also a former Democrat, supporter of the New Deal and Franklin Roosevelt, whom he occasionally quoted.

WORD HISTORY:
Race-This is the noun (and later verb) involving a contest or the fast movement of something, including water. The ultimate origins of this word are unknown, but it goes back to Old Germanic "raeso," which had the idea of "intense movement, anger." This gave Old English "raesan," which meant "to rush, to run quickly, to attack," which either died out over time or was reinforced by Old Norse (Old English also has a noun form "raes"). Old Norse brought the close relative of then English "raes" to northern England as "ras," where it became part of the regional lingo in the late 1200s or so, with the meaning "run quickly, raging water flow." It may have simply combined with the existing, but weakening, English form, which then took a couple of hundred years to really spread throughout English as "race," and the verb was derived from the noun in the mid 1600s. German still has "rasen," which means "to race along, to speed along," but also, "to rage," Dutch has "razen" (rage, storm, bluster), Danish and Norwegian have "rase" (rage), Swedish has "rasa" (fall, romp) and "ras" (landslide). Forms of the word "apparently" died out in Low German, but it once had "rasen" (rage, extreme anger). I could not find words in either Frisian or Icelandic, but that doesn't mean they don't have them, as subtlety in meaning can make it difficult to find them, and they undoubtedly at least had forms at one time, just as the other Germanic languages.