this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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Asklemmy
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I would argue Nixon really started that path with his Southern Strategy. Reagan, Bush 2, and Trump were all consequences of Nixon
Watergate overshadows how Nixon's Vietnam War inflation started the death of the American middle class. In 1968, a High School graduate with a union job could expect to buy a house and a car with one salary. By 1976, two incomes was the norm for lower income families, and it was enshrined by the time Reagan/Bush Sr. were done.
Agreed, but Reagan popularized the ideas that it is elitist to expect a president to be competent, that complex legislative topics should make sense at the dinner table, and that government is the enemy of freedom. Both Nixon and Reagan were willing to trade in bigotry for political gain, and both were the sort of cynical "me-first" conservatives that taught boomers to mortgage the future. But Reagan had the charisma that Nixon lacked.