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Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy
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Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy Paperback - 2010

by Will Bunch

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In this provocative book, an award-winning political journalist unravels the story of how a right-wing cabal hijacked the mixed legacy of Ronald Reagan, a popular but hugely divisive 1980s president, and turned him into a bronze icon to revive their fading ideology.

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From the publisher

In this provocative new book, award-winning political journalist Will Bunch unravels the story of how a right-wing cabal hijacked the mixed legacy of Ronald Reagan, a personally popular but hugely divisive 1980s president, and turned him into a bronze icon to revive their fading ideology. They succeeded to the point where all the GOP candidates for president in 2008 scurried to claim his mantle, no matter how preposterous the fit.

With clear eyes and an ever-present wit, Bunch reveals the truth about the Ronald Reagan legacy, including the following:

  • Despite the idolatry of the last fifteen years, Reagan's average popularity as president was only, well, average, lower than that of a half-dozen modern presidents. More important, while he was in office, a majority of Americans opposed most of his policies and by 1988 felt strongly that the nation was on the wrong track. Reagan's 1981 tax cut, weighted heavily toward the rich, did not cause the economic recovery of the 1980s. It was fueled instead by dropping oil prices, the normal business cycle, and the tight fiscal policies of the chairman of the Federal Reserve appointed by Jimmy Carter. Reagan's tax cut did, however, help usher in the deregulated modern era of CEO and Wall Street greed.

  • Most historians agree that Reagan's waste-ridden military buildup didn't actually "win the Cold War." And Reagan mythmakers ignore his real contributions -- his willingness to talk to his Soviet adversaries, his genuine desire to eliminate nuclear weapons, and the surprising role of a "liberal" Hollywood-produced TV movie.

  • George H. W. Bush's and Bill Clinton's rolling back of Reaganomics during the 1990s spurred a decade of peace and prosperity as well as the reactionary campaign to pump up the myth of Ronald Reagan and restore right-wing hegemony over Washington. This effort has led to war, bankrupt energy policies, and coming generations of debt.

    • With masterful insight, Bunch exposes this dangerous effort to reshape America's future by rewriting its past. As the Obama administration charts its course, he argues, it should do so unencumbered by the dead weight of misplaced and unearned reverence.

    Details

    • Title Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy
    • Author Will Bunch
    • Binding Paperback
    • Edition 1 Reprint
    • Pages 304
    • Volumes 1
    • Language ENG
    • Publisher Free Press, Old Tappan, New Jersey, U.S.A.
    • Publication date 2010-02-02
    • Features Bibliography, Index
    • ISBN 9781416597636 / 1416597638
    • Weight 0.56 lbs (0.25 kg)
    • Dimensions 8.36 x 5.6 x 0.73 in (21.23 x 14.22 x 1.85 cm)
    • Category Politics / Current Events
    • Library of Congress subjects United States - Politics and government -, United States - Politics and government -
    • Library of Congress Catalogue Number 2010549394
    • Dewey Decimal Code 973.927

    About the author

    Will Bunch, currently a senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily News and the author of a popular political blog called "Attytood," which has a progressive bent and a national readership, has been covering presidential races since Reagan's re-election in 1984. He has won numerous journalism awards, sharing the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for spot news reporting with the New York Newsday staff. He is author of one previous book, and his writings have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, American Prospect, Mother Jones and elsewhere.
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