America Since 1980: A Right Turn Leading to a Dead End

By Dean Baker, AlterNet
Posted on April 27, 2007, Printed on April 27, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/51086/

Editor's note: this is adapted from Dean Baker's new book, The United States since 1980 (The World Since 1980).

U.S. politics took a sharp turn to the right in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan as president. Domestically, Reagan touted an agenda that would lead to a sharp upward redistribution of income. Internationally, Reagan explicitly rejected the "détente" framework for engaging the Soviet Union that had been accepted by the leadership of both major parties since the beginning of the Cold War. In its place, Reagan put forward a doctrine of U.S. unilateralism in which the United States basically claimed the right to do whatever it wanted, unconstrained by allies or international institutions.