End of the Reagan Narrative?

November 2, 2011

 

Exclusive: Election 2012 may turn on whether Ronald Reagan’s narrative of evil government and beneficent tax cuts for the rich has finally run its course – and has been replaced by a new narrative demanding government intervention to save the American middle-class, writes Robert Parry.


By Robert Parry

As yet another statue of Ronald Reagan is unveiled – a $1 million one at Washington’s National Airport which was renamed in his honor in the mid-1990s – the key question about the 40^th president is whether his long and destructive era is finally coming to an end.

More than any other political figure, it was Ronald Reagan who put America on its present course toward stunning income inequality and into a brave new world of deregulated industries, which were then able to exploit lax government controls to devastate the economy.