Former attorney general Edwin Meese III offers unequaled insight on the career and policies of his friend and former boss, Ronald Reagan. From Reagan's days as governor of California to his two terms in the White House, Meese was his highest-ranking political confidant—the official closest to Reagan not only through length of service but also through mutual comprehension of the problems that concerned the nation. Meese tells the Reagan story as it happened, refuting many common misconceptions about America's fortieth chief executive and providing new revelations about the Iran-Contra affair, the so-called Boland amendments, and more.
This wake-up call implores all citizens to fight for the conservative principles and values that made America great but that most political leaders--including Republicans--are abandoning.
Former attorney general Edwin Meese III offers unequaled insight on the career and policies of his friend and former boss, Ronald Reagan. From Reagan's days as governor of California to his two terms in the White House, Meese was his highest-ranking political confidant—the official closest to Reagan not only through length of service but also through mutual comprehension of the problems that concerned the nation. Meese tells the Reagan story as it happened, refuting many common misconceptions about America's fortieth chief executive and providing new revelations about the Iran-Contra affair, the so-called Boland amendments, and more.
On November 4, 1980, American voters gave Ronald Reagan a 41-state Electoral College landslide. The man this mandate carried into the White House was largely compounded of mythology. Like most compelling mythologies, Reagan's was a synthesis of celebrity as well as emotional, intellectual, and cultural streams. Throughout his eight years in the oval office, the "Great Communicator" was largely successful in shaping the soul of America to reflect his durable mantra that "government is the problem." That same American soul later embraced Donald Trump--a president who, the authors argue, would have appalled Reagan. Reagan's myth persists, and by understanding his time in office in the context of American history and of the American presidency, we can understand how a transformative president created more than policy by also shaping culture with the instrumental force of mythology. This book attempts to neither praise nor bury Reagan but to explain him in non-partisan terms of contemporary popular mythology. The authors examine his legacy in his war on "big government," which still drives politics, economic policy, and culture, even in Trump's era. They make the case that understanding the mythology at work is a necessary step toward healing American politics and saving American democracy.
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